La
Cita
911 Marlton Pike West
Cherry Hill, NJ 08002
My sister was looking for a new job a
few months ago, and she asked me to meet up for lunch one day when she was
finished with her interview. I told her about a Mexican place I was looking to
try in the area and I knew she would say yes, so we headed to La Cita on route
70 in Cherry Hill to grab some lunch and catch up.
The restaurant used to house a Mexican
"supermercado", but it moved a few doors down and the owners opened
up the restaurant. It was a great place to do so, because there really wasn’t
any good Mexican in the area. The restaurant is very small and it is plainly
decorated inside. The menu had some options on it that seemed very authentic to
me, things I hadn’t seen on many Mexican menus before including chilaquiles and
cemitas. These happened to be the two things that my sister and I ordered to
eat, and I ordered myself an horchata to drink. Horchata is a rice milk drink
that is sweet and has a nice cinnamon flavor to it. I slurped it all down and I
would love to have it more often. Before they bring out your food, they give
you chips and salsas for the table. They offered two different types of salsa,
a salsa verde which had quite a kick to it, and a salsa roja which was more of
traditional red salsa, a little bit of a kick, but much sweeter than the salsa
verde. The chips came topped with a small bit of refried beans and a touch of
cheese. They were stupendously crispy. I could have eaten the entire plate
myself.
A cemita is a sandwich that originated
in a town called Puebla in Mexico. I first found out what it was by watching an
episode of Diner's Drive-Ins and Dives. It’s a sandwich that is like the
Mexican version of a gyro. The meat is typically cooked on a spit and then
sliced to order when the sandwiches are made. Unfortunately it didn’t seem that
that’s the way this one was made because of the type of meat that I ordered. I
ordered the carnitas cemita. Carnitas are traditionally fried or braised and
then roasted in their own juices before being served. The sandwich was served
with cucumbers, radishes, a lime wedge and some charred green onions. The
sandwich was also layered with avocado, cilantro and raw onion. The only thing
I didn’t like about the sandwich was the way the meat was cut. I prefer the
carnitas I eat to be shredded and to have a bit of texture to them. These
particular carnitas were cubed, but they lacked texture. I think that had they
been a bit crispy it would have made all the difference in the world. The
flavor was definitely there, but the texture was a little lacking for me. Also
the bread didn’t hold up to the weight of the sandwich very well. The bread was
flimsy and fell apart as I was eating it, which was unfortunate because it was
a delicious sandwich.
I think La Cita deserves two solid
pints. The authenticity of the menu is very intriguing, and I think with a bit
of fine tuning the place will really turn out to be great; after all they had
only been open for just over a month when I was there. It is definitely worth checking
out, so let me know what you think! Cheers!
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