Modern Mexican Fare at Alvarado on Main in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Modern Mexican Fare at Alvarado on Main in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I tried two modern Mexican dishes at Alvarado on Main in downtown Salinas, California recently that might interest adventurous diners. 

The first dish I tried was a street corn salad. Street corn is roasted and called esquites in Spanish. The roasted kernels in this salad were mixed with creamy cotija cheese from Mexico. Then, the esquites was mixed with baby salad greens that Salinas is famous for. 

The corn was sweet and full of vitamin C while the cotija cheese had protein and calcium. All good things to go with the fresh salad as a vegetarian delight. 

I order salads, so I do not feel bad about the calories if I get in dessert. I decided to order dessert at Alvarado on Main and had a Mexican hot chocolate pot de crème pudding made with Ibarra chocolate. 

Whipped cream topped off the pot de crème with a liberal dusting on sugar, cinnamon, and powdered hot chile pepper. 

Powdered hot chile peppers are an acquired taste, but the peppers, chocolate, and cinnamon are all good antioxidants made sweet with sugar. 

These dishes can be served pretty quickly for lunch customers and are good take-out items. Both are more winning dishes from Alvarado on Main in downtown Salinas, California. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Beach Fare at Michael's Taqueriía in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Beach Fare at Michael’s Taquería in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

The La Playa Combo (Beach Combination) at Michael’s Taquería in downtown Salinas, California reminds you that Western America Salinas is only two miles away from the Pacific Ocean on the Monterey Peninsula. 

This generous combination platter has charbroiled shrimp (large enough to be considered gambas), blackened chicken, and a cheese enchilada covered in mild red chile sauce. The sides that come with this dish include refried black beans, Mexican rice, lime-chile sauce, fresh red salsa, and warm tortillas. 

I like to use the warm tortillas to make soft tacos. I make one taco with the charbroiled shrimp, Mexican rice, black beans, and lime-chile sauce. For the other tacos I make with the warm tortillas, I slice up the blackened chicken and add the chicken strips to the tortillas along with the Mexican rice, black beans, and fresh red salsa. 

After eating my little beach tacos, I feel like the cheese enchilada in mild red chile sauce is a dessert. I like the asadero melting cheese made from goat and cow’s milk, which comes from the northwestern Mexican state of Chihuahua. 

I drink Topo-Chico Mexican sparkling water with the La Playa Combo or Negro Modelo beer from Mexico and feel like I am on vacation in Mexico without leaving Salinas, California. 

Note: There is a parking garage by the Steinbeck Center on Main Street by Michael’s Taqueria.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Blackened Shrimp Quesadilla at Michael's Taquería in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Blackened Shrimp Quesadilla at Michael’s Taquería in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

Shrimp taco lovers might enjoy the blackened shrimp quesadilla (pronounced “kay-sa-dee-ya”) combination plate at Michael’s Taquería in downtown Salinas, California. 

A quesadilla is a large flour tortilla that is grilled with fillings inside and turned in half to look like an Italian calzone. 

At Michael’s, they fill their quesadilla combination plate with blackened shrimp, sautéed mushroom slices, green onions cut on the diagonal, and melted asadero cheese. 

The quesadilla comes with a small helping of guacamole, pico de gallo salsa, and red salsa. Pico de gallo salsa is made with chopped peppers, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, and chopped cilantrao. 

The sides that come with the blackened shrimp are refried black beans with softened asadero melting cheese on top and Mexican rice. 

Asadero is Mexican cheese made of goat and cow’s milk that mostly comes the Mexican state of Chihuahua in northwest Mexico. Mexican rice at its most basic is made from chicken broth and tomato juice, which gives it a beautiful orange-red glow. 

I like to eat Mexican rice with the refried beans that I mix with red salsa. I can use these two items mixed together as a dip for the tortilla chips that come with the meal. 

This delicious blackened shrimp quesadilla combination plate at Michael’s Taquería in downtown Salinas might appeal to shrimp and chicken taco lovers alike.

