Melt in My Mouth Moroccan at Aziza

I love Moroccan culture for many reasons: the desert-like climate that resonates with my desert girl roots, the opulent architecture that places homes around central, open courtyards where people can gather beneath the stunning blue sky, and the ancient colors and patterns that adorn every cloth, nook and cranny of the culture. A few years ago, my good friend and artist Noah Haytin, was on residency in the city and he brought me back a real goatskin upon request. 'Til this day it hangs on the wall of my childhood bedroom waiting for me to adorn it with India ink illustrations of my impressions of the place once I finally get the chance to go.

But most of all, I love the food and on our recent trip to San Francisco, the Cute Gardener found me a gem of a place in the unassuming Richmond District called Aziza, where gourmet Moroccan was being served in a modern setting. It was quite a notch above the norm with master mixologists and a meal that took time between each course because yes, it was that fresh. It became my second favorite dinner of the trip.

Our Aperitifs: For me a springy, zingy sugar snap pea, calvados, and bitter orange concoction and for him, a tincture of pomegranate, floc de gascogne, and angelica root. This was actually a synchronistic drink because I’ve been itching to grow angelica root for some time and to see it served in a contemporary cocktail affirmed my urge.

This essential staple was supreme with freshly made dense and hot flatbread and spreads that included a creamy, traditional chickpea with olive oil pool, a piquillo-almond whipped delight and a yummy, thick and rich yogurt-dill.

Big fin squid, preserved lemon, king oyster, radish, and ginger made such a pretty presentation on the plate with out of the ordinary colors, textures and tastes.

Our Entrée Cocktails: For me, a musky, muddy and poignant mix of fig, balsamic, maple and bourbon. For him a spicy tarragon and cardamom cachaca. These were really creative drinks here without overdoing any of the traditional spices.

This duck confit basteeya consisted of generous amounts of shredded duck meat studded with just the right amount of raisins and almonds as to not make it too cloyingly sweet. This is my kind of potpie and I would take it any day with its flaky baklava reminiscent dough over the fatty, cream-laden, white bread American version.

Another piece of sweet meat that was right up my alley came in the form of this fall apart tender short rib with carrot jam, date and the tiniest, cutest little mustard cube that had the consistency of brioche.

He had a lamb shank, also fall apart tender accented with barley, prune, and saffron. It was a very basic tasting dish but in a comfort food sort of way.

I had picked this out before any other food item when I first glanced at the menu. Who can resist an item with words like “brioche,” “chocolate” and “French toast” in the description. The chocolate bread was made into a cube, eggy in the middle and caramelized from the pan on the ends, equaling an amazingly rich and sumptuous combination. A sweet dollop of cardamom ice cream accompanied. Being that cardamom and coriander are two of my favorite tastes, I was a happy girl.

 

Unnecessary extra mini-cream puffs – but of course, we ate them before weathering the San Francisco cold to hike it to our bus home and bed, fat and happy.

How I Abandoned Lucca for a North Beach Italian

During the month long planning session prior to driving to San Francisco, and while reviewing the itinerary on our six-hour drive to get there, I kept repeating the words Mission District to the Cute Gardener. Not only is it one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city to see art, eat hangover Mexican breakfasts, and peruse the funkiness of the architectural facades of residents there, but it’s home to (until now) my favorite Italian deli Lucca.

Twice in the past I had the fortune to house sit for a chef who lived a block away from the deli where a family of father and brothers sling meat daily as well as making awe-inspiring homemade raviolis. I would visit daily for a slice of their large, rectangular, room temperature mushroom pizza that you bought for cheap after choosing the size of slab you wanted cut. And it wasn’t even good pizza, just spongy bread with tomato sauce, sprinkled cheese and canned button mushrooms. But something about the tang and the texture made you crave it for the entire rest of the day and it was my daily meal there for a while.

We went everywhere during our trip to the city EXCEPT the Mission District this time though and we remarked that the best laid plans made when you are in a place single and solo are typically far removed from the things you decide to do together instead. We were with each other so instead of taking steps down stones trod prior we decided to stake out on only new adventures this time. This led us not to my lusted after Lucca, but instead to the great big booming meat master Molinari’s.

North Beach is probably my favorite neighborhood in S.F. not only because it’s the home of the great beatnik scene of yore but also because it has a large population of screaming, hand waving, bent over and cantankerous, old Italian men (I love Italian areas in the city and miss the North End in Boston for this very same reason.) Now it has a third piece of allure for me.

