La Mexicana authentic, efficient

La Mexicana, with a grocery store in the front and a restaurant in the back, serves the Latino community at its location in the Siegen Village shopping center (the one that houses a big Party City store).

With no-frills, but efficient, service, the restaurant offers authentic Mexican fare, in generous portions, at a good price. It was formerly named Taqueria Mi Pueblito, but changed its name not too long ago, according to the proprietors.

In the spacious dining area, with its casual atmosphere, you might feel like you’re sitting in someone’s kitchen for a relaxed meal, and in a way you are.

Waiting for our meal, we munched on complimentary tortilla chips served with four salsas.

It was a good selection of tastes; one was a green salsa, the salsa verde, and one was very spicy; the other two were mild.

The items on the menu are translated into English for the non-Spanish speaking.

One of our guests tried the special for the day, bistec a la Mexicana ($8.99), and found the Mexican-style steak, cut into bite-size pieces, juicy and “bursting with flavor.”

The dish came with lettuce, tomatoes and avocado, all to be put into a tortilla — several of these arrived wrapped individually in paper — to make delicious bites of food.

The side dishes for this and other entrées were beans and rice, also very good.

Another dish, carne asada ($8.99), served steak in another way, flattened and grilled, with a rich, home-cooked taste bolstered by grilled onions and a jalapeño pepper.

Again, there was lettuce, tomatoes and avocado, as well as soft, mildly-flavored cheese sticks served alongside, as ways to accentuate the steak.

A third entrée, four enchiladas ($8.99), came with the sides mentioned above, as well as cheese and sour cream.

The diner went with two chicken enchiladas and two beef ones and found the offerings had a good balance of fresh, zesty flavors.

A fourth entrée, with a choice of corn tortillas ($1.99) or flour tortillas ($2.25), was the three-tacos dish that comes without sides. The guest chose chicken, which she found moist and flavorful.

The restaurant offers three desserts: sopapilla, flan and three-milk cake, each for $3.50, but on this particular weekday evening was out of the sweets.

We enjoyed the Mexican Coca-Colas, though, served in elegantly elongated glass bottles.

Here’s a bit of de-mystification for first-timers to the restaurant.

The bill for the meal isn’t brought to the table, but to the grocery-store counter at the front, at least the time we went.