King and Queen Cantina - Little Italy

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If you're in Little Italy, and that hankering for Mexican food starts rising to the surface, King and Queen Cantina has some AMAZING food, and an awesome happy hour.

I can honestly tell you that King and Queen Cantina has become one of my favorite new restaurants in San Diego. 

It is SO FREAKIN GOOD.

This place opened where Bracero used to be in Little Italy (we were sad to see it go) right across from the newly remodeled Craft and Commerce.

I'm a huge fan of Mexican food. But I mean, taco shops in San Diego are a dime a dozen (check out my favorites in downtown San Diego here).

I am in love with the unique dishes and flavors served at this restaurant.

Like the chicken mole tacos with sweet chocolate tortillas. I mean come on, how are we supposed to resist goodness like that?

They have a happy hour from 3 PM to 6 PM and 9 PM to close every day, which is awesome. We can never make weekday happy hours (thank you blog side job), but weekends are fair game. It's awesome to find restaurants that offer weekend happy hours.

Anyways, the happy hour menu has great selections, for a couple dollars off the regular menu price. It's a pretty decent deal for the food you get.

We've ordered off the happy hour and regular menus and were impressed by both.

Now you guys came here to hear about the food, because that's really the reason we go to a restaurant, right? I just want good food.

With no further ado, lets start the food porn.

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• What to Order at King and Queen Cantina
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What to Order at King and Queen Cantina

Always start with the cucarachos. Crispy, shell-on shrimp fried and coated with a garlic chipotle butter, these are to die for. I still drool a little bit when I think about these babies.

The Tinga Chicken Taquitos are wonderful, served with a variety of different sauces (who doesn't love trying different sauce?). And then the Pow Pow Wings are served with the same garlic chipotle butter as the cucarachos and are pretty tasty. 

If you're looking for something more along the taco route, the short rib mole tacos are served in a slightly sweetened chocolate tortilla. They are good guys. One of my favorite tacos ever. That tortilla is what dreams are made of. 

And of course, you've got to get some enchiladas. We are eating Mexican food for god's sake. The chicken enchiladas are served in a tomatillo sauce and topped with a lime crema. You must order these. It took all our willpower not to lick the sauce off the plate. For real.

I saved the best for last. They have the most tender, melt-in-your mouth droolworthy pork belly bites here. They will make you swoon. BUT, you have a couple options - you can just order the pork belly bites OR you can get the pork belly and octopus plate. The octopus is deliciously tender and served with pomegranate seeds over an avocado sauce. And the pork belly bites are served right long with it.

Get at least one of these. I recommend the pork belly and octopus. 

Now the menu at King and Queen Cantina is huge. There are so many options that I can't wait to go back again and try some more. 

I want to come back and try the bone marrow appetizer, carne asada plate (a staple, you've got to find out if this is good or not!), chilaquiles torta (yes, that's a thing), bacon wrapped shrimp, aguachiles (I'm a sucker for this stuff) and their crispy avocado taco.

To make this even more exciting, they've got some new dishes coming soon that you're going to want to check out. Like birria ramen, banh mi tacos, and yakisoba. 

Exciting times are upon us.

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