Desert Dining

BEER VS. COFFEE

Almost every morning me and the boys (Soul, Rigo and Miza) have a text discussion.  Topics aren't always the same, they range from sports (obviously) to religion to food to whatever might pop into our heads that morning.

A few weeks ago, Miza brought up a question that I've been tossing around in my head since, If you had to pick only one between beer and coffee which would you pick? 

Before you respond think about it, really consider all the situations you find yourself in when you drink either tasty beverage.  Think about the best beer you've ever had.  Don't think about the first time you tasted it, because lets be honest, it's somewhat of an acquired taste. Think about a long hard day, what do you do to unwind?  Drink coffee? 

Now flip it, how do you start your day?  If you're not an alcoholic you probably drink coffee.  It's a good way to kick off the day right?  But if you're like me you, only drink it when it's cold.  I like coffee, I do, but rarely do I get happy over it.  And I'm not talking about those sugary almost undrinkable things you buy for over $5, how can you possible drink those things more than once a month?  I'm talking about a regular cup of joe, the kind you do at home, the kind you don't break the piggy on. 

So if you could only pick one which would it be: Beer or Coffee?  If you haven't  guessed by now I pick beer.  Hands down, no doubt about. 

Humberto

THE MEXICAN IN ME

I don't really do breakfast during the week.  Usually it's a granola bar or a smoothie but last week I was feeling like a little bit more.  My wife had just made some beans and I was in the mood for something different.  Now I know beans is the stereotypical mexican food and apparently all of corporate mexican restaurant chains believes we put sour cream and cheddar cheese in everything, but I just love me some good beans.

I made some been burritos.  Flour tortillas, some queso fresco, jalapenos and bam you got yourself a meal worth writing about (hence the post).  I've tasted all kinds of beans.  Some people like to put bacon in it.  Some people like to put chorizo in it.  All good in their own right, but the way my wife prepares it is da bess (Nacho Libre).  She uses lard, lets it melt in a pot.  Then once its good and hot she cuts up a corn tortilla and fries it in the lard.  Once that's done she throws in the beans, lets it simmer on low heat for bout 10-15 min and then mashes it up.  I do the last part, the mashing, I like my beans to look almost like as if it went through a blender but not quite. 

I have to say the bean burrito is my favorite type of burrito.  A close second is chicharron.  I just got hungry.

HUMBERTO 

Local flavors. Kind of.

Since this is a blog about dining in IV, I feel like I should make up for our last post, which revolved around a night spent eating in San Diego.  Although I maintain that, during the summer months, jumping over to San Diego for the night is part of life in IV, but, you know, whatever. 

Writing about local dishes is a little tough.  Our corner of the desert has only been inhabited for 100 years or so, and that doesn't seem to have been enough time for distinctly local dishes to develop.  As far as I can tell, the only truly local quirk is found in Brawley, where people will absolutely not take their drinks without crushed iced.  Not cubes or cubelets.  Crushed ice.  I've had customers expand successful restaurants to Brawley only to call me in full panic mode a few months later.  People openly tell them they're not coming back to their restaurant, "because you didn't have crushed ice for our drinks."  (Just so you know, an ice machine that produces "crushed" ice is considerably more expensive to buy, repair and maintain than a standard ice machine.  I have never told a customer outside of Brawley, "We should definitely go for a flaker or nugget -- aka 'crushed ice' -- unit.  That makes the most sense."  The only reasons to have one of those ice machines are: 1) your restaurant is extremely constrained by space or 2) you pack fish.  Other than that, it's a bad choice all around.)  So that's all we've got in IV.  Crushed ice freaks in Brawley.

The next place to look to for local dishes is across the border, perhaps not specifically to Mexicali, our sister city, but the Northern regions of Baja and Mexico.  Even so, it's a little tough.  Friends who hail from Mexico's Central region have always told me that people from El Norte are clowned for their lack of culinary creativity and prowess.  Ustedes no mas saben asar carne, "All you guys do up there is grill meat."  It turns out there may be good reason for that.  In reading the 20th Anniversary Edition of Rick Bayless' classic Authentic Mexican, Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico I learned that when the Spanish introduced cattle to Mexico, they did especially well in Mexico's North, which Bayless, not coincidentally, has found to be the only region in Mexico with truly skilled butchers.  This is true.  Mexican ex-pats here (if you can call them that) are always ranting and raving about how great Mexicali's cuts of meat are.  I have a friend who spent years working as a butcher in Mexico, and to this day he still buys whole chickens, game hens and what not.  The reason?  He once told me, "When I cook for people, they always love the texture of the meat.  They ask, 'What do you do to get the meat that way?'  [Chuckling]  The truth is I have to cut the meat myself!  I go to the stores here [in IV], and I can see butchers really beat the hell out of their meat while they're cutting it.  It looks terrible.  I ask myself, 'How can people eat this stuff?'" 

But Bayless, who was an anthropologist studying Mexico before he became America's most celebrated Chef of Mexican cuisine (the man clearly has deep love and knowledge of the Mexican kitchen and its history, but especially after bringing respect and recognition to Mexican cuisine in the States by winning Top Chef Masters, he's Mexican as far as I'm concerned), notes that the abundance of cattle in El Norte led to another culinary development, one that is well known in IV, kind of.  In order to not waste any meat, people in Northern Mexico would dry it, resulting in what Bayless appropriately calls "jerky," but this dried meat is used for a dish we all call machaca.  That's right.  Machaca is not beef that has been boiled, shredded and then sautéed with onions and bell peppers.  I don't think I have ever had machaca in a restaurant in IV.  I've ordered it.  Many times.  Never had it.

