This story is fifth in a series. Zach will be posting a new story on Mexican food in San Diego every Thursday until he leaves Southern California for the San Francisco Bay, where he will continue to write and edit for The Eaten Path.

I’ve never forgotten how, when my friends and I toured the taco lands of Los Angeles as college students, Cactus Taqueria and La Taquiza changed my fast food Mexican paradigm. When I leave San Diego, I think I will shed a tear for each Tijuana-style taco I’ve eaten… which means this particular farewell is going to be uglier than the endings of Menace II Society, La Bamba and Homeward Bound combined.

Living in San Diego is like leveling up in Fast Food Mexican: The Game. Like most Mexican food in SD, Tijuana-style tacos are more simple, more plain than their LA counterparts – and if you subscribe to the opinion, they are therefore more pure. Taco stands in Los Angeles usually make their business selling more than just tacos, but in SD, places like Tacos El Gordo sell nothing else, and even at taquerias with slightly more inclusive menus, like La Fachada, you won’t find anyone in line not anticipating a TJ taco. The workers at La Fachada make tortillas and prepare meat. They put one on top of the other, and they feel very comfortable with the idea that versality is not necessarily a virtue.

Except for the versatility of carne cookery. The main attraction at taquerias such as La Fachada is the selection of pig and cow parts available as taco stuffers, from the TJ favorite of carne asada to the quintessential street meat of adobado to the brains, esophaguses and small intestines of your favorite animals. One thing I’ve learned as a San Diegan is that each taco shop tends to be better at making one or two kinds of meat, and you never know which (all the better to eat more of you, my dears.)

TJ tacos will probably be what I miss most about this city. They’re small. I eat a lot of them at a time, which is partly why I love them so much. You can’t eat a birria burrito, a carnitas burrito and a cabeza burrito in the same sitting – at least, I hope you can’t, for your sake. The quick drive to Barrio Logan on my lunch breaks has turned La Fachada into my primary dealer, and quite possibly one of my favorite places on earth. It’s convenient and comfortable, and unlike other Mexican meccas between Chula Vista and the border, La Fachada doesn’t turn ordering food into an exam in linguistics.

Functionally, La Fachada is a clone of many taco shops in San Diego and California. There’s the La Fachada Restaurant, a building in the back of the parking lot that nobody goes into, and then there’s the trailer where the tacos are made. By the trailer is an open grill with onions, peppers and a pot of self-serve beans, picnic tables under a tarp ceiling, the salsita bar, a woman behind a portable cash register, and all of La Fachada’s loyal customers. In the back a young man grills the carne asada. In the trailer women assemble tacos. Under the canopy we await our food with a hot styrofoam cup of beans in our hands.

I’m still too gringo not to wrinkle my nose at certain sections of animals, like buche (pig esophagus) and lengua (cow tongue) – both very common orders at La Fachada and many other taquerias but both a little too chewy and slimy for my tastes. I’ve tried them all, though, and fortunately so; La Fachada’s tacos de tripa (small intestines) has become one of my favorite orders. The deep fried, crunchy tripe is heavily flavored and makes for perfect taco fodder. The adobado pork is not quite as good as El Paisa’s down the street, but the birria here is juicy beyond credibility.

La Fachada’s best options are cabeza and carnitas. La Fachada’s cabeza, extra tender and extra beefy, delivers head and shoulders above the competition, and the carnitas, while not as good as Super Cocina’s, are about as good as carnitas cooked in a trailer get. If you pair each taco with the correct salsa, it’s a meal worth writing the homies about.

As I continue to partake in more of the tacos de TJ in SD, it’s becoming increasingly clear that La Fachada does not serve the best in town. Even so, when the crying starts, most of those tears will represent the many lunch hours spent under that canopy, appreciating the simple varieties of a single meal. I might be able to eat that many tacos in an hour-long lunch break anywhere else, but only La Fachada can make me walk back into work with a smile on my face.

La Fachada
20 25th St
San Diego, CA 92102
(619) 236-8566

Zach’s San Diego Countdown
Week 1 – Super Cocina
Week 2 – Los ‘Bertos
Week 3 – El Tio Alberto
Week 4 – Ranas Mexico City Cuisine
Week 5 – La Fachada

I take pride in my ability to operate beyond the habit of “point-and-eat” food blogging.

