Cocina Marin

We went out to eat with our friends Amanda and Paul last night. The restaurant was called Cocina Marin. Amanda had been there before, but it had been with some coworkers so her directions to Paul were pretty funny: "Get on 16th, keep going until you see the tree shaped like a bear... no really it's a bear, well carved like a bear. Ok, turn on the next street after we pass the tree shaped like a bear and it should be on that one."

After getting there without any problems (the bear shaped tree was easy to spot), we were greeted by a young girl who asked us "booth or table," but no-one heard her so she just stood staring at us until we caught on to the fact that she was asking us a question. Sadly we had a similar experience with the waiter. After a lot of questions regarding what kind of tortillas we were really trying to order with our salsa, we finally had a chance to look around the place a bit. The restaurant walls were a garish yellow and orange, the fountain mural amateurish and all the decorations seemed to be leftover from some sort of fiesta. All in all, it looked like a pretty typical family owned Mexican restaurant. Andrew and Paul both seemed to think the booth was a bit small, but for Amanda and I it was just right... maybe we needed their Little Amigos Menu.

The chips and salsa were decent, but what made this part of the meal different was the home-made queso. Yum! Andrew ordered the flauta dinner on Amanda's recommendation and I got the tamales. Andrew's dinner came with two long chicken flautas, rice, re-fried beans, sour cream and guacamole. The flautas were full of shredded chicken and deep-fried, but not very greasy. This made them just the right consistency, crunchy! My tamales were smaller than I had expected which was good because the dinner came with three of them. They were smothered in a chili sauce and cheese and came with re-fried beans and rice. Both meals were good. As we started to finish our meals the waiter approached our table and asked us if we would like sopapillas. Paul thought he said more tortillas and told the waiter no. When Paul realized his mistake he quickly told the waiter that we really did want sopapillas.

We got our checks. The sopapillas were free and total came just shy of 20 dollars. Not bad for two people. Paul and Amanda almost got their meal for $1.99, but they were honest and told the cashier that she had made a mistake. I think we might go there again. Overall I'd give the restaurant a 3.5, the company a perfect 5.0!