(Note: There is a parking garage by the Steinbeck Center on Main Street and street parking by Michael’s.) 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Taquería Jackpot in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget

Taquería Jackpot in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget 

I love Mexican food, so I was very happy to move to Salinas, California with its many taquerías and restaurants serving food from all the regions of Mexico. 

I did an online search to see how many tauerías there are in Salinas and counted 68 as of May 2024. It is very easy to do Taco Tuesday in Salinas with that many taquería in town. 

Almost all of these taquerías can do a combination platter or platillo for about $15 to $20. Taco combination platters usually come with the following items: 

-2 blackened chicken tacos with shredded cabbage or lettuce and melted Swiss cheese 

-refried black beans with softened cotija cheese on top. (Cotija cheese is like Greek feta cheese in that it does not melt and has a slightly tangy flavor. Cotija comes from the western Mexican state of Michoacán on the Pacific Ocean.) 

-Mexican rice, which at its most basic is boiled with chicken broth and tomato juice to give it a nice orange-yellow glow.

-2 small containers of pico de gallo salsa made with chopped hot peppers, tomatoes, onons, and cilantro 

-2 lime quarters to squeeze into beer, diet soda, water, or tacos 

I think this is a nice combination of food for $15 to $20. Almost any taquería can do catering for combination platters with some advance notice, too. 

Having food like this available allowed me to have a simple yet cost effective food system in place when my daughter Florence Paget was a teenager. Anyone in the family could make the following items or buy them from a restaurant: 

Monday – pasta night with marinara sauce, shredded gruyère cheese, boiled eggs, prosciutto, and salame

Tuesday – Taco Tuesday with combination platters 

Wednesday – Pizza Day 

Thursday – Asian Restaurant Day or Costco Yakisoba at home 

Friday – Baked fish with onions and potatoes or baked fish with chopped tomatoes and onions 

Saturday – Baked chicken 

Sunday – Macaroni and cheese or lasagna

I would serve lettuce, fruit salad, and a slice of cheese to go with these meals. 

I did not always stick to this plan, but it helped me take inventory to make shopping lists and have items on hand to easily make these meals. 

I am a big fan of Taco Tuesday for making food systems like this possible and love it that I can get tacos at 68 food outlets in Salinas, California. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Guerrero (Mexico) Fare by Ruth Paget

Guerrero (Mexico) Fare by Ruth Paget 

Author Rachel Glueck offers an insider’s view of the Mexican state of Guerrero in her cookbook The Native Mexican Kitchen: A Journey into Cuisine, Culture and Mezcal. Glueck is married to an indigenous Mexican, who leads an Aztec dance troupe and runs a restaurant that serves Mezcal often made by members of his family. 

Guerrero is most famous for its resort city of Acapulco on the Pacific Coast of Mexico that heads south towards Central America. In Glueck’s introductory remarks, she notes that there are 65 indigenous groups in Mexico, that corn is revered for providing sustenance, and that the indigenous milpa cropping system grows beans, squash, chiles, and/or tomatoes together with corn. The milpa crops are all native to Mexico.  

The rest of Guerrero’s cuisine reflects the fusion of Spanish and indigenous foods. Pork and cheese, for instance, are of Spanish origin. The indigenous and Spanish ingredients come together in a dish of Oaxacan origin (Oaxaca is Guerrero’s neighboring state to the south) called a tlayuda, which people in Guerrero also eat. 

The tlayuda resembles a large, crunch tostada, but features asientos de puerco as a spread. Asientos de puerco is the settled fat from frying lard with remaining crunchy bits. I might substitute a salsa verde (green sauce made from Mexican green tomatoes) in place of asiento de puerco as a spread. On top of the tlayuda spread, cooks place refried beans, a shredded meat, lettuce, tomato, avocado, cheese, and salsa. The tlayuda is a filling dish made of simple ingredients that is enhanced with great salsas. 

Marge Poore, who wrote 1,000 Mexican Recipes, says that salsas are the distinguishing feature of Mexican cuisine. Glueck provides recipes for indigenous sauces that probably show up in Acapulco since they go well with fish or pork. Glueck’s sauce recipes are easy to follow and usually follow the pattern of sautéing vegetables, blending the cooked vegetables, putting the vegetables back in a pan to warm them, and stirring in the final ingredients like chunks of mango or pineapple. 

