The Mariachi Girls in L.A.

As Cinco de Mayo approaches, we decided to go with our Los Angeles friends Edwin and Alma to a truly Mexican experience to enjoy some Mexican food and music at the El Cielito Lindo restaurant in South El Monte, a suburb of Los Angeles. This was supposed to be just about 16 miles from downtown L.A. but traveling East from downtown on highway 10 at 6PM could mean moving as fast as a pouring honey out of a long skinny jar on a cold day. Thank goodness for the Car Pool lane which made things move a lot faster for the few of us that had two or more passengers in their vehicles. If I lived in L.A. I'd hire a person just to ride along with me so I could use the Car Pool lane all the time, it's definitely a time saver.

The main reason we made the trek to El Monte was to see the Reina De Los Angeles mariachi which is self-described as "the first all-female mariachi ensemble in the USA". This mariachi plays on Wednesdays of every week and the very famous Mariachi Sol de Mexico plays from Thursday to Sunday of every week. We were sitting at our table by 7:15PM and placed our food order shortly thereafter. Edwin ordered the fajitas, Alma ordered the chopped steak, B ordered a fried sea bass, I had the surf and turf house specialty. The show started promptly at 7:30PM and by that time the overhead lights over the tables had been dimmed and the stage lights immediately came on. By the time the food arrived, a few minutes into the show, it was a challenge to see what I was putting in my mouth because it was so dark, but whatever it was, it was rather pleasant and tasty so I didn't complaint.

The show was very entertaining to say the least. The women seemed very relaxed and easily handled the cheering, applause, yelling or whichever other way those in the audience decided to show their appreciation. Some, which must have been drinking Tequila straight from the tap, were very expressive and seemed to be having a great time, and were letting everybody know about it. At some point during the show, the ladies called the names of those new to the audience including where we came from. I have a feeling that Edwin may have had something to do with them knowing our names and where we were from, at least the didn't call me an "unemployed Miamian" so I didn't feel too bad. They also acknowledge those that were celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. At one point the musicians walked down the isles to be very close with the audience.  It made for a very intimate show with the Reina De Los Angeles. I think that all of the musicians at some point put their instruments down and picked up the microphone to lead sing. They alternated in the different songs and sometimes even within the same song they would pass along a mic to interchange the lead singer spot. They all did a great job. Of course one or two of them could really hold the notes for a very long time, which made for a great crowd pleaser, but overall it was difficult to tell which ones were better than the others.

During the introduction the ladies mentioned that they were there just about every week but that next week, for the Cinco de Mayo celebration, they were not going to be here in L.A. They had been invited to perform for President Obama next week so we were lucky to see them just before they were on their way.

As Edwin had predicted, this was a great mariachi show and the food was not bad either. I was very pleased with both. Not only did we enjoy the 7:30 show but waited for the 9:30 and almost waited to the 11PM but some of us had to work the next day so we decided to end it somewhat early. Los Angeles is proving to be quite the fun place.

Here's a clip with just a few seconds of one of their last numbers.