Oaxacan Food at Expression Oaxaqueña

When your husband and in laws are Oaxacan and you’re going to a Oaxacan restaurant, you have high expectations for what you’re about to eat. You know you’re in the right place when you spot a green seven foot grasshopper outside Expresion Oaxaqueña. As you enter the restaurant you instantly notice brightly colored papel picado banners decorating the ceiling and green glazed pottery on the walls that are traditionally used to hold Mexican hot chocolate or champurado, a frothy drink made out of burnt corn and atole. Pan dulce varieties are deliberately placed by the door for you to grab on your way out.

Right as you’re seated, you’re brought a plate of chips with their finger licking good mole sauce dusted with queso fresco. It’s rich, complex, sweet, and a subtly spicy. Everything that a mole should be. Many of the ingredients are imported from Oaxaca at Expresion Oaxaqueña like their quesillo, a Oaxacan string cheese; tlayudas, a large toasted, crunchy tortilla; and tasajo, a thinly sliced meat.

As a newcomer you might be overwhelmed by the large menu but I recommend that you go out of your comfort zone and try the anything on the menu with mole, a tlayuda, or the molcajete. As for myself, I ordered the traditional Oaxacan dish, a tlayuda served with black beans layered with quesillo, cabbage, tomatoes, and avocados and topped with salsa and three types of flavorful meat: tasajo, chorizo, and cecina, a type of marinated pork. I also order an horchata served Oaxacan style which is made by soaking rice over night in water with a hint of lime peel and is finished with pitaya nieve, cantaloupe, and pecans.

With eat bite at Expresion Oaxaqueña you sense the story and tradition behind every dish. Their food feels like the type of Oaxacan food I ate in Oaxaca, comforting and home cooked, bursting with flavor. This under the radar, locals spot is a place you’ll try once and crave to come back to. Even my husband’s mom gave her stamp of approval. 

ADDRESS

3301 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90019

PRICES

Dishes range from $10-30. 

DETAILS 

Most days from 8:00am -11:00pm. 

RECOMMENDED DISHES

Tlayuda; tamal de mole; molcajete Oaxaqueña; burrito mojado; agua de horchata 

Eating My Way Around L.A.

@eatingmywayaroundla