Glueck’s commentary on life in Guerrero often makes you overlook her recipes, but they are excellent and give an introduction to what indigenous food in Mexico is like.  

The following recipes might interest first-time cooks trying Mexican food: 

-peanut salsa made with peanuts, chiles, onions, tomatoes, and garlic cloves 

-salsa de piña made with pineapples for fish and pork 

-salsa de mango made with mangos and a favorite for fish or pork in Acapulco 

-tortilla soup made with chiles, garlic, onion, tomatoes, water or chicken stock, cream, cotija cheese, and avocado with garnishes like cabbage, avocado slices, and tortilla chips 

-pozole rojo soup from Jalisco (a state north of Guerrero) made with chicken breasts or pork leg, white hominy, corn, tomatillos, and chiles 

-esquites – Mexican street corn served with cream, cheese, chile powder, and lime 

-carnitas – Mexican pork belly braised with orange juice. 

 -liver and onions tacos 

The Native American Kitchen by Rachel Glueck has well-written recipes and is a good introduction for cooks who would like to make their first forays into Mexican indigenous cooking. 

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Quesadilla Appetizers $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget

Quesadilla Appetizers $ Food Hack by Ruth Paget 

Quesadillas (pronounced kay-sa-dee-yas) are delicious, inexpensive, and healthy depending on what you put in them. 

Basically, a quesadilla is a warmed flour tortilla that is folded over to make a half moon shape with warm stuffing inside. You can eat a quesadilla whole as a meal or cut them into thirds to make appetizers. 

To make a filled quesadilla, place stuffing on half of the flour tortilla. Then, fold over the part without stuffing on top of the stuffing. Warm in a microwave for 3 minutes. Usually, you only put pre-cooked items in a quesadilla to warm up like steak or chicken. 

Three of my favorite stuffings follow: 

-cheese with a generous sprinkling of Southwest seasoning on top 

-scrambled eggs with melted cheese and salsa 

-black beans, melted cheese, and a topping of canned jalapeño peppers (I use canned black beans for the filling.) 

-peanut butter and jelly 

You can make all of these quesadillas in less than half an hour and a bag of flour tortillas is pretty inexpensive. The real secret of appetizers, though, is that you can mix and match them and turn them into a complete dinner pretty easily. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Homage to Las Brisas Restaurant in Detroit, Michigan by Ruth Paget

Homage to Las Brisas Restaurant in Detroit (Michigan) by Ruth Paget 

I learned to appreciate Mexican food at a young age when my mom took me to Las Brisas Mexican Restaurant in Detroit’s Mexican Village Neighborhood on Vernor Highway. 

My mom always ordered what Las Brisas called a botana (today’s super nachos). I just loved the mountain of botana food – warm tortilla chips covered with ground beef, black beans, melted cheese, spicy peppers, chopped green onions, and sour cream. I thought that tasted like a crunchy garden burger. I still like crunchy food. 

I walked to school in Detroit’s Siberian winters, so I had no problem polishing off the botana and not gaining any weight. I still had room for a chimichanga, which I ordered just because I liked the name of the food item. 

A chimichanga is a deep-fried burrito. I would order a chimichanga with beans and cheese, because that was the kind of burrito I ordered at Jack in the Box. (There was a Jack in the Box near our house in Royal Oak, but that is another story.) 

I loved the crunchy chimichanga with gooey cheese inside. I topped it off with hot sauce and sour cream and thought that chimichangas should be sold at Jack in the Box, too. (Hint! Hint!) 

I also loved going to Detroit in the 1970s for restaurants even if places like Las Brisas had to have security in the parking lot. I still do not mind paying to park in a garage today for security when I go to restaurants.  

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Mexican Chorripollo in Smyrna, Georgia by Ruth Paget

Mexican Chorripollo in Smyrna, Georgia by Ruth Paget 

One restaurant that my husband Laurent and I go back to several times when we visit Atlanta is The Border, located north of the city in Smyrna, Georgia. 