All it really took to win me over was a deli counter swimming with things like fresh salami, minor cheeses, sweet peppers, oily sun dried tomatoes, skinny breadsticks, hand-rolled and inconsistently sized fresh tortellini, blood orange sodas, and arancini the size of tennis balls. But when I bit into the Luciano sandwich I was utterly seduced to the core. It was a perfect moon shaped sandwich with lots of lovely strips of salty coppa and prosciutto, dotted with a sliced, fresh and wet mozzarella ball, sprinkled with unctuous sun dried tomatoes, some shreds of dark lettuce, nice tangy onions and then flattened between focaccia until the grill marks appeared on the bread. All grilled sandwiches should be so lucky to call this kin.

For those ordering regular ol' sub sandwiches, you get to pick your own bread from a bin in the store. Wonderful little touch and I wish this were back home in my neighborhood because I would definitely go back for more. Sorry Lucca but Molinari is my new meat king.

Grazing Train at the Ferry Building

The Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in San Francisco happens in miniature form every Thursday (the big one is on Saturday). Since we had done just about every other kind of eating adventure during our vacation in the big city, we actually had a day off from an official dining reservation and decided to visit the market and graze our way through its offerings. With no itinerary other than to pick what peaked our palate, we headed down there on a muni bus with stomachs ready for exploration.

Our first stop was 4505 Meats, which was the whole reason we had come in the first place. We had heard that their burger and dog were out of sight.

Yes, both dishes were better than your average fast food fare and the stand in itself offered a nice selection of steaks, chops and sausages on ice but it was nothing to garner hundreds of impossibly-fluffy sounding yelp reviews about. But it had, which we couldn’t quite understand. The hamburger bun was dark and studded with sesame seeds and came swimming with a yummy cheese sauce. The bacon, which was touted as studding the hot dog, was nowhere to be seen.

Next up was Chef Chris Cosentino’s meat emporium, Boccalone. There’s something pretty special about a place with all variations of salami, hanging dry skinned in a cooler right in front of your face with an old fashioned cutting machine as bright red and shiny as a historic fire engine.

But even more special is the “salumi cone” – a teaser piece of paper funnel that comes lain with three kinds of salami to peel right off the sides with your fingers and savor. Ours had mortadella, lonza and fennel and brown sugar salami.

Of course, my favorite stop was the forty-five minute belly up to the bar we enjoyed at Hog Island’s oyster outpost here. I had one of the best oyster experiences of my life at the real Hog Island headquarters and was happy to see that even though this time we were not shucking them ourselves by a cold, rainy bay, the quality was still scrumptious. I also gained a whole new appreciation for shuckers and their forearms as the entire time we sat there a solitary man pounded through dozens and dozens of oysters all for us patrons’ eating pleasures. A glass of sauvignon blanc to wash down the 6 varieties of the sea gem and we were off.

I was delighted to see the presence of Cowgirl Creamery as well with a small counter serving up cheesy items like an oozing gruyere-type grilled cheese sandwich that we shared accompanied by fresh pickled vegetables and onions. Not worth the 8-dollar price tag but an elevated version of the comfort food classic for sure.

At Recchiuti Chocolate we bought an affordable four pack of a new chocolate to try. For $18 we received a 1-pound load of bars including bittersweet, semisweet, dark and dark milk that we enjoyed later at bedtime. Always on the hunt for good pieces of dark chocolate, we were pleasantly surprised by the mellow depth of the dark milk variety that sent us well on our way to sweet dreams after a wonderful experience on the grazing train.

Little Fried Fish and Aioli Surprises at NOPA

We arrived in San Francisco quite ready for a foodie spree over the course of eight days and the 4^th of July holiday. After a six-hour drive that included a stop off at Ridge Winery and nothing in our bellies but goldfish crackers and berries from the garden, we were very hungry and ready for a good meal in the city by the bay when we strolled on it to the packed and bustling NOPA on Sunday night.

The Amuse Bouche reminded me why I love eating in San Francisco so much. There are always surprising touches as diverse as the multistacked upon the hill neighborhoods to tantalize the taste buds. This one came immediately and consisted of two simple and plump cherries dabbed in a ship of lemon aioli and then re-dipped into sharp flakes of tart salt. Strangely enough the combination created the juicy and tangy essence of a creamy cherry vanilla ice cream without the cold. It was a wonderful gem of a surprise to begin the meal.

