Dos Banditos Restaurant Reviews: Cemitas Poblanas stirs the stomach acids - By Willieboy and N.L. Belardes

I'm guessing Willieboy picked the right name on this two-name restaurant.

Willieboy bandito:

Most of you dear readers have come across the “hidden gem” of a restaurant. It could be the “hole-in-the-wall” with great tacos, or the “dive-in-the-alley” with the killer pastrami sub. I myself have stumbled across superb venues like this (the Arizona Café comes to mind). Let me assure you, Cemitas Poblanas only qualifies for part of the above monikers. “Hole-in-the-wall” would be correct, the “with killer chow” would be incorrect. In a recent blog, one reader ridiculed our manhood, and stated if he wanted mainstream restaurant reviews, he’d read the Californian.


A place of rest?

So N.L. and I set out on an adventure to find a seedy, unknown dive and give it a go on behalf of our readers. Traveling east on Monterey Street on our way to La Tapatia on Baker Street and soon after passing the legendary Lie N Den, N.L. thought he saw a Mexican restaurant flash by. Deciding this could be just the place we were looking for we made our way back for another look. “Madre del Dios!” This was the Holy Grail of dives.


While Willieboy chokes on a chip, at least I got a Jarritos

From the year old unfinished sign out front to the menu poorly translated sign by the cash register. Since the menu was in Spanish I shied away from items I believed would cause a gagging effect. Don’t want to be too gung ho. I ordered enchiladas and a couple asada tacos. I figured if they could nail the ordinary--I might be back for a more adventurous meal. It took the guy behind the counter an extraordinary amount of time to write our order down and then enter it all into his Sharp ER-A55OS cash register. It was all I could do not to point out that he might utilize some of the more advanced features of this computation machine and save himself some time. But I digress.


chingpea showed up and ate. She later lost her food in a back alley

“Order Taker” brought out some chips and salsa. It was time for “Deal or No Deal”. They looked homemade but they used some sort of cooking oil that transformed them into chips made of ceramic. Dipping into the flavorless salsa didn’t help. I felt tiny pieces of my teeth chipping off with each crunch. It was the first time we didn’t finish of a basket.


You could form it all together into a lardsicle

In a short time, items from our order made their way to the table. I must say it “looked” good. Three stars for presentation. I started with the peripherals and took a bite of the beans. Brown joint compound. Refried bleah. Done--no más. Forking up a bite of rice, more of the same… almost devoid of any seasoning whatsoever. And clumpy. Onto the main course. Curiously, even though we were the only patrons in the restaurant, the food was tepid at best. The enchiladas, while not bursting with flavor, were pretty good, with lots of Cotija cheese sprinkled on top. Taking a break, I reached for an uninspired asada taco. These are your typical 99¢ mini tacos made with the two corn tortillas. Served open faced, and as with the enchiladas, almost chilled, with no sauce just a fistful of onions and some wilted cilantro for garnish. They were so dry that only a gulp of Dr. Pepper prevented me from signaling for the Heimlich. You know, not to be mean or anything, but I’ve always thought that if you even had modest skills at cooking Mexican food, you could probably open a restaurant. Most Mexican restaurants have pretty similar menus. The key is good chips and salsa and/or really good staple items. Unfortunately, Cemitas Poblanas has neither.

Chips and Salsa: *
Food: *
Service: *
Atmosphere: *

N.L. Bandito:

The best Mexican food TV dinner I ever ate consisted of flautas. I bought them at Trader Joes and heated them up on a little pan in the oven. They were crisp and I added my own homemade salsa: jalapenos and serranos fresh from the grill. The salsa was a bit chunky, warm for sure, but flavorful. Compared to my experience yesterday at Restaurant La Poblanita, that TV dinner was the best day of my life.


Carne tacos reminiscent of... heck, I don't know.



Dave “The Wolfman” Wulfekuehler, one of Buck Owens Buckaroos, performs regularly at a very nice and tasty restaurant theatre called The Crystal Palace. If you haven’t been, then you need to go, the food is delicious and the music is historic country, straight from the banks of the Kern River in Nashville West. The bread is delish and the chicken fried streak is to die for. Is it sacrilege to say that it was probably Buck’s last meal?

Although Willieboy and I can’t agree on the actual name of the restaurant: Restaurant la Poblanita or Cemitas Poblanas, what we can agree on is having been duped by The Wolfman. Take a look at the throwdown Dave laid into us after our recent buffet review:


What is this place?


I thought they only had red phones in the movies.
I was too afraid to dial the Mexican mafia with this phone.

