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| - Great experience all around. The inside of babalu is very modern and trendy. It's open across the restaurant with a beautiful bar in the front and center. The windows are wide, the atmosphere is lively, and the food is great.
While they don't take reservations, I'd recommend calling if you have a larger party to speak with the manager, because in our case, she reserved a table for us.
We were in no rush so took our time ordering, and enjoyed the variety of cocktails and margaritas. I loved the the cat 5 cocktail with mint, agave and bitters. The mojarita (mojito + marg) and champarita were also delicious.
First and foremost, please promise me you'll order the fresh, made at your table guac. It's incredible and also fun to see them make it! With a blend of lime juice, sundried tomatoes, hass avocados, kosher salt, green onions and cilantro, this app is not to be missed. The house chips are pretty memorable too!
They have some tasty tacos, and you can order one, or try multiple. They make their own blue corn tortillas which are soft and amazing. Beautiful for photographing, too :) I went with one pollo taco (loved the cojita cheese and goat cheese crema), the pork belly and the veggie one. The pork belly was beautifully marinated with the chipotle citrus BBQ sauce and was SO delicious. I wouldn't order the Vegetal one again because I found that it doesn't really hold together well without the protein in there. And there's not enough veggies. sorry, Babalu, that's my only complaint.
The servers are all pleasant, the atmosphere is lively and inviting, and you'll leave with a full belly. However, my other quirk is about their parking. They do valet, so the line to enter the parking lot moves quite slowly. I would prefer to just park my own car!
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