One of my new favorite dishes there is Texas guacamole, which arrives in a Texas-sized, 8-inch across the top mortar with crushed avocado, chopped tomato, chopped peppers, chopped onions, and cilantro. I love guacamole, and it is a dream to have that much good guacamole to eat. 

One of the dishes I like to eat at The Border is chorripollo. “Chorri” refers to the spicy chorizo sausage in the dish. “Pollo” in Spanish means “chicken.” 

The Border serves this dish with flattened and grilled breast meat. They take off the sausage skins and cook the sausage. The sausage goes on top of the chicken breast along with melted cheese. 

Chorripollo comes with rice, black beans, and flour tortillas. I cut the chorripollo into strips and place these in the tortillas along with the rice and beans to make tacos. That is yummy. 

This salty dish along with a frozen margarita is very satisfying in Atlanta’s torpid summer heat with thunderclouds billowing upwards in the sky. 

Chorripollo is not as well known as other Mexican dishes, but if you would like to try it, The Border’s version of it is delicious. 

The Border Restaurant 

2569 Cobb Parkway SE 

Smyrna, Georgia 30080 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Seafood $ Hack in Smyrna, Georgia by Ruth Paget

Seafood $ Hack in Smyrna, Georgia by Ruth Paget 

Georgia’s incomparable, briny, and plump shrimp can be pricey on most Atlanta menus, but if you expand your dining horizons to Mexico, you can find delicious shrimp at reasonable prices. 

On visits to The Border Restaurant in Smyrna (Georgia), my husband Laurent eats Camarones al mojo de ajo (shrimp in garlic sauce). The shrimp is mild flavored and arrives with Spanish rice and tortillas to be made into tacos. 

Shrimp is very good for you, if you do not eat it in excess. (If you are allergic to seafood, obviously do not eat it.) 

According to www.medlineplus.gov and www.healthline.com - shrimp has the following nutrients that support vital functions in the body: 

-iron: helps with muscle formation and oxygen use 

-phosphorous: helps with bone and teeth formation and maintenance and repair of cells 

-potassium: helps with nerve function and muscle contraction 

-magnesium: helps with nerve and muscle function, supports the immune system, and helps form strong bones 

Shrimp does have high sodium levels, but when in the southern US in the summer, I actually welcome salt in the diet. 

The Border Restaurant has great frozen margaritas to go with this delicious shrimp dish as well. 

The Border Restaurant 

2569 Cobb Parkway 

Smyrna, Georgia 30080 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Mexican Food in Smyrna, Georgia by Ruth Paget

Mexican Food in Smyrna, Georgia by Ruth Paget 

One of my favorite reliable spots for Mexican food north of Atlanta, Georgia (off Cobb Parkway by Red Lobster) is The Border Mexican Restaurant. As a Californian, I eat Mexican food three times a month and Asian food once a month. When I travel, I seek out both of these foods. I would say that these foods in Atlanta are not as spicy as they are in California, but are still flavorful and healthy. 

One of The Border’s big treats is Texas Guacamole. This guacamole is a flavorful blend of tomato, onion, cilantro, and lots of avocado. Our guacamole arrived in a basalt mortar that was 8 inches across the top and full of guacamole. My husband Laurent and I spent half an hour eating this silky appetizer.

Frankly, I think the Texas guacamole alone is worth a visit to The Border Restaurant, but we did order meals to go with it. 

I tried one of my favorite Mexican restaurant dishes: enchiladas verdes. This dish is shredded chicken rolled up in soft wheat tortillas and covered in mild, green tomatillo tomato sauce. Black beans and Spanish rice come with this meal and tasted very Californian with the hot sauce I added to them. 

Laurent tried steak tacos with cilantro and onion. He added dollops of guacamole to them and thought that was a great combination. 

The Border Restaurant has delicious, unpretentious food. It is moderately priced as well, which you cannot beat in pricey Atlanta. 

The Border Restaurant 

2569 Cobb Parkway SE Smyrna, Georgia 30080 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Carnitas: The Mexican Cuisine Society Game Created by Ruth Paget

Carnitas: The Mexican Cuisine Society Game Created by Ruth Paget

I used The Best Mexican Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen to develop this game, but you can use other Mexican cookbooks as well such as 1,000 Mexican Recipes by Marge Poore. 

