Paulina's Mexican Grill

Paulina's Mexican Grill is a small "hole in the wall" in the newly built shopping center next to the Victor Bowl. When driving in the area, it's impossible to see Paulina's or to even know that there's a shopping center nearby. We found out about Paulina's through recommendation from friends, and from a coupon that was sent to us in the mail. With a coupon in hand, it was now time to go ahead and give Paulina's Mexican Grill a try!

When my wife and I first walked into Paulina's, we were pleasantly surprised not to see sombrero's on the wall, loudly blasted mariachi music, or cheesy bright green and red walls. Paulina's is decorated like an elegant 5-star restaurant, equipped with beautiful pictures, elegantly painted walls, and beautiful table settings and colors that played perfectly with romantically dim-lit room. The restaurant is very small, but it makes for an extremely romantic and personal dining experience. This place would be perfect for a date, important event, or just to hang around in for the sake of stress relief. The first thing presented to us were the chips and salsa (sorry about not having a picture), the first thing to be pointed out is that these were homemade chips fresh out of the deep fryer, they were perfectly fried and had little to no grease! The salsa was also homemade and tasted amazing! It was more on the spicy side, but the ingredients tasted super fresh and had a perfect crunch from the onions which played well with the soft juicy tomatoes in the salsa. I was ready to cancel my order and eat just chips and salsa(just kidding, but they really were that good)! My meal came with a choice of soup or salad, I decided to give the Tomato Bisque a try (pictured above). Most tomato bisque's honestly just end up tasting Campbell's tomato soup, not this bisque! There was a mild tomato taste when the soup first hit my tongue, but immediately I tasted numerous spices (mainly basil) and a sweet/almost sugary aftertaste that made this soup an addictive and pleasurable appetizer!
My wife ordered the Cheese Enchilada dinner with refried beans and mexican rice. I went ahead and sampled some of her food. It's always easy to judge certain Mexican restaurants by their red sauce and by their rice and beans, this particular red sauce had an amazing taste that immediately reminded me of my Grandmother's Mexican cooking! The sauce tasted authentic, and tasted nothing like any other red sauce in the HD. It's hard to describe, the best way to put it is if you took a normal red sauce, added numerous spices, love, and served it fresh out of the pot. The enchilada itself was cooked perfectly, the tortilla had texture and wasn't mushy, the cheese was melted to perfection! The Mexican rice tasted great and the beans were extraordinary! The beans also reminded me of my Grandmother's back-home Mexican style cooking, this was authentic food with a modern twist!
I ordered the Chipotle Chicken for my entree, I ordered the fried green beans and poblano rice for my sides. The dish also came with a choice of corn or flower tortillas that are acquired from a local business that makes the tortillas in house. The chipotle chicken is a chicken breast cooked with garlic and shallots, drenched in a chipotle based cream sauce, garnished with chipotle pepper slivers. Words can't describe how good this dish was, but i'll do my best to describe it the best that I can! The chicken itself was perfectly cooked and pretty much melted in my mouth the second it hit my tongue. I was a little bit worried that the sauce would be over powered with a strong taste from the chipotle's smoky adobo sauce, but the cream offset the strong flavor and made for a PERFECT sauce that accented the chipotle's smoky flavor without letting it overpower the entire dish. The consistency of the sauce was perfect and the chipotle slivers on top were perfect for bites where I wanted a little extra kick of heat and flavor. The poblano rice was also excellent, it had a buttery/milky taste and a light poblano pepper aftertaste. The fried green beans were also a treat, they were fried to perfection and had great flavor!

When I was growing up I was raised on a steady diet of authentic homemade mexican food from my Mother and my Grandmother, they cooked recipes that were handed down from generations past. They made food that held deep roots in Mexico, and deep roots in my heart. When my Grandmother passed, some of those recipes passed with her, recipes that my Mother hadn't learned yet, flavors that I thought I would never taste again in my lifetime. Those flavors and love for cooking is something that Paulina's holds over any other Mexican establishment in the HD, at certain times in the dining experience the smells from the kitchen, the taste of certain ingredients, and the love in the food reminded me of my Grandmother and the tastes that made her cooking so good. I never thought I would ever experience those flavors ever again in my life, Paulina's proved me wrong, they made my dining experience heartfelt and personal, and that's something that some people never get to experience in their lifetime at a culinary establishment. The atmosphere was perfect and made me feel like I was dining at a nice restaurant in Los Angeles. The waitress Paulina was very friendly and was extremely knowledgable of every item on the menu, she also told us that her Mother (the head chef) makes just about everything on the menu from scratch. Paulina's does a great job of staying authentic, while still adding a modern twist to the dining experience. Paulina's also serves %100 USDA Certified beef at the restaurant, that way you know every cut of beef in your food is of great quality. Without our coupon, the price of our meal would've come in at just over $30. Paulina's is located at 14845 Monarch Blvd, Suite G, in Victorville next to the Victor Bowl.