The Lanky One

01.04.08

It's nice to know you can still stumble on Cal-Mex dishes that haven't yet reached the popular consciousness.

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En route to a recent hike in the Santa Cruz Mountains, my family and I were lured off Highway 84 by the smell of hardwood barbecue. Descending to the main drag of Redwood City, we were disappointed to find that the odor was coming not from a retail operation but from a caterer. Still, we were famished and had the choice of a German restaurant with a big beer list and a bigger parking lot or a more modest Mexican place conjoined to a bodega with a beguiling display of fresh tomatoes and watermelons. As a compromise, we parked in the German lot and dined in the Mexican joint, La Azteca.

Inside we found an array of colorful seating and a very long steam table behind which several uniformed employees presided with spatulas and ladles. Painted on the wall was the menu, which ran to many styles of Mexican cooking, including Sonoran birria and pan-Mexican pozole; soft tacos, hard tacos, and the tiny taquitos associated with Mexico City; Tex-Mex fajitas; and Pueblan chicken mole.

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And then, to my delight, there was something I'd never heard of before—larguchas ("lanky ones"), which cost $3.25 each and were available with a similar roster of fillings as the tacos. We're not talking variety meats like goat's eye, pig's foot, brains, or tripe, but the assimilated taco fillings of prospering immigrants and their children, including grilled chicken, carne asada, and pork al pastor. Most appealing of the fillings, to me at least, was machaca, dried and pounded beef that is popular in Tex-Mex, as well as in the Sonoran cooking of New Mexico and Arizona.

Here, the machaca had been reconstituted by stewing with onions and chiles, so that it was moist and tender. It had been wrapped in a giant flour tortilla, deep fried like a flauta, then dabbed with guacamole and crema. My largucha was garnished with queso seco, lettuce, and a single black olive. It was the best Mexican food I'd had since I left, well, Brooklyn.

La Azteca
1531 Main Street
Redwood City, California
650-368-3486

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