I have been on a Armagnac, rum, or Benedictine kick of late when it comes to cocktails so I ordered a Paradis which consisted of Armagnac, cardomana, and lillet blanc. The Cute Gardener ordered a more steep Quintessential which was made up of gin, gran classico and lemon peel.

I was thrilled to see Little Fried Fish as a menu item because I recently watched an episode of No Reservations where Anthony Bourdain dined with an Italian chef and they fried up freshly caught whole smelt heads and tails and all and popped them into their mouths. These were served exactly the same fried in a perfectly nubby yet light cornmeal that went perfectly with a slightly salty and lemony aioli. I noted that they really liked experimenting with variations of aioli here and I usually hate mayonnaise concoctions but didn’t mind these.  

My papardelle pasta was a hit spiked with mint, English peas and a fresh cream sauce made ever so savory with bits of spicy, tasso ham.

The CG, who always asks for his burger rare but rarely ever gets it served pink enough to his liking, finally got what he asked for. The meat though, was a little too clean, perhaps the result of a conscientious kitchen going so pure that they forgot the merit in a little bit of dirty ground into the more idyllic lot of the meat mix.

I did end up eating an awful lot of his fries in the end because they were served with an insanely addicting pot of pesto aioli: again I was surprisingly seduced by the may sauce that I typically can’t even stomach. Curious, and the reason why I left really liking the place regardless of whether or not I had to weather the tension of a fighting couple who was seated directly to my left who continued their passive aggressive argument throughout the course of the entire evening.

Venice Beach Whine

I am always on the lookout for good neighborhood wine bars; the kind you can walk to on any given night where the wait staff comes to know your name and which remain relatively obscure enough so that out-of-towners stay away. I really wanted Venice Beach Wines to be this place for me because it’s so close to my home and it’s tiny and cute, spilling out of the entry room of a renovated beach bungalow.  About a year ago I had lunch there and was delighted by the wall upon wall of wines and the open kitchen where chefs made pressed sandwiches and small appetizer type foods to accompany the grapes.

I convinced the Cute Gardener to try it out with me on a recent Saturday night after we had a strenuous day so we walked over hoping for some cheap eats and a nice glass of vino. Clearly, it’s a neighborhood place but unfortunately the entire neighborhood’s population seemed to be there. (Of course, I later found out it’s always this packed.) There are only about twenty real places to sit on the cramped patio butt to butt and elbow and elbow. While we were standing waiting for a seat, we watched two glasses crash down because of the overpopulation. The waitresses were very accommodating, and I could sense their niceties were constantly apologetic barters due to the lack of space. For those who like to feel part of a scene and don’t mind it very loud, this is the place to be. But for people like me who like to hear what my companion is saying while simultaneously savoring the experience, not so much. It was very hard to relax. 

I tried a 2009 Barbera that was light bodied and spicy with hints of maraschino followed by a lavish 2000 Tempranillo from Spain. Both very good and structured but, as the CG remarked, it was nothing we couldn’t find from Whole Foods down the street.

Which was exactly where it seemed they were getting their goods, as throughout the evening, chefs and others staff members were running in and out of the patron area to the street to procure and bring in more supplies like bread, oil and wines. With very little room to the place, it makes sense that they would store things off site or run to a store down the street to replenish their wine list as the night goes on but it seemed to happen so much and looked like a lot of effort for such an itsy bitsy place. I mean, I wondered how they were turning a profit.

I opted for a lambwich for dinner which was a super scrumptious pressed panini-like thing with real, good lamb meat spiced up by a dusting of exotic herbs and curry powder but they skimped, unfortunately, on their yummy, version of smoky, chipotle-esque tzatziki.

The CG said his buffalo (yes they have buffalo burgers) was indiscernible of taste between the buns as the patty was studded with other stuff he couldn’t ascertain.

A final cochon, aka fondue-ish pot of caramelized onions, fontina, arugula, parmesan and shallots (hey, we kept trying to like the place by trying more things) was absent of the menu’s touted charcuterie and instead brought out with a half loaf of dry baguette. The cheese had already hardened and it was almost impossible to spread.

I am not apt to try this place again, especially since it will probably grow ever more crowded as the new mixed use buildings along Rose Avenue across the street become more and more populated over the next year.

