Day 13: Versailles

On the way back from my accountant's office in Sherman Oaks I drove West on Ventura Boulevard looking for something to blog about...hmmm...  As I passed one strip mall after another, I was about to bail, but then I saw the prominent red and yellow beacon of goodness - a sign for Versailles!  Versailles is a slice of Cuba in L.A. - I had no idea there was an Encino location.  My husband and I used to go to Versailles in Venice all the time.  I spent the better part of my first pregnancy there eating garlic chicken and plantains with Mark, Ricky and Jenny.  Ironically, I gave birth to a child who will only eat tan, starchy foods that are covered in cheese.  Hmmm.  Payback.

Well, there's nothing like paying bills and going over a new budget to make a girl really famished.  I sat down and promptly ordered a lunch special - garlic chicken, plantains over a bed of rice - it comes with a cup of soupy black beans you can pour over your rice.  I enjoyed the music and thought about Buena Vista Social Club.  I thought about Celia Cruz, Javier Bardem.  Is he Cuban?  I think he is...anyway, I thought about him.

The chicken arrived - it was juicy, a little crisp on the outside, and that garlic sauce...how to describe.  It's sort of a tangy, citrus-y sauce.  Not spicy, but incredibly flavorful.  The meal was so outrageously, decadently good, and only cost somewhere around 9.95.  Bonus - I took half of the chicken to go so I could enjoy it for dinner too.  Fortified, I was ready to face the 405.  I'm sort of psyched for the next meeting with my accountant.  I will have to schedule it around lunchtime...