A completely random set of circumstances brought me to this Ross parking lot on my way to Oakland last Saturday- I forgot to bring my basketball shorts from home that I needed to use for hoops later in the day so I stopped by the first store along 880 that looked like might have them, after striking out in EPA earlier.
I noticed on my way in that there was a man and a woman selling tamales out of a van in the parking lot. I was going to grab some lunch in Oakland Chinatown but didn’t feel like dealing with the parking, and I got interested in the tamales. So I ended up buying my shorts and my lunch all in one shot.
The tamales were about double the size of what a usual corn husk Mexican tamales were. I grabbed two because they looked pretty big. They were wrapped in banana leaves. One was chicken and the other was pork. Both were made with achiote paste. Masa was distinctively not Mexican. After I finished the tamales in the car, I went back to the van to ask them if these were Guatemalan tamales. The gentleman said yes. I mentioned where I been to in Guatemala years ago (specifically, Xela), and he said that he was (and I don’t if she was too) from Huehuetenango, which was in the rural mountains about 4 hours north of Xela, near Chiapas, Mexico.
They were all out of champurado unfortunately.
If you want homey Guatemalan tamales around Union City, give them a try. $5 each.
