Brother's Burritos

I've noticed this year that certain pioneering chefs are staking out their corners of our city for their rapidly developing gastronomical test labs.  It’s exciting to see Josef Centeno making Downtown his stomping grounds, giving us Mexican inspired cuisine in completely unexpected ways, and fusions that shouldn’t work but sing.  Gjelina is expanding its Venice empire with a new “bakery” that is, frankly, the stuff of dreams.  Gjusta is a bustling agora of house cured meats and terrines, cakes and pastries, fresh baked bread, slow cooked brisket and pastrami sandwiches, where what seems like a staff of thousands is always busily executing myriad tasks in the vast open kitchen.  At the Line Hotel in Koreatown, Roy Choi has planted his flag with two restaurants, the traditional Korean POT and the greenhouse aerie Commissary, where Choi delivers what he would serve at “family meal” to seasoned restaurant staff.

The point is: LA is a sprawling array of fascinating microcosms, and a freaking cool place to explore for a curious and open person, especially if that person loves food as a gateway to new experiences.  I will travel for a food adventure.  But I’ll also travel outside of my neighborhood just for a change of pace, and LA offers boundless day trip possibilities.  Whenever I’m feeling stifled, I plan a drive up the PCH, looking for inspiration in Malibu.  Or I’ll venture east and spend a day in Monterey Park, trying to figure out how to digest more quickly so I can move on to the next Chinese bakery.

One recent foray took me to Hermosa Beach to visit a writer friend who lives right on the water.  As we walked by the sand on a perfectly overcast day, the cloud cover lending a bizarre dreamlike quality to the largely deserted Hermosa pier and boardwalk, I marveled at how his beach town could be so different from mine, just 30 minutes up the coast.  Santa Monica has a really nice neighborhood feel and I absolutely love living there, but if you’re on the Montana side, it’s pretty bougie, and if you’re on the beach side, it’s pretty touristy.  Hermosa feels sleepier, much less taken in by the gloss of LA.  There are actual dive bars here.  All the dive bars I’ve been to in LA required password access.  There are entire stretches of sidewalk here without a single Lululemon pant in sight.

And there is Brother’s Burritos.  A small L-shaped restaurant crowded with tables and stools and an eclectic mix of patrons, Brother’s is the kind of design-your-own burrito (or burrito bowl) place that serves legit pozole on the weekends for $6.75.  My friend knows the girl at the register—he comes here once a week.  She asks if he wants “the usual.”  She explains to me that I will actually get two small burritos with my order; I learn later that the owner’s grandmother used to make two little burritos for him and his brother, so that’s how they serve them.  I get a side of guacamole and I don’t regret it.  It is limey and chunky.  In my twin burritos are large chunks of well-seasoned, marinated grilled chicken, pinto beans, jack cheese, avocado and spicy salsa.

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Brother’s isn’t a destination restaurant—there are hundreds of good burrito joints in this town, so maybe I wouldn’t drive out to Hermosa expressly to come here, the way I would drive to San Gabriel for Delicous Food Corner.  But I would certainly drive out to Hermosa just because.  And while I was there, I would gladly find myself at Brother’s Burritos.  I would greet the three local French Bulldogs who often sit outside, I would order a bowl of pozole, and I would eat it at the counter while I watched meat grilling on the flat top.  I would walk out, down the pier, and look back at the charming colorful houses dotting the city of Hermosa behind me.  I would listen to the ocean, knowing that in an hour, I may be in the heart of Hollywood.  But right now, I’m here.

