by BS
This al pastor taco chef at Pepe’s in Puerto Vallarta is a fucking artist. Watch how the pineapple slices fall effortlessly on to each taco.
(Video: Holly Ellis)
Menu
tacos
by Katt Kasper
Inebriated……clobbered……blitzed……hammered……obliterated……tanked……soused……ripped…..oh, sorry. I was just looking at some pictures of past dinner parties that I’ve hosted. And I’ve made a shocking realization—my friends can’t hold their liquor!
I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to figure that out, considering that on two separate occasions my mailbox ended up on the hood of someone’s car shortly after the conclusion of my party. Or the time that one of my friends unwillingly used the sprinklers on my lawn as his alarm clock. (He still made it to work on time. Air traffic controllers start pretty early around here.)
Could it be that I’ve missed the warning signs in the past? I thought those Christmas card mug shots were pretty funny. And if the guy on the corner doesn’t like people driving across his lawn, he ought to put up a fence! Could it be that we’re just getting older, slowing down, becoming (dare I say it?)….responsible?
Now that most of my friends and I are in our mid to upper fifties, I guess that a little easing up should be expected. Some of us are on our second or third spouse, hip, shoulder or knee. Could that piece of charcoal that passes as our liver be next? Does alcohol compliment food, or the other way around? What was I talking about……?
Oh yeah, booze……hooch……giggle juice……rotgut……moonshine……grog……sauce…..god, my mouth is watering. Man, I need a drink. And some food. Oh yeah, food! THAT’S what this piece is supposed to be about. Food that soaks up booze. Fried food, like fish, which I hear is good for your brain, although I can’t remember who told me that. Fish tacos are not only fried, but they’re even MADE with booze. So here’s a recipe that covers all the bases and still gives you a good dose of omega-3s, which the brain cells that aren’t slaughtered by the alcohol will be very happy to receive.
Katt’s Baja Brain Boosters
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by BS
Obviously ES couldn’t leave San Diego without eating tacos. And by “eating tacos,” of course I mean trying every last tortilla-based product our hungry little mouths came across.
One place in particular, Las Cuatros Milpas, a hole-in-the-wall in the far-flung Barrio Logan neighborhood, came highly recommended. The line stretches out the door, the wait is 20+ minutes, and there are only five things to order. Surprisingly though, we were less-than-wowed by the tacos, which came out of the deep fryer dripping in grease. Off day? Unclear. But it didn’t matter, because most of my attention was focused on the other item we ordered—chorizo con huevos:
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by BS
I am normally extremely skeptical of any Mexican food that is billed as high-end, farm-table, or just generally cooked by white people. It’s not that Mexican food can’t be creative or fancy, it’s just that in my experience I have found “modern Mexican” to generally mean smaller tacos, higher prices, and less flavor than the taco trucks (and of course — the dreaded no free chips and salsa).
So of course I was hesitant when I head that San Diego’s hot taco spot of the moment is Carnitas Snack Shack, a new venture from Chef Hanis Cavinserves (red alert – chef!) that serves slow food-inspired, pork-centric American cuisine, snacks and locally sourced craft beers. But then again, I’ve never turned down any meal described as pork-centric. I’m almost embarrassed to report that this was the best taco I ate in California. Slow-cooked salmon creek farm pork carnitas are layered on fresh, hearty homemade tortillas and topped with a vividly green mound of guacamole. The crispy-on-the-edges, melty on the insides strands of pork are like a weird, amazing fusion of southern BBQ and traditional Mexican. Fine, maybe Mexican food is allowed to get inventive after all.
But that was only the begining of a pork party that would know no bounds…
