Cheap Eats: Step into Guadalajara at La Cocina
When you live in a small town like Penn Yan after living in a larger city like Rochester, you become fiercely attached to any new restaurant that makes a good impression and keeps it.
Just ask my friend Paulina, a former Rochesterian (by way of South America) who has called Penn Yan home for several years. At first sad to leave the diversity of city living, she now is a supporter of anything that makes the Keuka Lake municipality a sweet place to live, and gives her out-of-town friends a good reason to visit.
On her list of Penn Yan must-tries is La Cocina Mexican Grill, a restaurant that is also on my list of "worth the drive" Finger Lakes dining destinations. Don Zelazny (another former Rochesterian) and his wife, Mary Ann, opened it in 2009 because they too wanted Penn Yan to offer locals and tourists more options than just pizza, diner food, pub grub and Chinese takeout (not that there is anything wrong with any of those).
Why Mexican? Mary Ann Zelazny spent part of her childhood in Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico, while her father worked at the Kodak facility there. The cuisine and aesthetics were comfortable and familiar to her, and by proxy, to Don.
Situated in a two-story yellow building with an awning-shaded deck on a side street in downtown, La Cocina has likewise made itself very comfortable and familiar, even more so since Zelazny added margaritas and other mixed drinks to the lineup this year.
The decor is charming. Native pottery and tapestry in the entrance foyer opens onto a dining room with bright walls and tables dressed in oil clothes as bright and pretty as sun dresses. When I visited Guadalajara many years ago, I remember dark interiors that gave people a much-needed respite from the sun, painted in cool yet bright colors, just like this one.
The weekday lunch menu, served until 4 p.m., is where the bargains lie, with nothing cresting $9, though the dinner entrées are also served throughout the day. You can go as simple as a sandwich of refried beans and cheese on a toasted roll or as substantial as tacos with smoked pork asada with rice and beans ($8.75), which Paulina and I shared along with a bowl of pozole ($4.75). The strong, fortifying stew of hominy and pulled pork in a glistening broth is said to help hangovers as well as the common cold. I suffered neither, yet felt my immune system recharged.
The smoky pork tacos in warm, unfried corn tortillas were also nourishing and zingy, with lots of cilantro. I saved the salsa verde for the beans and rice that were far blander yet also comforting.
Complimentary tortilla chips and chunky salsa are better in late summer, when local tomatoes are at their peak, says Paulina. (Zelazny buys local produce whenever possible). But the early fall version is not bad either.
You know how they tell you to avoid the water in Mexico? I would say the same rule applies here at La Cocina. The tap water had a pretty strange taste, like it had been sitting in the bottom of a canoe instead of the nearby lake before it came to my glass. That prompted me to ask for a tamarind soda. But several flavors of these popular Mexican sodas were out of stock, so I settled for the fruit punch soda ($2.50), brought to me in a frosty glass.
LA COCINA MEXICAN GRILL
Address: 16 Maiden Lane, Penn Yan, Yates County.
Phone: (315) 536-6512
Web: On Facebook.
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday. Lunch menu is offered 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
Accessibility: Fully wheelchair accessible.
Good to know: Full bar. Public parking lot is in front of restaurant but can be crazy-full during business hours. Taco Tuesdays offers $1.50 tacos all day.