The day Pies n Thighs returned to Williamsburg – opening its doors one block from my front door and mere hours after the Week of Eating In had ended – was no occasion for pride. It was an occasion for nonstop eating. And pointing. Oohing, aahing, and reveling in the moment I’d been awaiting for over two years. After five visits in as many days, I’m all too happy to tip my revelry cup with the following highlights of one of my favorite places to eat:

The Chicken Biscuit – $5

At first glance Pies n Thighs’ revived chicken biscuit seems an awkward update of the original – the new deal gives us a slightly smaller biscuit, bigger chicken filet, and less-than-crunchy exterior. These differences aside, this is still one of the best deals in town: undeniably moist, brimming with flavor and joyously doused in that loving mix of Louisiana hot sauce and honey butter (honey as an adjective, not an ingredient separate or equal to butter, is key here).

If the fact that you can order this during breakfast hours doesn’t send you running for the train to Williamsburg, remind me to punch you in the back of the neck the next time we meet.

The Chicken Box – $11


Packing an equal amount of bang for buck is Pies n Thighs’ fried chicken, arguably the best choice on the menu and victor over its counterparts all over town on the terms of value alone. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that the chicken is a shining example of the fluffy-yet-crunchy style that can make eating atomic payloads of grease and salt feel like munching on flower petals made of sunshine.

Pies n Thighs doesn’t offer the fried chicken box for breakfast, but I’ve eaten it out of the fridge first thing in the morning, and it most definitely works.

The Catfish Box – $10

Catfish was the fried offering I looked forward to most during my week of Pies and Thighs, and it did not disappoint. The attention to detail – in the quality of the fish, the gritty breading of the filets, the dual application of tartar and hot sauce, the two thick slices of pickle on sweet slaw, and the greased-to-a-crisp wedge of cornbread on the side – forms an incredibly top-heavy ratio of love-to-bite, not to mention the favorable balance of flavor to cost.

The Pulled Pork Sandwich – $10

I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to the fine folks at Pies n Thighs about just how they’ve been cooking their barbecue. On my first and second tastes, the pulled pork in this sandwich didn’t seem to have a trace of wood smoke, and the vinegar that had once been applied in liberal punches took more of a backseat, smoothing over the edge that made me love this item so much. Nostalgia for a more brutal form of barbecue aside, the messy meshing of flavors and textures in this sandwich still reigns over most other attempts at pulled pork I’ve tried in New York.

The Doughnut and Coffee – $2.50

While nothing will ever replace the glory of Peter Pan, the appearance of a brilliant and distinct old fashioned doughnut one minute from my apartment will definitely force me to examine my loyalties. Dancing outside the perimeter of cake and sprinkling cinnamon and sugar wherever it goes, this crusty ring of fried dough is just big enough to fill its own dish and just just humble enough to fit into a routine.

The Sides – $4


Not all side dishes here are created equal, but collard greens, baked beans, black eyed peas, cheese grits and slaw are all standouts that I’d recommend. The collards at Pies n Thighs are almost a destination dish in and of themselves: Hearty, smoky, spicy and porky, they make a strong case for the restaurant’s Southern cooking credentials.

The Rest of the Menu
I have yet to complete my homecoming tour of Pies n Thighs’ full menu, and I’m all kinds of excited for their brisket sandwich, their burger (supplied by the Meat Hook), their tar heel pie and their waffle (even if this means I have to put up with the nonsense that is weekend brunch).

The Space

Pies n Thighs was originally located in the back room of the Rock Star Bar. When the joint closed down in 2008, its owners promised “a newer, better hole in the wall,” and they have delivered. The effortlessly vintage expressions of comfort and familiarity that made the original location so inviting are fully intact, with over twice as much space and a lot more natural light to accommodate those warm, fuzzy feelings of deep fried affection.

I intend to reciprocate those feelings in full. At the least, I’ll get very full trying.

Pies n Thighs
166 S. 4th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
347.529.6090

This story is fourth in a series. Zach will be posting a new story on Mexican food in San Diego every Thursday until he leaves Southern California for the San Francisco Bay, where he will continue to write and edit for The Eaten Path.

