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Geez Louise! We wish we liked this place more.
So we’ll give it another chance even though:
* The green chile had no tang and no heat;
* The posole was strangely hominy-challenged (and barely infused with pork), and a shade of dark red we’ve never seen in a New Mexican diner (FYI: Our screen saver on our home computer is a bowl 0f posole from Duran’s Central Pharmacy in ABQ, NM, so we at ELV knows us our posole.);
* That same pork and corn stew hardly registered on the Scoville scale;
* We thought you couldn’t mess up a sopaipilla, but this version was bready, pasty and thick (more like Navajo fry bread), which is okay, but it wasn’t in the same league as El Sombrero’s.
Pity.
Because no one gets a jones for New Mexican food like ELV.
So we asked the folks who recommended Carlito’s to us and were told they’ve been multiple times, and sometimes the food has that kick of authenticity and sometimes it doesn’t.
As with Lola’s, we suspect corner-cutting and a shaky staff are to blame.
But we could feel the love with one bite of our carne adovada — packed with flavor (and some serious heat), and an indication that someone here is familiar with the real enchilada.
So we shall return, the next time we get off a plane after three days of top drawer French and Italian food in the Big Apple.
Driving across town for a bite probably won’t be on the program.
CARLITO’S BURRITOS
3345 East Patrick Lane #105
Las Vegas, NV 89120
702.547.3592
I just read your review of my restaurant, and though it may do me further disservice to comment on your review, I feel compelled to do so.
Green Chile – Your first criticism baffles me for two distinct reasons. First, green chile is not supposed to be tangy (meaning acidy, sour, or tart), so that is a good thing. Green chile that is tangy is green chile that has spoiled. That being said, you may still not have liked it, so, perhaps you meant to use a different adjective. Second, I noticed the Carne Adovada Burrito that you ate was smothered with our green chile and that you thought the Adovada was “packed with heat” (thank you for that compliment). While the adovada is moderately spicy (and delicious!), the green chile your burrito was smothered in is irrefutably hotter.
Posole – no excuse for not having a sufficient amount of hominy (and we’re not skimping on the pork becasue we don’t put any pork in our posole), but your comment about never having seen that shade of red in a New Mexican diner makes me question how many New Mexican diners you have been in. Posole comes in all sorts of shades and colors (sometimes red, sometimes green) and with or without pork – sometimes with chicken, lamb or mutton. The dark red color of ours comes from the New Mexican red chile pods we use. I’m sorry you found it bland and not spicy enough – after I read that, I helped myself to a spoonful to make sure it was still good. Call me biased, but I have to disagree! Maybe your palate was overwhelmed from the heat of the green chile!
Sopapillas – no excuse, should have been light and puffy, not thick and doughy. You’ll have to give them another try. We go through over 200 lbs. of flour a week just on sopapillas (that’s a lot of sopapillas), so we must be getting them right most of the time. We’ll work on getting that to 100%.
Anyway, thanks for giving us a try and I hope you’ll stop back and give us another shot.
David Samuels
Owner, Carlito’s Burritos
They will not honor Restaurant.com certificates even though they are still selling them online today !!!! Fraud.