Los Portales - Mexican night!

On Friday night, prior to heading for a movie on the deck of the Battleship North Carolina (which is a fantastic event by the way) we had a hunkering to find some authentic Mexican food. I heard we should try Los Portales for 'real' Mexican food. Los Portales is located at 1207 South Kerr Avenue #B. It is just a hop and jump away from the UNCW campus.

Walking in, we knew we hit a local hot spot. The place is smallish but nice. In true Mexico form, music videos were playing on a television. It adds to the atmosphere. When we walked in, we noticed the menu is above the counter. So we figured out you had to order right there. The only issue is the entire menu is in Spanish. Good thing I can hold my own. ;)

We ordered two fish tacos and a chorizo taco to start. Wow...they were delicious. The tacos are much like you get in Mexico; small, fresh corn with only the meat on a soft shell. We had to go to the condiment bar to add a selection of fresh vegetables and salsas. The salsas were out of this world yummy. Of course since the tacos were tiny (only $1.75 each) we ordered a chicken burrito too. It was huge. It alone would have fed us both. We washed it down with a bottle of Jarritos. Jarritos is a mandarin orange soda that is just soothing on the taste buds. For three tacos, a drink, and a huge burrito our total bill was around $16.00.

You know this place is authentic when two vacationers came in, looked around, seemed confused, and walked out. I guess they thought it would be a more casual dining place. Here, you order at the counter, they yell, you pick up, you bus your own tables. For non-Spanish speakers, the staff speaks enough English to help out. 

For desert, we headed down to La Imperial. This is a Mexican bakery we heard about in the local paper. La Imperial is located at 4330 Market Street (in a shopping center at the corner of Kerr and Market). Walking in you are surrounded with the scent of flour and sweets. This experience too is a little out of our norm. You pick up a tray, some wax paper, and a pair of tongs. From there you search through tiers of trays filled with all sorts of sweets. There  are no names or prices, just sweets galore. We got  a strawberry jam thingy that looked like a baseball covered in coconut shavings and a pineapple sweet bread coverd in coconut shavings (notice my technical terms). Both were lovely. The sweet bread is not overpowering and not too sweet. A very nice taste. It would have been awesome with a cup of coffee! For two huge sweets we spent only $1.75. We packed the sweets and ate them while we watched Father Goose (an old Cary Grant movie) on the decks of the ship while overlooking the Cape Fear!