When I think of Mexico City, I picture Aztec sporting events, names of gods that are really hard to spell, and those framed photographs of a faded, sepia cathedral that you see hanging in the occasional restaurante. I can’t help it. That’s just the image that has been burned into me since my very first bowl of albondigas soup.

Modern Ciudad de México stretches my imagination, and so does the city’s storied cuisine. It’s the Rome of Latin North America; all roads lead there, even el camino real; and Mexico City cuisine is an intersection of all Mexican food from border to border and coast to coast. Add the influence of international cuisines like Italian and French to the melting pot. Consider the emergence of Nouveau Mexican and fine dining, and the street culture of one of the biggest cities on the planet. Put it together and you have to wonder: is Mexico City the greatest food city in the world?

I may never know the answer to that question, but living in San Diego, I do have the privilege of visiting Ranas Mexico City Cuisine, a small family-owned restaurant in Spring Valley. Maybe Ranas can’t stand in for the inherently diverse food culture of Ciudad de México, but at least it can introduce me to “Mexico City cuisine,” which, as it turns out, isn’t just a deli-sized tri-folding menu with hundreds of selections ranging from the ceviches of the Pacific coast and Caribbean flavors of the Yucatan to the moles of Oaxaca and flank meat of the northern countryside. Instead, Ranas imports Mexico’s national range of cuisine after it’s been thrown into the melting molcajete, mortared into the consistency of cornmeal and repackaged for a modern city.

According to Ranas Mexico City Cuisine, the result of this process is a bunch of really delicious sauces.

Tucked into a large outdoor shopping center by a Fresh & Easy market in an East County suburb, Ranas Mexico City Cuisine is one of a kind, even in the diverse Mexican food haven of San Diego. Besides the cutesy logo, it’s just your average mom and pop restaurant with around ten tables, a father running the kitchen, and his son running the front, chatting up newcomers. The service is friendly, the free samples are customary and taking pictures of your food in the small sit-down restaurant is extra uncomfortable.

The best way to order off the menu is via sauce samples. There are some more familiar flavors, like the classic chipotle and red mole, for which the free samples were so delicious that it was a struggle not to order them, but there are a few new players, too, at least in my experience. The peanut butter or almond sauces, creamy, almost dessert-like sauces that would go great with chicken, taste almost Thai. The Entomatado sauce, an earthy tomatillo- and cactus-based sauce with no lack of spice, won me over instantly, and the Yucatan-inspired Cochinita Pibil’s achiote and orange juice flavors tasted both tropical and pueblo.

Unfortunately for Ranas Mexico City Cuisine, the dishes don’t live up to their dressings. This is a shortcoming that I’ve found multiple times in San Diego; such highly regarded mole dishes as Cantina Mayahuel’s and El Agave’s pour amazing sauces over criminally tasteless meat. Fortunately for Ranas, it costs a fraction of El Agave’s and Cantina Mayahuel’s prices to enjoy sauces just as delicious, and truthfully the faults of Ranas’s dishes are not that they are sub-par, but that the inspiring gravies are that good. The pork in the Cochinita Pibil and Entomatado dishes is dry and flavorless on its own, but drenched in their respective dressings, nobody can complain.

I do have one complaint, though: I’m a pussy. Due to a spicy level worth every one of its three chile symbols on the menu, I couldn’t finish the Entomatado Pork despite every desire to keep tasting the delicious gravy. I’m a big fan of tomatillo-based anything and the Entomatado did not disappoint. The Cochinita Pibil was a superior version of the overrated Mama Testa’s. It still wasn’t the Cochinita Pibil that I fell in love with in Los Feliz Village, but I would pour that citrusy and earthy sauce on anything.

I don’t know if Ranas accurately reflects Mexico City cuisine, but I hope so. The possibility that somewhere out there, those sauces are being poured over tender, juicy cuts of meat is a dream worthy of the hard-to-spell gods.