You will need index cards to create your own playing cards. Writing out the cards is a trick to help memorize information. 

Playing this game will expand your knowledge of Mexican food either as a customer, server, home or restaurant cook, or grocery store buyer. 

Tip for memorizing: Use the alphabet to help recall ingredients. 

Game 1: Dish Name – Dry Ingredients 

Write the dish name on the front of an index card. Write the dry ingredients on the back excluding spices and herbs. (The game for spices and herbs follows.) 

Flip the index cards to play solitaire, with a partner, or as teams. 

Game 2: Dish Name – Wet Ingredients  

On the front of an index card, write the dish name. On the back of the index card, write the wet ingredients. 

Flip the index card to play solitaire, with a partner, or as teams. 

Game 3: Dish Name – Spices and Herbs 

On the front of an index card, write the dish name. On the back of the index card, write the names of the spices and herbs used to make the dish. 

Flip the cards to play solitaire, with a partner, or as teams. 

Game 4: Dish Name – Cooking and/or Assembly Techniques 

On the front of an index card, write the dish name. On the back of the index card, write the techniques used to cook and assemble the dish. 

Flip the cards to play solitaire, with a partner, or as teams. 

You can use this game to learn about all the cuisines of the world that have cookbooks. Some of the cookbooks I have used to learn about different cuisines of the world follow: 

 -Delicioso: The Regional Cooking of Spain by Penelope Casas 

-1,000 Spanish Recipes by Penelope Casas 

-The Good Food of Italy by Claudia Roden 

-Mediterranean Cookery by Claudia Roden 

-Essential Pepin: More than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food by Jacques Pepin 

-Complete Book of Indian Cooking by Suneeta Vaswani 

-Complete Chinese Cookbook by Ken Hom 

-Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji 

-From the Source – Thailand by Lonely Planet Food 

-Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan 

-Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking by Maangchi 

-The New German Cookbook by Jean Anderson and Heidi Wurz 

-Classic Russian Cooking by Elena Molokhovets 

-The Cooking of Eastern Europe by Lesley Chamberlain 

-1,000 Mexican Recipes by Marge Poore 

-Joy of Cooking by Rombauer Family (4,000 recipes in 75th anniversary edition. Very good on baking)

-California Home Cooking by Michele Anna Jordan - 400 recipes from a chef and caterer

-The New Cook's Tour of Sonoma: 150 Recipes and the best of the region's food and wine by Michele Anna Jordan

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Eating Baja Fish and Shrimp Tacos from Mexico by Ruth Paget

Eating Baja Fish and Shrimp Tacos from Baja, Mexico by Ruth Paget

 

I ate Baja Fish tacos when I was a youngster in Tijuana, Mexico with my mom and cousin Carol while my mother was on a convention with the International Typographical Union in San Diego, California. 

We were eating in a Mexican restaurant wincing on super sweet Coca-Cola made with pure cane sugar.

My tired, feminist mom kept repeating, “No, Ruth. We are not going to see bullfighting here.” 

There were posters of toreodors in gold costumes on the walls that made me keep pestering my mom.

I was going to find out that misbehaving kids have to get back on the bus for San Diego and not visit Tijuana at all. After eating, we took the next bus back to San Diego. 

My mother did not want to rent a car and drive in Mexico, so we took the locals’ mode of transportation. People were getting on the bus with crowing roosters. I thought that was cool and pointed my finger at the birds. 

My mother was not impressed and said, “Mind your own business.” 

That bus ride is the last I have seen of Mexico. I have discovered in California where I live now that wealthy people go the Baja in the 21st century for beaches, medical tourism (plastic surgery and/or abortions), and street food especially fish tacos. 

In Marina (California), my family goes out for fish and shrimp tacos at Las Cazuelas Restaurant on Del Monte Avenue. They have always done take-out, so I think they are coping with Covid-19 measures pretty well, especially with delivery being offered by several companies in our area. 

What makes Baja fish and shrimp tacos so special? The tang they get from being made with pickled cabbage and onions along with Serrano chile cream. 