What???!!!...am I on the tooty frooty fresh and cutey food blog? I thought I came to the nasty in your face attitude throwdown N.L. style site! Come on bandito brothers and get to some more stinky roach filled hell-hole joints! With rude waitresses and nasty lip-leftover water glasses and meat that doesn't really resemble anything known to our planet. Maybe someone could even get a mild case of food poisoning or the runs! YEAH! Leave the 3 *** and 4 **** restaurant reviews for the Californian!...Donde esta juevos vatos!!!

Great, we found a dive just for Dave. And it’s all my fault. I’ll take the heat on this one. I saw the restaurant out of the corner of my eye as we passed on Monterey Street. We circled around and pulled into the parking lot. While I was expecting home made cooking, what I really got was a meal as shifty as the folks who served us.

Anger is a good word to describe the people of the Town Girl restaurant. Yes, Poblanita means town girl, though in this case I might suggest town whore when it comes to really bad Mexican food. This restaurant was no sweet dancing girl to the stomach. Angry folks? Everyone but the server in his mechanic hat gave us the desperado stare of death. The angry girl cook with eyebrows painted in a maddening frown, her friends at one table who faced us, glaring, staring, fingering what must have been pistols beneath the table. I swear. This was near old Calvary Baptist Church, where a man who attended once tossed his partner through a nearby plate glass window.

He was cut in half.

Did I mention I had the carne asada tacos and a not-too-generous helping of lard rice and lard beans? The chips had been cooked in lard and the salsa I swear had a spoonful added to the red salsa, and to the green tomatillo salsa for that special “town whore” bland flavor.


The water ain't free in these here parts


Even the letters are running away from this building

Authentic? There was a horseshoe and Christmas ornaments over the front door. A strange red phone hung on the wall. I wondered if I could call the Health Department on the red flaming phone to shut down their lard reactor. I should have tried as no matter what I ate, all I could taste was the greasy ‘no taste’ of lard.

But let me finish describing this venue. The floors had more warp than the USS Enterprise and the snow cone maker was a terrifying addition to the counter of Jarritos sodas. Were they adding Jarritos flavors to slush ice and calling them snow cones? And where were they getting their ice? I was afraid to ask as the grinder made me think that anyone brave enough to come up through the graves beneath the floor boards would be ground into something resembling a bloody sugar skull.


With utensils this small, every meal at this dive is a feast

Now, the true name of Cemitas Poblanas means sandwich from the state of Puebla, Mexico. So let’s get away from town whore and just get real to the idea that Poblanitas probably means girl from Puebla, although she in this case is a really bad cook. If you don’t know what a torta bread sandwich is then let me tell you that a torta is a nice fluffy Mexican bread ideal for big sandwiches which can come with meats, beans, cheese and garnish. A cemitas is a bit larger of a bun for the sandwich bread and a Puebla specialty. Now I did see some breads and it seems that I completely missed out on this delicatessen one-hit wonder: thick bread sandwiches.

And I’m a bread lover. Go figure.



Recently I watched a documentary about clay bricks and how the fortresses in Persia are made from them. Such bricks get a bit soggy when it rains but have lasted thousands of years. Just add clay, dirt, straw to the mixture and bake in the sun for 25 days. Now let me tell you the secret of Puebla adobe:

Add beans and rice, some cemitas croutons, carne, lard salsa—all from Puebla of course, and bake in your stomach for 25 minutes. Puke it all up into a square form and let sit for 30 seconds. Repeat process. Now go build a pyramid to the Gods…

Did I mention this is dedicated to Dave?

Chips and Salsa: *
Food: *
Service: * (Dishes were brought out one at a time, including a strange bowl of beef that was over-salted. We didn't order the beef, and it seemed a week old)
Atmosphere: ** (because of the snow cone maker, grinder, and red phone)

Read past Dos Banditos Restaurant Review articles:

Hunter's paradise buffet at El Cazador
Authenticity at the Arizona Cafe
La Costa Earwig

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Michael "Willieboy" Willis is a grizzled 46 year old graphic artist. His studio, coincidentally called "Willis Design Studios", has been operating in Bakersfield for the last 26 years. His 15 minutes of fame came in 1997 when he co-authored a best selling book about webpage design titled "Web Pages That Suck". The rest remains a mystery. His personal page is www.willieboy.com.

N.L. Belardes is a novelist and blogger out of Bakersfield, California. He’s on myspace.com/nlbelardes and www.nlbelardes.com.

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Tuesday, November 07, 2006. You can leave your response.