Ranas Mexico City Cuisine
9683 Campo Rd Ste A
Spring Valley, CA 91977
(619) 589-1792

Zach’s San Diego Countdown
Week 1 – Super Cocina
Week 2 – Los ‘Bertos
Week 3 – El Tio Alberto
Week 4 – Ranas Mexico City Cuisine
Week 5 – La Fachada

My favorite reason for eating in is that it brings people together and allows them to share. This is a counterintuitive statement for someone whose own family dinner table has always been a bit of a black hole, but perhaps that’s exactly why cooking with friends feels so satisfying to me. Last Friday ended with a group dinner at my apartment, and the final day of the challenge was devoted to my friends’ baby shower, which involved a very busy kitchen, a fried sweet potato recipe I learned from my mom, and a whole lot of tiny clothing.

1. Mix honey and a conservative amount of brown sugar in a saucepan and heat on lowest setting possible.
Stir and add lemon juice as needed to mix everything into a consistent glaze with the texture of maple syrup.

4. Allow potatoes to cool on a clean plate, then serve.

Sunday’s Meals
-Yogurt with frozen berries, sliced banana and granola
-Roasted mushrooms stuffed with cream cheese and garlic
-Fresh shrimp sauteed in butter and garlic
-Roasted chicken legs
-Pan-fried candied yams
-Coconut rice
-Steel cut oats with ripe banana

Tell a 20-something New Yorker that you’re spending the week eating in, and you’ll surely get some surprised responses; still, thanks to a new bloom of food-savvy home and community cooks (Cathy included), you probably won’t face blank stares. Tell a 20-something New Yorker that you’re no longer going to drink at bars or clubs, and you might have a harder time selling the idea that you haven’t completely receded from polite society.

Having been sober for twenty-two years of my life, I can say with confidence that there’s a world of socially contractual difference between missing a nice dinner out with friends and ditching the party afterward (or – even more to the point – showing up to the party but deciding not to drink). Not only is the bar tab of youth a more substantial drain on the metropolitan budget than food, for many it casts a deeper anchor in the currents of life.

Thankfully, the art of drinking in, which draws strength from its own coteries of home brewers, cocktail enthusiasts, beer geeks and Scotch guards, shares with the art of eating in a principle of higher standards – for the taste of alcohol, for it terms of service, for its sense of history and for the creativity and community that can foment inspiration in the simplest of forms. Add to this sense of pride in retaking booze the phenomenally low cost of imbibing at home, as well as the consideration that drinking well from your own liquor cabinet is much less demanding than eating well from your own kitchen, and you’ve got a comprehensive case for passing on that $50 night in a sweaty, crowded bar.

It’s definitely possible to eat sustainably and deliciously on a budget. Incorporating booze into that budget will allow you to further improve the quality of both endeavors – it’s because I don’t spend my Saturday night at a Manhattan bar that I don’t think twice about buying a high quality, sustainably farmed pork roast to cook for Tuesday’s dinner. This is softball coming from the mouth of a homebody, but for every dollar I save on drinking – which in my mind is more fun and more flavorful when done with friends in my living room – frees up a dollar for other forms of entertainment, including but not limited to fried chicken.

So, in terms of cash and culture, having friends over for cocktails was an integral part of my week of eating in. Investing in a few basic ingredients, almost all of which are nonperishable, will afford you a similar power. Since I’m a lover of whiskey, I offer here some basic knowledge and guidelines on how to make some outstanding cocktails with the classic American spirits: bourbon and rye.

Which whiskeys to mix?
While small batch distilleries are no joke, when it comes to filling your own liquor cabinet for the purpose of mixed drinks, you don’t need to shell out for weapons grade stock. Maker’s Mark is still the best all-purpose bourbon I’ve used – it’s fairly priced for its quality, its slightly sweet edge makes it perfect for whiskey drinks, and when all goes to Hell it’s great on its own.

Old Overholt ain’t so tremendous on its own, but gives you one mighty bang for your buck in whiskey cocktails. Sazerac is also a great value. If you’re going to be mixing your rye don’t do it with the nectar of higher shelf bottles.

Old Fashioned
-1 sugar cube or 1 tsp sugar or 1 oz. simple syrup
-Cocktail bitters to taste (at least 2 dashes)
-3 oz. bourbon or rye

Mix bitters and sugar well at bottom of glass. Add ice cube and bourbon. Stir to chill, then serve.

