Ciudad
445 S Figueroa St
Los Angeles, CA 90071
(213) 486-5171

Categories: Latin American, Lounges
Neighborhood: Downtown

I had been wanting to check this place out for a long time, but I tend to avoid downtown because of the price and hassle of parking, the thick traffic and looking at the menu, I thought was pricey. So I bought a groupon for this venue basically paying $20 for $40 of food/drinks. Okay that cuts the price of my meal down to a reasonable deal as my plan was to have the $29 paella or the $33 stuffed Kobe ribeye steak. My table of three ordered the paella, my steak and the 3 course prix fixe dinner which was carnitas and a app of cerviche. We had apps of a duo of empanadas, plantains, lengua that was surprisingly tender and we were comped a nice baby arugula salad in addition to the standard crackers with hummus and black olive tapenade. All the apps were good, the empanadas had a duo of colorful sauces orange/green and were nicely spiced.

My steak was properly cooked to my requested medium and was a good size. It was actually larger on the plate than I was expecting but thinner considering it was supposed to be stuffed. Only about 1/3 of the steak was stuffed and I thought it was completely unstuffed until the last third and all of a sudden POW, I hit the jalapeno motherload. yum! It had a cilantro sauce over the top that was surprisingly mild as I was expecting it to be spicier as it looked like an Indian mint/jalapeno chutney, but no such luck. The Kobe beef rib eye was not super tender but not tough but I felt it was a bit over-seasoned with salt even for my tastes which I love salt as was Rachel's paella that was also delicious but too salty again. At least the rice was properly cooked instead of bloated over cooked rice of my past few encounters with paella. So if the chef would reduce the salt a bit, that would have made me very happy. I believe that many diners who are more anti-sodium people might have sent back the paella and the steak, but like I said, I like my food well seasoned.

The paella was delicious and was loaded with mussels, shrimp and other bits. Very flavorful. Jonathan had the prix fixe dinner and his carnitas was a big hunk of slow cooked tender goodness. Nicely spiced and seasoned it was delicious.

Of course the "Kobe" beef I had was not from Japan, but the menu doesn't disclose much info on the beef, but really, if a place is going to use that name and it's not from Japan, they really need to explain more about their beef or don't call it Kobe beef.

The service was outstanding and friendly. Our dinner party had 6 no shows so my original plan was to have 3 tables of 4 and this way 3 members could use their groupons. But with only 6 diners, we consolidated to two tables and asked if we could use 3 groupons within our two tables and the manager graciously allowed us to do so as the rule is only one per table.

Parking is $5 for 3 hours with validation or a max of $15. Ugh, I had a 5pm meeting and I figured dinner would run til about 10pm so I'd have to fork out $15 for parking unless... I'm such a cheapskate... I got my card validated exited and paid and then re-entered the lot so for 5 minutes, I saved $5 and paid a total of $10 parking instead of $15. Freaking Downtown LA... That's simply too much money to park your friggin car. Again, that's one of the reasons I avoid downtown, I hate the high parking rates and this is an area you simply cannot find street parking anywhere close.

Summary: I liked the food but it could have been better. I enjoyed the two house Mojitos that I drank at HH price of $6/ea including tax/tip but this was the first time I drank a Mojito so I cannot comment if it was a good or great one, but it tasted good to me. I hate the parking, loved the service and for downtown, I surprisingly drove here with ease from Hollywood during rush hour traffic.

Food 3 stars, service 5 stars so I give it a 4 star review.

Because of the outstanding service, I'm planning to come here again to check out their Sunday Tapas night, but I'll be more conscious about limiting my stay to 3 hrs max.

Happy Hour was pretty busy, but by 7:45-8pm, the bar scene was a ghost town, so I'm not alone in my aversion to paying $10-15 for a cocktail.