Fantasy Fried Chicken, Finally

In this week’s Los Angeles Times, amongst the many things written about prolific writer Nora Ephron upon her passing, came the tidbit that she was a passionate foodie and cook in her private life. So much in fact, that she wrote a cookbook – one typed and bound in old fashioned spiral fashion which was never for sale but used as a gift for all of her cherished friends. Although she indeed spelled out many of her favorite recipes, the one for fried chicken read as follows: “Everyone loves fried chicken. Don’t ever make it. Ever. Buy it from a place that makes good fried chicken.”

I disagree with her on both points. Not everyone loves fried chicken. I didn’t for the past two decades of my life. Until recently, the last fried chicken I had eaten was a cold, drumstick in thick, buttermilk batter at a beach side picnic with my aunts and uncles as a child. It forlorned my palate due to its soggy delivery at the tail end of a day when the adults were too busy drinking to realize that the quality of the dinner wasn’t prime and I had a bad taste in my mouth ever since for the famous dish. My second try was later on at KFC and I don’t think I need to explain the gross monstrosity of gristle and fat that I received there to forlorn me even more.

But when I first met the Cute Gardener (who frequently chooses a food and proceeds to try every variation of that food he can find), he was on a fried chicken tour so I began to tepidly try a bite of each kind that would end up across the table on his dinner plate. Of the places we’ve gone so far, the honey syrup laced version I had last weekend was my favorite.

But nothing in the world compares to the fried chicken he makes at home. Part of the reason he is on a fried chicken tour is to try and find a version that bests his own. For a typically modest man, you know the chicken is THAT DAMN GOOD when he even admits to something like this. I had it a few weeks back and am still waking up in the middle of the night wishing I had it for a cold, midnight snack.

I am not allowed to say what’s in it. So here is my recipe for fried chicken a’la Ephron cookbook style:

“Find a partner who knows how to make it better than anyone else and seduce him/her so they’ll make it for you.”

Good Ship Lollipop for Adults at MB Post

There’s nothing like a scrumptious lunch waiting at the tail end of a long bike ride to motivate the legs to keep on moving through the crests and troughs of oceanic headwinds on a summer Saturday.

The Marvin BraudeTrail stretches along the California coast from Pacific Palisades to Palos Verdes, only jumping off the beach once to snake its way around the Venice Beach canals adjoining Marina Del Rey. The full loop is 43 miles but this past weekend, the Cute Gardener and I decided to tackle eleven miles at its mid-section from Venice to Manhattan Beach.

Manhattan Beach tends to be a little Stepfordian for my tastes but we were on a mission to try MBPost, the self-proscribed “highly soulful and personal” restaurant created by Chef David LeFevre of Water Grill and Charlie Trotters fame. I was not disappointed.

A friendly atmosphere permeated the place accentuated with blocky, wooden interiors, a full bar, and down home-style food elevated by the Chef from standard, Southern comforts to gourmet, feel-good brunch.  I ordered two of my items from the hand written choices that were added to the menu that morning due to daily inspiration and whatever is ripe and available.

These have taken the favorite biscuit spot on my list for now. Scone-like and gooey with cheddar cheese, butter, bacon chunks and chives and served with a whip of honey butter, they were right up my alley. The CG mentioned that they weren’t really biscuits and wondered why everything had to be covered in such sweet sauces and syrups. He actually may have said something like, “What? Are we six years old where everything has to taste like candy in order to get us to eat it?” Even though he did like the place, it was clearly more geared to the six-year-old little girl in me than the cantankerous, curmudgeon in him.

My salad was a peachy, little pot of stone fruit slices with a nice touch of honey and mint and crushed ice on top. The pluots added a bit of tart to the overall sweetness.

Super yummy, and again a bit sweetened with honey, fried chicken that had a batter of dense yet not dry, flavorful crust.

This sandwich made me swoon. The softest bread ever, verging on pretzel, but not quite and earthy, doughy and yeasty within. It sandwiched a fluffy piece of burrata, a zesty green olive pesto and roasted red pepper. It came with massive chips.

There is also a nice artisan cocktail list, and the CG had one, but I was afraid of getting pulled over for a BUI. Yes, those do exist, as I came to realize when I saw the sign near the marina that they would be performing a checkpoint later on. Biking under the influence is apparently a common crime in these parts with all the Jimmy Buffet style revelry that takes place in all the fish joints near the piers and docks.