As you’ll see in today’s video, a good old fashioned is one of the most elegant drinks you can make, and it’s a lot easier than most bars make it seem. The simple combination of sugar, bitters and whiskey and straightforward process of mixing in the glass grants you complete control over every dimension of flavor. If you dislike sweetness, cut down on sugar. If you can’t take too much bitter, ease off on the bitters (or, better yet, experiment with different types of flavored bitters). If you’re a lightweight, pour less whiskey or boost the ice content. An old fashioned isn’t about stubborn proportions and long-held beliefs, it’s about simplicity, strength and good taste.

Manhattan
-1 oz. red vermouth
-3 oz. bourbon or rye
-Cocktail bitters to taste (at least 3-5 dashes)

Fill a mixing glass with ice cubes. Pour whiskey, vermouth and bitters into glass.
Stir to chill, strain into a chilled glass and serve.

The Manhattan is also a surprisingly simple drink, but offers subtle paths to failure. Namely: The inclusion of vermouth demands a stronger sense of balance to make sure everything plays nice. It also demands that whoever owns the vermouth does not leave it out on the shelf after opening; vermouth is one cocktail ingredient that is perishable, so buy the smallest bottle possible, refrigerate after opening and throw it out after a month. The rest is as printed: stir (don’t shake), don’t add or remove anything, and make sure to serve in a chilled glass, and you’ll be on your way.

Brooklyn
-1/2 oz. dry vermouth
-1/2 oz. Amer Picon or Cointreau
-1 1/2 oz. rye
-Dash or two of maraschino liqueur

Fill a mixing glass with ice cubes. Pour rye, vermouth and liqueurs into glass. Stir to chill, strain into a chilled glass and serve.

The Brooklyn might be my favorite here – buying maraschino liqueur and cointreau might seem excessive steps for one who wants to keep things simple, but it was definitely a worthwhile investment in my house. Mix as you would in making a Manhattan and you’ll be experiencing this cocktail’s sweet, smooth and punchy character in no time.

Infusing Liquor
Thanks to the natural properties of liquor, infusion is a simple process. Spices take well to gin; herbs, fruit and vegetables take well to vodka; and my favorite infusion, tea, takes extremely well to bourbon. Drop two bags of black tea into a mason jar of that wonderful stuff, let them steep for forty minutes or so, remove, and you’ll be left with the key ingredient in one of my favorite concoctions:

The Black Tea Manhattan
-3/4 oz. red vermouth
-3 oz. black tea-infused bourbon
-4 dashes Angostura bitters
-1 dash each coffee and cherry bitters, if present

Make a Manhattan. You should know how by now :]

Saturday’s Meals
-Yogurt with frozen berries and granola
-Red beans and toast
-Fuji apple
-Mixed greens with diced apple
-Braised lamb shanks with wine sauce
-Roasted beets and yukon gold potatoes
-Homemade blueberries-and-cream pie

Today’s post is a straight-up tutorial, entirely on video:

Friday’s Meals
-Yogurt with frozen berries and granola
-Quick-cook steel cut oats with ripe banana
-Fuji apple
-Home fries from scratch with Fried egg over easy
-Bugs on a log
-Mixed greens-and-apple salad with homemade basalmic dressing
-Pork schnitzel and sauteed yellow squash

This is the babka that officially sank my streak of eating in. Say what you will about my lapse in willpower, but if you utter a lowly syllable about the babka, you are banned from my life.

I spent this morning slushing down Bedford for a medical appointment. While trudging back up from the heart of Hasidic Williamsburg, I wasn’t feeling very hungry, but when you’re in a neighborhood as unique as this, hunger tends to be less powerful than the impulse to pounce while you’re in striking distance of a genuine artifact.

The irresistible temptation to take home an edible piece of whatever neighborhood one happens to occupy at any given moment is a core trait of many a worthy eater. I like to imagine myself as worthy; hence, when my friends knocked on my apartment door to help me shoot today’s video, $20 of Oneg Heimishe Bakery’s richest, densest, crustiest chocolate babka awaited their embrace. I had a maple cheesecake in my freezer and could have whipped up a batch of cookies in twenty minutes, but this wasn’t about sating my sweet tooth – it was about recognizing a beauty beyond my person (mere kismet that this particular loaf of beauty was like a dark, sweet brownie folded and swirled into a luscious, streusel-topped sweet bread).