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La Isla Bonita

I am in the middle of reading Ruth Reichl’s memoir, Garlic and Sapphires, in which she strives to convince an old friend to try sushi. Her friend is aghast at the notion of eating raw fish, and proclaims that Ruth will never be able to get her do so, no matter how hard she tries. But that was 1995 in New York City, and this is Los Angeles in 2012, where I imagine that I would be hard pressed to find one solitary soul who would be shocked to know that I am about to recommend eating ceviche out of a truck. That is due in no small part to the proliferation of food truck culture in Los Angeles; at this point you can get anything from currywurst to empanadas to dim sum off of a food truck, and a lot of it is really delicious. But La Isla Bonita is an OG, a real Mexican mariscos truck that has been around since before even Kogi’s conception, a truck that does not tweet its whereabouts but rather can be found every day (except Thursdays) at the intersection of Rose and 4th in Venice. It is there you will find the most incredibly fresh, light ceviche you’ll ever have standing up. The ceviche tostadas consist of a crisp, flat corn tortilla shell topped with a thin layer of perfectly chilled, fresh ceviche. The fish is finely chopped with acid and salt and a little bit of onion, tomato and cilantro—no more. On top there are two thin slices of avocado and a lime wedge, which you should twist over the ceviche. Add a dash of tapatío (or even better, many dashes). The ceviche is pleasantly juicy, and though juices will dribble down your hand, the tostada will not get soggy. There won’t be time. The perfect bite has crunch from the tostada, suppleness from the soft flesh of the fish, the rich creaminess of the avocado, and if you’ve done it right, it’s plenty spicy too. It leaves your lips tingling and your fingers smelling of lime and corn.

There are also the usual taco truck suspects of tacos, burritos and quesadillas stuffed with carne asada or pollo or whatever meat you like, and they’re good. But you are here for the seafood. I love the shrimp tostadas—I admit I sometimes even prefer them to the ceviche. They are a bit more substantial, the tortilla shell spread with a thin layer of crema and a flattened mound of pico de gallo to hold on to the juicy, plump shrimp that cover it. The shrimp are not raw, but they’re very lightly cooked, and incredibly fresh. Again, garnish with lime and tapatío.

I have eaten at many, many food trucks, and as I am sure any LA food lover will already know, a lot of them are great and a lot are second rate imitations of the great ones, and even more are half-baked ideas or non-chefs’ misguided attempts at capitalizing on the food truck craze. But La Isla Bonita is a true delight, a reliably excellent Venice mainstay. And though probably nobody will bat an eye anymore at the idea of uncooked fish from a food truck, you might find yourself surprised at the quality of these tostadas and the simple perfection of their execution, regardless of where they came from.

Guisados

Let’s talk about the best taco in Los Angeles. I know it’s dangerous territory I’m treading on here, but I feel confident in my choice. I may not look like a taco aficionado, but I’ve actually got some cred when it comes to Mexican cuisine. For starters, I have been vetted by my Mexican fiancé. Also, not to brag, but my spice threshold is no joke for a gringa. I like my tacos spicy, and my preferred fillings are the really tender cuts of meat that shine in Mexican preparations, like lengua and cabeza. A year ago, I would have sworn that El Chato, the truck you can find late nights at Olympic and La Brea, had the best taco in town. And they do serve truly delicious tacos for $1 apiece. Those perfectly charred little salty scraps of cheap cuts of meat “con todo” topped with a few slivers of habanero-soaked onion are nearly untouchable. But there’s more to a taco than the filling, and it’s really the sum of the parts in Guisados tacos that create a true symphony in your mouth. The foundation of the taco is the corn tortilla, which Guisados hand makes fresh daily. Their tortillas are thick and chewy and savory, delicious enough to eat by themselves. That’s a rare delight. The fillings rotate, and the day’s wares are displayed on the chalkboard. One of my favorite things about Guisados is the 6 mini-taco sampler platter, which I invariably opt for. I always want to try everything, but some mainstays that are definitely winners are the steak in salsa roja and the cochinita pibil. The cochinita pibil can be ordered on a spice scale from 1-10+, with 10+ being a blow-your-face-off pile of habanero, arbol and serrano chiles atop shredded pork smothered in habanero salsa. I like to order mine (mini sized) at an 8 or 9, which is still sufficiently crazy spicy. I also love the veggie tacos, especially the mushroom. Beautiful vegetarian tacos like these are not to be found at any of LA’s great taco trucks.

Every Guisados taco has great flavor, so you can’t really go wrong. Unless, of course, you neglect to order a quesadilla. A Guisados quesadilla is a simple thing, just a folded over corn tortilla with a thick slice of chewy, salty cheese inside and a squirt of some sort of orange colored sauce. It’s not a traditional quesadilla—the cheese is grilled, not melted—but it’s simply divine.

In a city that boasts the best Mexican food in the United States, of course there is no one taco that is worth forsaking all others. But Guisados serves a really formidable, crave-able taco that I keep returning for, despite the distance from SaMo to Boyle Heights.