There is a good recipe for Baja fish tacos in The Best Mexican Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen. For the creamy Serrano chile mayonnaise, check out Californian Marge Poore’s 1000 Mexican Recipes. 

For the ingredients, residents of Monterey County California might want to try looking for them at the Santa Fe Supermarkets in Seaside and Salinas. Santa Fe is a Mexican chain with subsidiaries in the United States. Both supermarkets in Seaside and Salinas have large parking lots. 

No matter how you obtain Baja fish or shrimp tacos, enjoy eating them. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Teen in China

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Exchange Student in Mexico Day by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exchange Student in Mexico Day by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

In high school, I could eat my body weight in food and was a welcome guest at my Mexican friend B’s home where they teased me about not eating enough.

Whenever I had been invited to lunch, B. would show up to escort me on the bus from my apartment in downtown Detroit to the west side of town where he lived.

“I can take the bus alone to your house,” I said as we sat down.

He would always tell me that a young lady always gets escorted when she has been invited to lunch.

“That’s the Mexican way,” he would say as I sat in my seat by the window.

I felt like an exchange student for the day when I entered the house and did not know how many times to kiss people on the cheeks.  In my home, we only gave each other bear hugs and pats on the back.

The five-foot high painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe in her blue cloak with golden stars on it seemed mysterious to me, a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.  B’s parents only spoke Spanish, which made me feel like I was in a foreign country, too.

I was always surprised how meals in my friend’s home did not resemble the combinations of tacos, tostadas, and enchiladas that I liked to eat in restaurants with what I thought was hot sauce.

We would usually start our meals with familiar looking sour cream, guacamole, and warm flour tortillas typical of northern Mexico as an appetizer.

My friend’s mother puréed avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro and jalapeño peppers into her version of guacamole.

“Dairy products kill the flames,” my friend said the first time I innocently delved into the jalapeño-guacamole.

Then, we would have soup.  Looking through cookbooks years later, I found a recipe for my favorite corn soup from the northern Mexican state of Sonora.  The Sonoran soup has squares of green and sweet red pepper and whole ears of baby corn colorfully flavoring a chicken soup.

After the soup, we would eat one of my favorite dishes – tamales.  Steamed masa flour surrounded the spicy pork in these tamales wrapped up in a corn husk wrapper for steaming.

The savory pork was preserved in its own fat like carnitas and was seasoned with oregano, cumin, coriander, onions, and carrots.

I helped make my favorite dessert – buñuelos.  To make these we sat in the kitchen and pulled the elastic dough over our knees and stretched the dough into rounds that were fried and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

I loved the buñuelos with coffee and knowing that the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe was also my birthday.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Goat and Cactus Petals: La Tortuga Torteria Offers Authentic Flavors of Mexico by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Goats and Cactus Petals:  La Tortuga Tortería Offers Authentic Flavors of Mexico by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I queried The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) with a request to review a restaurant that served “goat, cactus petals, and killer, organic strawberry shakes.”

The Weekly sent me off to a Seaside, California location where everyone could get a strawberry shake or “licuado.”  The revised article I wrote follows:

Goat and Cactus Petals:  La Tortuga Tortería Restaurant Review

My love for Mexican torta sandwiches lured me into La Tortuga Tortería located at the busy corner of Fremont and Harcourt in Seaside, California.

I invited my husband, family friend, and daughter Florence there for sandwiches one Saturday afternoon.  We changed our mind from torta sandwiches to meals when we saw the specials board and ordered every one of them:

-pescado a la Veracruzano (Veracruz-style fish)

-chili pepper relleno (chili peppers stuffed with chicken and raisins)

-carne asada with cactus petals (charbroiled steak with grilled cactus petals)

-enchiladas verdes (enchiladas with green sauce)

The waitress told us that the grilled trout for my pescado would take 20 minutes to cook.

The wait gave us time to sample drinks and learn soccer Spanish.  (The TV was on a Spanish-language station).

We tried the following beverages while we waited:

-Imported Mexican Pepsi.  It is more sugary than its American counterpart and fizzy, but not highly carbonated.

