La Sirenita Restaurant in Little Mexico

La Sirenita - or- The Little Mermaid, translated, is one of the few places around here (DC/MD/VA) that you can get a homemade mexican meal for 2 for $10 (or less).

We went there tonight, a Friday, at about 6:00 pm.

La Sirenita is in Hyattsville, in Maryland, in a part of town known as Little Mexico. On our way there, proof of the local culture came in a taco stand, latino language hair salons, lots of dodgy looking mexican restaurants, and loads of mexican folks walking around.

We almost drove by the place, but caught it just in time. Its in this tiny little building that also houses a mexican general store-- bootleg CDs, shoes, and movies: just about anything a homesick migrant worker longs for, I guess.

The restaurant itself is adorable in the most innocent, unpretentious way. Following the mermaid theme, I suppose, there are posters of dolphins and little tiny dolphin windchimes hanging around (the kind that can be found in 8 year old girls' bedrooms everywhere). The walls are covered in wood paneling - popping out of the wall in places- and on one wall in the dining room there is this HUGE glowing electric Taco Bueno style menu with pictures and names of all their stuff.
There must have been 50 picture panels up there- stretching the length of the whole wall.

In every picture, the food is served in a red plastic Chinese platter *like, with chinese characters on it*--- and that is how it is served to you! So crazy!

On the tables, there was a vase of fake red roses (with the tag unabashedly still attached) and 2 bottles of hot sauce-- one labeled "Mui Picante", the other one "Hot"-- the food turned out to be pretty spicy (without the aid of sauce), so this is more proof of the tough latino clientelle, for sure.

So, we really didn't know what to expect as far as the food was concerned.
The place was PACKED with real latino/as and it was clear that the waitresses weren't really used to speaking english.
The giant circa 1982 juke box in the corner was always playing loud mexican songs, which put the final touch on this "Okay, did I just close my eyes and wake up in El Paso?" feeling.
Seriously, the place feels like a rodeo-lovin' border town. I love it.

I could have done without all the trash on the street outside and dirty floors (and walls, and ceiling), though.

But if you go there, try hard not to be put-off by the way it looks. You gotta be tough to roll in this neighborhood, and if you aren't, go there when its daytime, leave when its daytime, and order extras to take home if you are too scared to go back (wussy).

Okay, here's the IMPORTANT part: the food is GOOD and CHEAP.
Tamales are totally handmade-- they are huge-- and they are $1.50. A dolla' fifty, you say??!?!
YES.
Burritos are around $3. (although they are not as good as the tamales, which are amazing). The burritos have feta cheese in them.

I got a chicken tamale, pork tamale, beans, rice, and a Sprite.
Alex got a good sized burrito. He did a good job at resisting the very extensive (and higher priced $10-12) seafood choices.

And they gave us a lot of really delicious handmade chips and salsa.

Our total was $10.

Alex left a tip of $3-- the first time our waitress smiled all night...
:)

We were full half-way through and ended up bringing home leftovers.

Another funny thing-- when we first walked in, the waitress put our menus on the same side of the table, but after we sat across from eachother, she moved them. I thought that perhaps we SHOULD sit all snuggly next to eachother, just to get in the spirit of the thing, but I was too lazy to move, so I didn't bring it up.
But as you looked around the room, not only couples were next to eachother, but sisters and other non-romantic combinations of people. It was cute. She probably thought we were such freaks for not sitting next to eachother.
Oh well, there is bound to be another gringo couple that visits sometime. She'll see then that we're all prudish freaks.

Also, we spotted customers with pitchers of margarita, but also small individual sized pitchers- drunk out of with a straw! What's in that thing? YUM!

There were neon-colored paper signs (the pointy kind that car dealers write prices on cars with) on the wall with lists like:
Cerveza
Fresa Crema
Fruit Cocktail (but in spanish)
Bohemia

The address is 4911 Edmonston Rd. Hyattsville, MD.

I would go back, if only for the handmade tamales. Next time I have a party, I'm spending 30 dollars and feeding everyone tamales.

So good.

-Love,
Shorty

TRIP II - 3/17/06- Saint Patrick's Day!

We returned this early evening to La Sirenita and expanded our experience:
Alex ordered the Sopa De Meresca (sp?) and LOVED IT. It was this embarrasingly large bowl of red broth that had the following sea creatures in it:

small octopus
2 clam/oysters
a crab
shrimp
half a fish
potatoes
onions
- served with lime wedges and choice of corn tortillas or bread
$12

We got an appetizer of Guacamole, which was homemade and SO good. It had a lot of onion and cilantro. I added some juice from one of Alex's limes and that made it even yummier. $2.50- pretty good amount- chips were warm.

I ordered the combo fajitas, which appear on the menu to have chicken and beef, but alas, there was shrimp and some kind of dark meat that looked unfamiliar- beef tongue?- its on the menu.... who knows. I only at the chicken part. They also came with rice, beans, corn tortillas, green and red peppers, green onions/scallions, and tomatoes.

It was pretty good, but not at all like the restaurant fajitas you are used to. These aren't beautifully cut slices of grilled chicken. They are strange chunks of all sorts of meats fried up together, it looks like. Fajitas were $11.

I really should have stuck with the Tamales. Oh well. We got lots of leftovers out of the deal!

Also, I forgot to mention in my last entry that there is a glowing beer menu in the far corner by the television (window wall).

Once again, there was only one woman there- it really seems like a migrant worker hang-out. We got there at straight-up 5:00, and the place was almost totally filled with workers.

We stopped by the mexican food market 2 doors down, and I got some 5 cloves of garlic ($1.20), 2 plantains (cheap), 2 PERFECT avacados (cheaper than normal), and some green tobasco sauce ($1.10). In total, it was $5.00.
WOOHOO!
And they take cards at both places--- ALTHOUGH take a little cash for the TIP at the restaurant. They may tell you that you can't leave it on your credit slip.