This reminds me of Rancho San Miguel Market here in Sac. It is a warehouse style place with an EXTENSIVE prepared food counter. All your carnitas, asada, lengua, etc available by weight. Also a bakery with HUGE conchas. That is not a euphemism.
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What about tortilla soup?
I used to order it first time at a new place to see there way of making it.
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And there are as many versions as there are casas!
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I would guess that “tortilla soup” is as varied as “pot roast”. Every cook makes it differently depending on the season and ingredients at hand. The measure of tortilla soup is probably best taken as the authenticity (there’s that word!) of the flavors and much less about individual ingredients. The worst tortilla soup I ever had came out of a kitchen that had a lot of Hispanic-looking faces in it, but the broth tasted like weak Better Then Bouillon with a handful of tortilla chips tossed in.
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I had the Sobre Masa video pop up in my Youtube feed just now. Brooklyn guy, originally from Oaxaca, who makes his own tortillas. Interesting to see his take on it.
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At Walmart the other day, I saw premade, raw tortillas. Just throw em into a pan. $4 for 10. I’ll stick with the masa.
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A fall into the rabbit hole led me back to this thread, and I thought of a couple of places that test the litmus of housemade tortillas as a sign of quality: Chevy’s Fresh Mex chain (with El Machino chugging away for all to see, cranking out tortillas by the dozen), and Old Town Mexican Cafe in Old Town San Diego SHP. At least at OTMC they have a bunch of abuelitas patting and cooking them on a placa, but the food there is pretty average. Not bad, and I wouldn’t have a problem going back there if circumstances dictated, but if I were on the prowl for Mexican food in San Diego, OTMC would be pretty far down that list.
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We had a Chevy’s for a while here in the Rogue Valley.
It closed and became an Olive Garden which is still going strong.
We almost do have a taco truck on every corner but Italian places are rare enough so as to ensure the success of OG.
And I agree with your tortilla idea.
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OTMC was decent for Mexican in SD and one of the better places in Old Town which was always a tourist “trap”. Their tequila/mezcal selection was always quite good
That’s a pretty low bar! Berta’s (which was not Mexican, but was in Old Town) was always my favorite in the area.
When we lived for many years in SD Old Town was one if the areas we always avoided when deciding on a restaurant (but there were a few business related dinner where I had the chance to enjoy OT restaurants )
There were a huge number of Chevy’s in the Bay Area when I arrived back in the 90’s, and the numbers seem to be dwindling every year. The food was about a half a step above Olive Garden in terms of quality and ‘authenticity’,
But not only did El Machino make a reasonably tasty tortilla, it kept the toddler daughter occupied during the totally unjustified but inevitable wait for a table.
After a few years in L.A. and learning what real tacos taste like, I stopped noticing them altogether.
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Add Austria to that list. Terrible.
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