Kalaveras

Orange County has an incredible variety of Mexican dining options, ranging from food trucks to individual restaurants, small chains, and large ones, authentically street-level to authentically elevated, and of course, locally modernized. Somewhere in the middle of this pack is Kalaveras, a decade-old Bellflower-based Mexican restaurant chain with 17 locations spread across Southern California, down from a peak of around 25. Three are in Orange County – Fullerton, Newport Beach, and Orange – carrying forward the chain’s mid-priced menu and focus on dia de los muertos (day of the dead) aesthetics. We visited the Kalaveras in Newport Beach, a plaza outparcel that seats over 100 people across a spacious dining room, large bar, and substantial outdoor patio.

The first half of the four-page printed menu focuses solely on drinks – 95% boozy, with plenty of tequilas, mezcals, margaritas, beers, cocktails, and Mexican candy shots alongside a handful of mocktails and other non-alcoholic options. We tried one of the mocktails, flor de nopal ($12), a goblet of prickly pear and hibiscus syrup mixed with tonic water and lemon, then topped with hibiscus blooms. While it wasn’t bad, there wasn’t anything particularly striking or mocktail-like here besides the glass, and in retrospect, we should have ordered two aguas frescas ($6) instead for the same price.

Pages three and four are all foods: appetizers, salad and soup ($12 to $25), individual tacos ($6 to $9.50), two burritos ($17 to $19), multiple mostly Mexican-inspired entrees ($20 to $62), and desserts ($12.50 to $14.50). The higher end of the appetizer and entree price ranges tend to be multi-person samplers or meals; almost all of the items in any category are at or below the middle of the aforementioned price range.

Not included on the menu but noteworthy is Kalaveras’ taco bar, which on Taco Tuesdays offers a limited selection of mostly meat-based street tacos at a set price of $2.50 each. Guests order their preferred number of tacos from a server, bring a receipt indicating the number up to the taco bar, and hand it to an employee. Each taco includes one briefly heated, super small tortilla, topped with a scoop of one meat such as barbacoa, carnitas, carne asada, pollo, or pastor. Self-serve bowls of onions, cilantro, radishes, carrots, jalapenos, limes, and three salsas allow for customization; those looking for cheese, guacamole, or other ingredients (such as fish, shrimp, or ribeye) can order regular-priced, regular-sized tacos at two or three times the price.

Across all five of the street-style tacos we tried – various types of beef and pork, served still moist from steamer trays – the protein quality was solid, the portions reasonable given the low per-taco prices, and the array of self-service items reasonable. We especially liked the flavors and portions of the three salsas, which were fewer in number but easier to serve here than using the tiny plastic cups found at typical salsa bars. Our meal also included one basket of complimentary chips with a small bowl of chipotle-spiced red salsa, both good, and the service was fairly quick and attentive.