After indulging in my share of the babka, I introduced my guests to one of my favorite forms of breakfast. Steel cut oats, a heartier form of the rolled oats with processed sweeteners I grew up eating on camping trips and on approximated winter mornings in Orange County, are head and shoulders above their single-serving neighbors in the cereal aisle.

While steel cut oats are not nearly as convenient to cook, technology has granted us a few great compromises in the form of quick-cook steel cut oats. Trader Joe’s, McCann’s and Coach’s Oats all sell 10-minutes-or-less renditions of their more traditional steel cut oat offerings, and they’re all delicious.

I spoke to Erin Zimmer, editor of Serious Eats and New York’s own oatmeal luminary, about the relative quality of the quick-cook oats in my kitchen, and she gave me the thumbs up; the main differences in the quick-cook varieties seem to be a finer cut and a partial cook before packaging, putting consumers one step ahead of the groat game.

So, once you’ve gotten ahold of a can of oats, how exactly do you translate them into satisfaction?
Here’s my answer, in moving pictures:

Thursday’s Meals
-Yogurt with frozen berries and granola
-Quick-cook steel cut oats with ripe banana
-Chocolate babka from Oneg Heimishe’s and Oslo Coffee’s “Thor” through French press
-Quick-cook steel cut oats with a ginger, brown sugar and molasses
-Blood orange
-Leftovers from Day Three
-Raw carrots with homemade hummus

This story is third in a series. Zach will be posting a new story on Mexican food in San Diego every Thursday until he leaves Southern California for the San Francisco Bay, where he will continue to write and edit for The Eaten Path.

In regards to the question of which California city has the best Mexican food, style must be a factor. Every taqueria has its own estilo, whether it’s up on the sign or not. Most taco shops in San Diego can be defaulted to estilo Baja or even estilo Tijuana, because essentially, that’s what San Diego Mexican food is: Baja border-style. Tortillas are grilled instead of steamed, there are always fish tacos on the menu, and everything is served with extra guacamole. Whether or not LA’s or SF’s style of Mexican food is better or worse falls into preference. I’ve met a person from the bay area who thought the idea of a burrito sans rice was disgusting. So be it.

I think the idea of a burrito con rice is akin to a Big Mac, or a club sandwich. I accept the existence of the extra carbohydrate in the middle, but I don’t see the point. That said, I think rice makes a whole lot more sense than San Diego’s potato anti-famine. Items like the California burrito (carne asada and potatoes), Texas burrito (chicken and potatoes), potato taquitos, and carne asada fries make little sense to me. It’s like you wanted to eat some delicious Mexican food, but right before you took a bite, some asshole shoved a bland baked potato in your mouth.

When I leave San Diego, I will miss the Mexican food, but I don’t think I will miss some of the taco shop menus. Read the specials above and tell me you don’t question the tastiness of Shrimp French Fries.

It’s said that border cities bring out the worst in each country. I’m not sure if that extends to food, but it would go a long way in explaining why my favorite places to eat Mexican food in San Diego are not simply San Diego-style taco shops, and likewise, my favorite of the many ‘Berto’s restaurants separates itself from the fast food pack by serving food estilo Veracruz. At most ‘Bertos, ordering seafood is the opening line of a cautionary tale, but at El Tio Alberto, not ordering fish and rice is a pity. The menu offers all the usual taco shop staples, as if it were a requirement of using the -berto name, but not in the stead of great seafood served with salsa verde, whole limes and no unwanted side effects.

I think one of the most telling signs of a taqueria is the age of the chefs in the kitchen, and El Tio Alberto’s kitchen is only operated by women over the age of fifty. That one of these senoras is dependably rude to me also emblazons my opinion, and sure enough, the food is damn good. Even Tio Alberto’s non-Veracruz items are above average, which is why it has replaced Ray’s as my go-to neighborhood taco joint, and why I’ve recently made a habit of watching muted telenovelas in the colorfully decorated shop, a hole in the wall tucked invisibly into an unattractive corner between a liquor store and Roberto’s #10.

