Though we haven't been eating out as often on this trip as we once were, we try to pick our spots when we do, and recently we've had some great meals.
San Diego has tons of great Mexican food, so I did some research decided take Lily to a cheap, yet awesome taco place called Tacos el Gordo. The concept is pretty simple - small menu, order from one of three windows based on what you want, pay at one register, and devour. At first, Lily was a bit disappointed that they didn't have chicken on the menu. I was more than happy with that, as they did offer a small variety of my favorite pork and beef parts. The tacos de cabeza and beef shoulder tacos were excellent - tough cuts of meat well seasoned and cooked forever. The tortillas were handmade on a griddle by a lady through the night, supplying the line with wonderfully soft pillows that soak up the greasy meat of your choice. The best tacos of the night were the tacos de adobada - pork meat marinated and roasted on a spit - sometimes called al pastor in some joints. What made el Gordo's version so tasty was that the flame on the spit was burning crazy hot, so the meat got nice and crispy before it was sliced off for a taco. Also, the guacamole on top was thin (cream added?), saucy, and delicious. We left stuffed for around $15 for the two of us - excellent value.
We're in LA now, which is a great food city for both cheap ethnic food and more upscale eats. This afternoon, between lunch and dinner service, Lily and I were able to grab a seat at the bar at Pizzeria Mozza. This place is one of the hardest reservations to get in LA, mainly because of who owns it (Nancy Silverton-Mario Batali-Joe Bastianich collaboration) and because the pizza close to perfection. We ordered an antipasti of carmelized brussel sprouts with breadcrumbs. It was a simple, tasty dish, but a bit over-the-top with the amount of vinaiger used. All the pizzas looked great on the menu, and we decided to go with the one with bacon, guanciale (cured pork jowl), fennel sausage, salami, and mozzarella. My expectations were set insanely high for the quality of the pizza at Mozza, and by God it was as good as I had imagined. The sauce was a perfect balance of slight amounts of sweet, tang, salt, and spice. The meats were all high quality ingredients. But the highlight was the crust - oh my the crust was otherworldly. Usually when I eat pizza I scoff at the crust - usually Lily eats it for me. But wow - this crust was crispy, well browned, and slightly chewy, and the occasional almost-burned air bubbles were a treat. Dessert was very good - a caramel copetta (tuile cookie undernieth gelato) with marshmallow sauce and salted peanuts. It would have been better if there were less salted peanuts - they made it saltier than it was sweet. We left full having for $43. Pretty good value.
Leaving Mozza, Lily and I had a brief discussion on cheap ethnic food vs. fine dining food. If you look hard, you can find some really great, cheap food in some hole-in-the-wall places. While the pizza was great and the atmosphere hip at Pizzeria Mozza, we had an equally great time and ate lots of great food at Tacos el Gordo in San Diego, and we could've eaten three times at the taco place for the price of the bill at Mozza. I find myself leaning more and more toward the cheap, ethnic options and avoiding pretentious fine dining food when we eat out. I find that, for some reason, the great food that blue-collar locals stand in line for has more soul and is usually tastier than what I generally encounter at even what I consider to be pretty good upscale/fine dining restaurants.
That, and it's much easier on the wallet.
-Ben
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In my post La Morra travels I have come to a very similar conclusion about the quality in well chosen, what i like to call, "street food". Often I am not sure whether it is my palate or what, but often I find that the sheer simplicity of these types of food are satisfying and very simple to understand. Which is also why I agree in your estimation of the food at La Morra being vastly underrated.
The strength of La Morra, comes from the same reason why Italian food has such a wide appeal to many different people. Simplicity is the hallmark of Italian food and letting the ingredients do what they are best at. It is something that is held in common with Mexican cuisine and for that matter the traditional cuisines of many cultures that have long standing food traditions.
The common thread that runs through simplicity or national cuisines has more to do with past and present socio economic situations then tastes and palates. This thread is poverty, if you study the historical backgrounds of many of these cuisines, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, French, Russian, and German (yes I know I am grouping these into rather large categories because in fact the cuisines differ quite vastly within those countries, but for the sake of argument we will ignore that in this post) you find that poverty keeps coming up. Poverty played a key role in the development of such thing as the tortillas in Mexico, and red sauce in Italy.
The other strength I believe of La Morra, was something that we often talked about in the kitchen. Which was the ability of the staff to make simple food well. I often said that if you cannot make simple food well, then you do not have any business working in a “fancy” food kitchen. That is why I admire so much what you are doing, taking the time to learn the basics is important, because it builds a solid foundation! Ok I think I have responded enough for now……
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