Not-So-Nicoise Salad

Maybe it was due to our plan of seeing Ridley Scott’s Prometheus before eating dinner that inspired me to take a stab at a spaceship-sized platter of nicoise salad. It also coincided with my mission to make every single recipe out of Dorrie Greenspan’s Around My French Table for the Cute Gardener over the next few years. As I walked around Whole Foods on a Saturday afternoon gathering all of the ingredients, I was feeling rather earthy, hearty, and ready to take on a mission the size of a planet for this classic, countryside meal. Of course, when we arrived home post-cinematic experienced, I realized rather quickly while compiling the ingredients that I had completely forgotten to buy the most important ingredient: the nicoise olives. So I ended up compromising for the sake of hunger and laziness to making a large country vegetable platter that doubled as a salad when you picked and chose your mixings and threw them all into your own bowl together. And because I seemed to be propelling my inherent Lucille Ball genes into action on more than one tangent, I also realized while cooking that I had only photographed one page of the recipe from my boyfriend’s cookbook thus leading me to seek out my Julia Child recipe to patchwork with the Greenspan one creating an even ever more so bastardized version of the salad. It was still quite good.

NOT-SO-NICOISE SALAD

4 entrée-sized servings

8-12 small potatoes such as baby Yukon Golds or fingerlings

¼ pound green beans trimmed

4 hard boiled eggs

4-6 handfuls Boston lettuce, mesclun or other soft salad greens, rinsed and dried

1 shallot, freshly chopped

Salt and fresh ground pepper

Double recipe of Everyday Vinaigrette (see below)

2 5-6 ounce cans of tuna packed in olive oil

10 grape tomatoes, whole or halved

2 tablespoons capers

8 anchovies

Put the potatoes in a pot of salted water and bring to a boil. Cook until tender about twenty minutes and then take out and put into a bowl to cool.

Toss the green beans into the pot of remaining water and blanch until crisp, tender, around 4-8 minutes. Drain and dunk into cold water to set their vibrant color. Drain, then pat dry.

Toss the beans with the shallots, spoonfuls of vinaigrette and salt and pepper. Toss the tomatoes with a spoonful of the vinaigrette. (Halving the tomatoes works best I discovered because if you don’t, you don’t get the juices mingling on the plate and this is a dish where mingling makes everything better.

Arrange the lettuce on a large plate as a base. Place the potatoes in the center and arrange a mound of beans at either end of those. Put mounds of the tuna at regular intervals around the plate. Halve the hard boiled eggs and ring the plate with the halves sunny side up and a nice curled up anchovy on each. Spoon the remaining vinaigrette over the entire thing and then scatter the capers on the whole thing. Let sit for a while so that flavors mingle and the salad comes up to a nice room temperature. Serve with bowls so that people can grab what they wish!

EVERYDAY VINAIGRETTE

I chose this vinaigrette for this salad because it has mustard overtones in it that work well with the vegetables. It can be used for a myriad of salads and is one of my “go-tos”.

1 tablespoon of wine vinegar (red or white)

¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Sal and fresh ground pepper

Put all ingredients in small jar, cover, and shake vigorously until blended.

The leftovers kept quite well overnight in the fridge so we learned that they made a great base for a nice runny egg accompanied by some toasted olive bread the following morning.

Euphoric Raw Food for a Red, Ripe Heart

Once a week I take my bike for a long morning ride to a regular meeting and on my way home I lock it up to a stake outside a place that I have developed a serious feel good crush on: Euphoria Loves Rawvolution! Yes, that is really the name of a restaurant. I know it may sound hippie dippie and strange but there is no mistaking the serious caliber-above-the-rest ambiance and food at this amazingly seductive place. It has all the best things about a yoga girl without the hoodoo voodoo sense of flakiness some may veer away from in the new age.

I have had serious addictions to health food joints before like my old desert haunts Native Foods, Palm Greens, and Luscious Lorraine's but this one has currently stolen my fickle heart with its penchant for real, authentic quality of ingredients and exquisite, NON-health food tasting health food greats. And it's ALL RAW. I know I am in lust when it takes me an excruciating amount of time to order because I want everything right then and there. I never order the same thing and probably won’t until I try every single thing on the menu. If health food could be called comfort food for the body, joints and bones, this place would win the golden seal.

