'Grandma-style' fusion arrives in Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — Carlos Bernal has been cooking for almost his entire life.

The executive chef at the new Moses Lake restaurant, Los Amigos, said he started out when he was 36, making and selling tacos from a cart on the streets of Guadalajara. Despite a detour to study marine biology at university in Puerto Vallarta, Bernal kept cooking, kept working, and kept honing his skills.

“For eight years, I worked for a company that provided chef rentals at exclusive resorts,” Bernal said.

It meant working for families and small groups, 10 to 20 people, for up to a week, making and serving what Bernal called “high-quality meals.”

“It gave me more connection with the customers,” he said.

And a couple of stints working as a chef in Edmonton, Alberta, and several places in British Columbia, exposed to him to different kinds of cuisines. It gave the now-36-year-old Bernal the inspiration for the Mexican-Italian fusion he serves at Los Amigos Restaurant, which opened in Moses Lake in March.

“It’s fusion, so we have pastas, Asian-influenced, it’s a different kind of place,” he said. “If I can put some Mexican ingredients in the recipe, I do it.”

Los Amigos, located at the corner of North Elder Street and East Fifth Avenue, serves a very typical assortment of Mexican dishes, along with some other fare — pasta in a tequila cream sauce, Thai-inspired coconut and mango shrimp appetizers, a take on macaroni and cheese, and a Sirloin Oscar in a serrano bearnaise sauce.

“If someone is looking for non-Mexican food, they can find it here,” he said. “I have some crazy ideas, but it tastes good.”

Bernal’s wife Isabel tends the Los Amigos bar, and he is hoping to put down roots here in Moses Lake. He also wants to share some of what he has learned, and hopes at some point to provide a place for culinary students at the Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center the opportunity to work in a professional kitchen.

“I have a lot of plans,” Bernal said. “We’re still talking, to see if that can happen.”

But all of his experiences over the years have contributed to his skills, his love of food, and his desire to cook and serve the best meals he possibly can.

“I respect everything I do. If I do tacos, I do tacos like in Mexico, like street tacos,” he said. “This is grandma-style cooking.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.