Of course, it’s the estilo Veracruz that keeps me coming back. The classic pescado a la Veracruzana, a grilled fish in spicy tomato sauce, is meaty and stew-like with a broth that I would gladly drink. The fish and shrimp burritos are perfect examples of how to use rice in a burrito correctly. And if you’re even a casual fan of McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish, Tio Alberto’s pescado torta will blow you away in that where-did-my-sandwich-go kind of way.

Regarding the question of which California city has the best Mexican food, I think El Tio Alberto should be offered as evidence in San Diego’s case. It isn’t the greatest food in the world, or in SD, nor is it a known name like Las Cuatro Milpas, Tacos El Gordo or Mariscos German. It’s just a run-of-the-mill, family-owned and operated taco shop that takes its cues from Roberto’s, throws in some Veracruz flare and never gets very busy, but always serves, without exception, good, fast and cheap Mexican food.

That this grungy little place can serve pedestrians at consistently high quality is the best proof that San Diego is a great place for food estilo Mexico. If the question were, “Which California city has the best Mexican food on average?,” my money would be on San Diego, and it’s because so-called average places like El Tio Alberto are so damn above average.

El Tio Alberto Taco Shop
2810 El Cajon Blvd
San Diego, CA 92104
619.528.0697

Zach’s San Diego Countdown
Week 1 – Super Cocina
Week 2 – Los ‘Bertos
Week 3 – El Tio Alberto
Week 4 – Ranas Mexico City Cuisine
Week 5 – La Fachada

A vengeful sinus infection has been making my already hectic week fundamentally Hellish, but thanks to my batch cooking reserves, whole grains and abundant produce I’ve continued to eat in well. Since I didn’t have the time or strength to produce a video this afternoon, I thought I’d share my favorite way to go about said batch cooking.

Red beans and rice is one of my all-time favorite foods, and given how nutritious, tasty and filling it can be, I’m not content to relegate to the status of a soul food side. Making a batch of red beans, or any other pot of beans or stew at the beginning of the week, is the best insurance you can have against sneak attacks by hunger or inconvenience. Making said beans in a pressure cooker cuts the time needed to prepare a good pot by more than half and eliminates the need to watch and stir, which means for chump change (I’m pretty sure it costs me less than five bucks to make a week’s worth of red beans) and about an hour of time you can have one of the finest foods in the world ready for reheating at any time in your fridge.

Over the past year I’ve sculpted this great pressure cooker recipe into a go-to pot of beans that I consider perfect:

Sweet Heat Red Beans – Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon bacon fat
1 green pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground mixed peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 cup dried red beans, soaked overnight in water
3 1/2 cups ham or chicken stock
4 bay leaves
2 links andouille sausage (or any other meat you like)
5-6 tablespoons molasses
Louisiana style hot sauce to taste

Sweet Heat Red Beans – Directions
-Warm the oil and fat in the pressure cooker over medium heat.
-Add pepper and celery with a big pinch of salt, then sauté for 5 minutes or until soft.
-Add garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes. Don’t let it burn!
-Mix the spices together, toss into the pressure cooker, and stir everything around.
-Add ham stock, beans and bay leaves, and bring to a boil.

-Lock on the lid, and bring to pressure over high heat.
(alternately, bring to a simmer and slow cook for a hella long time – 2 hrs?)
-Reduce heat to medium and cook at pressure for 10 minutes.
-Remove from heat and let pressure drop.
(you can use cooking tongs at a distance to do this manually)

-Meanwhile, brown the andouille on all sides in a skillet and cut into chunks.
-Once pressure has dropped, add the sausage and hot sauce, lock the lid back on, and bring back to pressure.
-Cook at pressure for 5-10 minutes.
(alternately, keep at a simmer and stir until gravy has reduced to your liking)
-Remove from heat and let the pressure drop.
-Serve with whole grains!