I always walk in and sit on a stool at the very same place in the middle of the space where a wooden bar lets me sprawl out with a book pulled out of my purse and even plugs for my laptop when I am feeling like getting a little social fodder for my short stories.

They have an amazing array of salads, soups and wraps that you won’t find anywhere else. My favorite bowl of greens is this version bursting with seaweed, kale, sesame seeds, tahini and cashew cheese tofu. It seems small but I walk away full, tanginess on my tongue.

They have special drinks, boosts, shots and elixirs that contain secret ingredients like superfoods, tonics and tinctures. Today, after feeling a little bit spent after last night’s solstice rituals I performed with friends, I was seeking a little extra support for my heart, which is currently in full love mode for the world and those I hold dear. I asked the waitress which one would provide my blood a healthy dose of circulation and she pointed to one on the menu. But when she actually delivered the ripe, ruby red little potion to me, she whispered in my ear that she had concocted a special one for my bursting aorta that was not on the menu but that she felt would be best for my desires. It tasted like the pulp of some heavenly, angelic fruit.

Today’s surprise was this Italian pizza made on Rawvolution’s famous onion bread, of which I was lucky enough to discover the recipe online and will definitely be making at home someday when I decide to finally purchase a dehydrator. The dense, cracker like bread, savory with onion flavor came topped with fresh sunflower seed cheese spread, sliced mushrooms, green olives, sun dried tomato sauce, and bits of lettuce. Each bite was a slice of healthy ambrosia.

I left as always hankering for more. I always intend to eat a slice of one of the many dessert cheesecakes made from things like natural cacao, maca, goji and others nutritious sweets in the deli case near the cash register, or at least a dollop of their vegan gelato. But the small sized entrees are perpetually deceiving as they get you properly full without the added promise of extra body weight.

Vendome: A Secret Wine Tasting Home

"Let’s go have some wine before dinner," the Cute Gardener said to me last Friday night as we were headed out for supper at Sweetsalt Food Shop in Toluca Lake. But instead of a winery or some cute, boutique bar, I found us turning into the parking lot of a liquor store called Vendome.

Oh, I thought, we are participating in a wine tasting, I see. But this was no ordinary wine tasting either.

Inside a well-stocked and rather impressive regular old liquor store sat a normal looking square bar with chairs on all sides and an island in the middle. Five others were already bellied up sampling options from their note cards, which they were busy checking off boxes and circling things upon. When the bartender walked over to us, the CG said, “I see you’ve lost some hair,” to which the bartender explained that he had recently shaved a beard that had hung down to his chest. This all made me realize that I now knew why my boyfriend drove all the way to Toluca Lake to buy his wine. Where else could you find a bar in a store that provided tastings in such a cool fashion.

And by that I mean this. They give you these cards that have a front and back. The front shows you all the wines that are being featured to taste and how much they cost per pour. We were celebrating Italian Wines that evening so I chose a few baritone-voiced reds. The backside had wines that were still left over from the tasting the night before, where you could now sample them all for a dollar. This was cool because even the pours from the previous night that had been 4 or 5 dollars per pour were now only a buck. For me, luckily this meant trying some nice French Rhones that were right up my romantic palette’s alley.

Then once you are done tasting you are offered all the bottles on the list for a discount price, an easy 4 – 10 dollars off they would normally cost had you just walked in and chose them off the shelves. I walked away a happy girl with three more reds for my collection, which I have now come to define as founded strongly in sexy, feminine Frenchies and hot, bullfight worthy Spanish and Italian reds.

Plus, they also offer you cheese to go along with the cracker and bread basket they give you for free. The cheeses are $2 a pop and you can pick your variety from a big basket of wrapped wedges. We discovered and fell head over heels for green, sage cheddar this evening alongside safe, familiar favorite Brie.

Another great find by my man, who I am pretty sure at this point I would even follow to the moon.

In Praise of the Local Taco Shops

Due to the large population of the Hispanic community in Southern California, you are pretty much guaranteed to find a great, cheap, down and dirty taco shop in just about any town you search for one. Not a plastic bench-seat and colorful-walled fast food joint mind you, but a place where food is made authentic and served up fast by those who really know what they are doing, just as if you were ordering from one of the corner food carts or wooden picnic bench outdoor places in the heart of the country itself. The best ones are typically basic counters with the usual bevy of combination plates on the menu, an island full of peppered and pickled hot mix vegetables and salsa varieties from low fire to high, swirling horchata machines and deli cases with some beer where you know you can eat a filling meal for about ten bucks. This isn’t gourmet food or fusion fare found in the high class Oaxacan restaurants or even standard sit down entrees like chili relenos or tamales, but convenience street food meant for a quick bite like simple, carne asada and pork meat tacos, burritos dry or smothered in ranchero sauce, tortas (meat sandwiches) and sopas (buns covered with meat, lettuce and cheeses).

