I'm both intrigued and kind of wary that a Mexican chain called Costa Vida is planned for Irvine, next to Strickland's at the Albertons plaza near UCI.
I'm intrigued because like the Cafe Rio chain, it is Utah-based (how many Mexican chains they got over there?)
I'm wary because I hope that Costa Vida isn't more of the same. Gustavo tried Cafe Rio and it turned out to be a disastrous disappointment.
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Costa Vida's website won't tell
you much except that it features meats like carne asada they call
“grilled steak” and something called “Raspberry Chipotle Chicken” that
you can stuff into your tacos and burritos.
If you've guessed that “Raspberry Chipotle” sounds like an American
invention, you'd be right. The flavor is actually Texan, created and
popularized by Fischer & Wieser, a specialty food producer of
jellies and sauces owned by the union of two German families. Now, how
it migrated from the Lone Star State to the Beehive State is as much a
head-scratcher as why there are so many Utah-based Mexican chains eager
to conquer the world.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.