Churros Calientes

If you've only had Mexican churros, the ones you can buy in street fairs then you have not had the real churros.
 
Ever since I was a little girl, I have always enjoyed and loved the Spanish churros. They are made with dough pastry then fried.  The surface is ridged due to having been piped from a churrera (churros maker) . They are left straight or sometimes curled. It is then dipped in the hot chocolate.  My experience with churros has been that which was first served at a Spanish pastry shop in the Philippines called Dulcinea. To this day, they still serve it the same way, dusted with sugar and served with a thick hot chocolate made in the Philippines.

There have been a few  restaurants that served them here in Los Angeles but they never got the chocolate part right. They usually were too thin and not rich enough.
This afternoon, Cindy and I were in the vicinity of Churros Calientes.  We went in and decided to split a filet mignon panini and have an order each of the churros con chocolate. 

The panini was simple and pretty good which was served with a green salad.  We got our dosage of greens and protein. A good introduction to what was to come next......
The churros came with a cup of what looked like thick hot chocolate.  The churros were rolled in sugar, nice and crisp outside, soft inside .  It was not too sweet, in fact I wanted to add some powdered sugar. The hot chocolate was indeed thick although it was not what I was accustomed to.... I guess it just needed a little more oomph to it.  If I were to make an analogy; it is like driving on the freeway and you suddenly need to pass someone, so you have to shift down to get that boost of power.  We both thought the chocolate could have been better; maybe it is the type of chocolate they use.

But I must say, if you've only had the thick Mexican churros loaded with sugar and cinnamon you will be very happy with these churros. They also have different flavors like dulce de leche, strawberry, guava & sweet condensed milk.

Churros Calientes is a very small cozy restaurant located at 11521 Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles. They are open 11:30 am - 10:30 pm Tuesday - Sunday.