Growing up in Southern California*, these taco shops have always been fixtures on my foodie landscape. Two hard shell tacos filled with shredded chicken meat, rice, beans and a bowl of crispy chips with verde sauce have passed my lips hundreds of times in the last decade.

I always enjoy it when I find one of these shops that goes above and beyond to offer something a little special and indigenous to the particular area it resides in or to the owner’s heart. A recent journey through San Fernando landed us at Tortas Ahogadas Las Originales where I enjoyed the novelty offering of BBQ pork tacos Mexican style aka two wet corn tortillas smothered in BBQ sauce (unlike American ideas of BBQ, this meant Heat rather than Sweet) and filled with copious amounts of shredded pork.

The tortas was filled with nice charred piece of beef and the usual toppings you would find on a hamburger.

A deli case offered many dessert treats like flan, rice pudding, jellos and fruit and the counter above it promised various kinds of frutas frescas, something I don’t often see in places like these, which basically mean all kinds of smoothies and sodas spiked and adorned with fresh fruits.

Our entire lunch was $15.  

*In honor of the Southern-California bred Mexican (by association) in me, here is one of my all-time poems by Sandra Cisneros: 

YOU BRING OUT THE MEXICAN IN ME 

You bring out the Mexican in me.
The hunkered thick dark spiral.
The core of a heart howl.
The bitter bile.
The tequila lágrimas on Saturday all
through the next weekend Sunday.
You are the one I'd let go the other loves for,
surrender my one-woman house.
Allow you red wine in bed,
even with my vintage lace linens.
Maybe. Maybe
For you.
You bring out the Dolores del Río in me.
The Mexican spitfire in me.
The raw navajas, glint and passion in me.
The raise Cain and dance with the rooster-footed devil in me.
The spangled sequin in me.
The eagle and serpent in me.
The mariachi trumpets of the blood in me.
The Aztec love of war in me.
The fierce obsidian of the tongue in me.
The berrinchuda, bien-cabrona, in me.
The Pandora's curiosity in me.
The pre-Columbian death and destruction in me.
The rainforest disaster, nuclear threat in me.
The fear of fascists in me.
Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
You bring out the colonizer in me.
The holocaust of desire in me.
The Mexico City '85 earthquake in me.
The Popocatepetl/Ixtaccíhuatl in me.
The tidal wave of recession in me.
The Agustín Lara hopeless romantic in me.
The barbacoa taquitos on Sunday in me.
The cover the mirrors with cloth in me.
Sweet twin. My wicked other,
I am the memory that circles your bed nights,
that tugs you taut as moon tugs ocean.
I claim you all mine,
arrogant as Manifest Destiny.
I want to rattle and rent you in two.
I want to defile you and raise hell.
I want to pull out the kitchen knives,
dull and sharp, and whisk the air with crosses.
Me sacas lo mexicana en mi,
like it or not, honey.
You bring out the Uled-Nayl in me.
The stand-back-white-bitch in me.
The switchblade in the boot in me.
The Acapulco cliff diver in me.
The Flecha Roja mountain disaster in me.
The dengue fever in me.
The ¡Alarma! murderess in me.
I could kill in the name of you and think
it worth it. Brandish a fork and terrorize rivals,
female and male, who loiter and look at you,
languid in your light. Oh,
I am evil. I am the filth goddess Tlazoltéotl.
I am the swallower of sins.
The delicious debauchery. You bring out
the primoridal exquisiteness in me.
The nasty obsession in me.
The corporal and venial sin in me.
The original transgression in me.
Red ocher. Yellow ocher. Indigo. Cochineal.
Piñón. Copal. Sweetgrass. Myrrh.
All you saints, blessed and terrible.
Virgen de Guadalupe, diosa Coatlicue,
I invoke you.
Quiero se tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Atarte. Amarrate.
Love the way a Mexican woman loves.
Let me show you. Love the only way I know how.