A few tips for great red beans:
1. Always soak your beans in water. Even if you’re using a pressure cooker, soak your beans overnight to reduce the amount of time you’ll need to cook them and ensure that they won’t turn out tough or brittle.
2. Don’t skip the molasses. They’ll firm up the beans just a bit and impart a nice, subtle sweetness – as well as a beautiful, dark red color.
3. Add a healthy dose of Bruce Louisiana Hot Sauce or Red Rooster Hot Sauce (or whatever other Louisiana style sauce is available) to your beans halfway through the cooking process to give it an irreplaceable Southern tinge.
4. Match your beans with different grains. I personally love pairing them with Russian kasha, which is essentially whole grain buckwheat. Kasha are grains much more tender and protein-packed than whole rice grains, and their gritty, wheaty taste is something to savor along with the beans.
5. Experiment! I like sweet heat, but by and large beans are very forgiving, so go buck wild with this one batch at a time. Try different spices and ingredients to your liking until you’ve reached your go-to recipe for a fantastic dish.

Dinner with roomie tonight was a spectacular one-roasting-pan meal: one-third of a whole pork roast from Dickson’s Farm Stand Meats, rubbed with olive oil, sea salt, ground peppercorns, dried rosemary and parsley, then allowed to slow cook in its own fat for two hours (the right way to “set it and forget it”); diced Greenmarket yams coated and roasted in that very same fat as it dripped from rack to pan; and imported asparagus (it’s been out of season for a while, but I get cravings) cooked in exactly the same way.

With the aid of a meat thermometer to tell me when the pork had reached 155 degrees, cooking the roast was ludicrously easy, with a huge payoff: a beautifully browned, crisp and lucious crust of fat, tender and juicy center cut meat, and just a simple cover of basic herbs to set off the natural flavors of a great piece of pork. After cooking directly beneath the pork, the yams, which had developed a nice, savory crust of their own, were pretty much the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever had.

Which reminds me: There is a video for today, after all!

Wednesday’s Meals
-Quick-cook steel cut oats with ripe banana (tomorrow’s story will be all about its brilliance)
-Fuji apple
-Yogurt with frozen berries and granola (why not eat this every day?)
-Red beans and Russian kasha
-Blood orange
-Raw carrots with homemade hummus
-A brittle slice of toast that was left in the toaster during yesterday’s video shoot
-Herb crusted pork loin roast with pork fat roasted sweet potatoes and asparagus
-Orange juice with seltzer water

When people hear the word “whole foods,” I think a cloud of buzzwords typically attached to the phrase makes the concept more obtuse than it needs to be. A whole food is simply a natural food that hasn’t been processed, and thinking about it this way makes it a lot easier to incorporate whole foods into your diet.

The healthy whole foods easiest to throw into your routine are raw fruits and vegetables. Realistically speaking, you won’t always eat what’s local and in season, but by seeking out a variety of fresh produce you’re bound to step up your nutrition and improve your palette. You’ll also stock your kitchen with colorful and flavorful ways to stave off hunger – what’s simpler than washing off a carrot or peeling an orange?

Good grains constitute another diverse whole food group that is easy to incorporate into daily eating. Cathy has gone into the bounty of grains more than once her blog, and I regularly buy two whole grains – brown rice and Russian kasha – that have great nutritional value, distinct textures and good flavor. There’s no big mystery to preparing these foods, either – buying a small rice cooker will make cooking whole grains effortless.

My favorite whole food, though, has to be the egg. I’ve expressed my dissatisfaction with brunch a couple of times on this blog, and one of the causes of my aversion to brunch is that as soon as I learned to make my own eggs, I had no desire to wait for twenty minutes and pay an arm and a leg to have someone else do it for me. I don’t mean to say I’m ready to compete in the short order olympics (O, Lord, why do these not exist yet?). Once I demystified the presentation of eggs, though, I learned to enjoy them and their many subtleties way more than I did when I was at a different brunch place every weekend.

That said, today’s video isn’t about how to make the perfect egg, but about how to just get up and do it for yourself, in two easy ways. I’m a bit worried that a lot of our readers this have no use for the actual information it contains, but I’ve met enough people who are intimidated by the mere thought of flipping their own eggs to keep me motivated.

Tuesday’s Meals
-Yogurt with frozen berries and granola
-Banana
-Fried egg and toast
-Omurice
-Vegetable soup
-Roasted beet, sweet potatoes and green beans
-Sauteed sirloin
-Blood orange