-Mango licuado or shake for me made with whipped milk and mango pulp and added vanilla, sugar, and a sprinkle of cinnamon

-Atole de Maiz – corn gruel made with ground corn and milk whose origins extend back to the Mayan Empire in the Yucatan Peninsula according to Alan Davidson’s Penguin Guide to Food.

Our Main dishes were superlative:

-Veracruz-style fish – a whole trout covered with strips of sweet red peppers, olives, capers, cilantro, and yellow peppers

-Chile relleno – stuffed pasilla pepper with chicken and raisin filling

-carne asada – char grilled steak with onions, sautéed nopalitos, and cactus petals (nopales) came with this dish

-enchiladas verdes – tomatillo and green pepper sauce covered enchiladas stuffed with fresh cheese

If you have never tried these dishes before, Tortuga is a great place to start.

End of Article

Note:

My favorite Mexican cookbooks are by Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy.  The books by Rick Bayless are on Kindle.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Big Little Restaurant: Taquito's Restaurant in Salinas (CA) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Big Little Restaurant:  Taquito’s Restaurant in Salinas (CA) Review by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) editors gladly sent me off to review a big Mexican restaurant with lots of parking in an easy-to-find location in Salinas (California) across from the California Rodeo.

I liked the restaurant in 2004 and like it better even now in 2019; the restaurant is still there and getting better every year.  My reworked review follows:

Big Little Restaurant

Located in a strip mall across from Sherwood Hall (California Rodeo) in Salinas, Taquito’s reigns as my family’s “let’s eat one meal today” restaurant.  (The portions are rather large.)

Affixing “-ito” to the end of a Spanish word usually makes the word diminutive.  “Small” is not the case with Taquito’s portions, though.

However, I do think of something cute and spirited with the word “Taquitos,” and the restaurant certainly lives up to its name.

Ranchera music (Mexican country and western) greets visitors at the door, and salmon and green crêpe paper streamers stretch overhead between the booths with orange cylinder tile roofs.

Taquito’s has a seating capacity of 130 – perfect for birthday and office parties.

Little touches like heating the nacho chips makes eating at Taquito’s a gratifying experience.  The salsa that accompanies those chips has a definite kick to it, making the pungent cilantro seem even fresher.

I liked the variety of Mexican foods on the menu.  After eating at Taquito’s for the past two years, I have some favorite dishes.

The first is a simple taco salad filled with boiled tongue, lengua.  Tongue meat is tender and has a faint beef flavor.  At Taquito’s, minced, sweet onions come with this dish along with limes.  The combination of tongue, onion, and lime makes for an unusual treat on a soft, corn taco.

My other favorite is a specialty of Michoacan – pozole soup.  Pozole soup is made with lime – processed hominy, pork strips, chili peppers, garlic, and Mexican oregano.  I especially like the flavor that the condiment of shredded cabbage adds to this soup.

But last week, I branched out and ordered a Tostada de Ceviche as my starter, while my husband Laurent had a quesadilla.

Ceviche starts out as raw white fish pieces that are “cooked” by marinating the fish in lime juice for at least six hours.  You add chopped onion, tomato, and jalapeño peppers to the marinated dish along with a vinaigrette to make this a tangy appetizer.

Laurent’s quesadilla measured 7 inches across and was filled with melted cheddar cheese.  I would add some hot sauce to this quesadilla, but Laurent does not like it that way.

For my main dish, I ordered Camarones (shrimp) a la Veracruzana.  The shrimp came in a spicy, tomato-based sauce with jalapeños.  (You can order a milder version of this dish.)

Laurent ate a Sol y Luz platter made up of a charbroiled rib eye steak that came with four jumbo shrimp.

When our daughter Florence comes with us to dinner at Taquito’s, she orders carne asada, charbroiled steak, with flan as dessert.  Flan is made with eggs and milk, which I like.

Meals seem to taste even better on weekends, when the tables are filled with extended families, who meet here regularly for get-togethers.

Everyone seems to smile.

End of Article

Note:  I like mole poblano enchiladas made with Mexican cheese and spicy, chocolate-chili pepper sauce these days.

My favorite Mexican cookbooks are written by Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy.  The books by Rick Bayless are on Kindle.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

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