So here's the recipe Bayless took from a woman in Baja California.  I haven't tried it myself yet, but it sounds pretty simple.

You start by taking a 1.5 pound piece of solid meat, such as eye of round, round or tri tip.  You cut the ends off that piece of meat and proceed to slice 1/8 inch off the top, stopping just a hair short of slicing all the way through.  Then you rotate the meat and do the same, slicing 1/8 inch below where you just cut the meat (a total of 1/4 inch from the top of the meat), again stopping just short of cutting all the way through.  You do the same until you've reached the bottom, and in doing so will have turned that solid piece of meat into a long flap of meat that's 1/8 inch thick.  Having trouble visualizing?  Here's a video of the technique (note: the demonstration is for a much thicker flap than you would want for machaca and after about two minutes the video moves on to a different method).  Once you've got your meat ready, rub it with a mix of 1 tablespoon of lime juice and 1.5 teaspoons each of salt and dried oregano.  You can use a 1.5 teaspoon serving of any dry herb you want here, I'm sure.  Thyme, rosemary or marjoram -- go nuts.  ("We resemble, but are legally distinct from the Lollipop Guild.  The Lollipop Guild."  Futurama?  Anyone?  No?) 

Once you've got the rub evenly on your meat you can bring it back together (i.e. close the accordion) and let it sit for a half hour.  After that, you extend the meat again and hang it in a cool dry place.  Or if you want to keep it real, do what my boy Chino told me his aunts would do, let the meat hang in the sun and bring it in only at night.  If you want it partially dried and plan to use all the meat immediately, you can let it hang for one to four days.  If you would like to keep it around for several months you should let it hang for about a week, then wrap it loosely and store it in a dry place.

And there you go!  Now you have dried beef ready to go for whenever you want to have actual machaca.  In a few weeks, once the weather cools a bit more and I have more free time, I'll post some pics of this process.  Can't wait!

-- Rodrigo

Korean on Convoy

OK.  So jumping over the hill and dining in San Diego isn't exactly Desert Dining -- yet.  (Give it a little more time.  You're dryer and hotter every year, San Diego.)  But it is summer and unbearably hot in the desert, so driving to cooler regions for a night or weekend of fun is part of life in IV.

Humberto posted last week on the fun he, Miza, Soul, and I had our last time out to San Diego.  It was a long night of eating, so here are a few of the fun little tid bits my brother didn’t tell you about (and really, the High Five Phenomenon was a story unto itself).

To be honest, we had no intention of going to San Diego’s crowded Gaslamp District that night.  I’ve noticed that our best nights of eating are never planned out very well.  One of us demands something on an impulse, everyone else agrees and off we go.  For this particular night Humbert had been saying since the day before we went up that he felt like having good American food.  “A burger or ribs,” he said, “but, like, a really good burger.”  I knew just the places. 

The first plan was to go to Hodads in Ocean Beach.  This place serves up the best burgers I have ever had, but I warn you just as I warned them, number one and number twenty on my best burger list are just a hair apart.  I mean, add fresh veggies to good, well seasoned beef that hasn’t been overcooked, and you’ve got a 9.9 burger on your hands.  It’s not rocket science.  Still, on top of being juicy and tasty, the burgers at Hodads are mountainous, and that makes for a fun meal.  But we ended up having burgers for lunch, so Hodads was out. 

Plan B was ribs, and the best ribs I’ve had in San Diego are cooked to perfection at Phil’s BBQ, located next to the San Diego Sports Arena.  I’ll admit that I’m not a ribs guy, but there is good reason for that.  I’ve had ribs several times and in a few different cities, LA, Chicago and NYC (granted, not the rib capitals of the world), and I’ve never been wowed.  Phil’s is like, WOW.  The baby back ribs there are by far the meatiest and tenderest that I’ve ever had the joy of biting into.  But as we pulled up to Phil’s we noticed that the always long wait was especially long that night.  There were easily over a hundred people lined up out the door and around the building.  Phil’s could have been handing out free beer in solid gold mugs, and we still wouldn’t have jumped to the back of the line (Phil’s doesn’t take reservations). 

Plans C through X all started when Miza declared impulsively, “Hey!  There’s a place downtown that serves tapas.  I want tapas!”  Humbert had been there before and knew it was a good choice, so Café Sevilla was the place for us, but as Humbert wrote last week, we needed to eat while we waited on our table.  So we had our starters at the nearby Royal India restaurant, where we had Nan (a soft flat bread that the menu actually calls “a must try” … they aint lyin’), Raita (a perky yogurt based condiment that has cucumber, cilantro and mint among other flavors) and a dish called “Mixed Tandoori Grill” which was an assortment of Kabobs and veggies cooked in a blazing hot Tandoor oven.  The food was great and the Royal India Pale Ale they served was hearty and tasty, but I think we’ll have to come back for lunch someday and take advantage of the lunch buffet.  That’s my favorite way to sample new restaurants.

From there we went back to Sevilla and had a blast.  The servers are laid back and helpful, the food is very well crafted and the place is just full of fun energy -- I’m sure Club Sevilla, located beneath the restaurant, has something to do with that.  The drinks are good too.  The pitcher of sangria we had was full flavored and not watered down at all (I never seem to get a good sangria anywhere).  And as for the La Alhambra Beer they serve, all I can say is: magnificent palace, OK beer.  As for food, [deep breath] we had: bacon wrapped dates stuffed with Cabrales Bleu Cheese (my fave when having tapas), fresh baked bread with aioli and a tomato sauce, paella -- which we ordered spicy (it was made with saffron rice, clams, sausage and chicken -- Soul’s favorite dish of the night), ceviche, a roasted pork tenderloin bathed in a honey sauce (the sauce was a bit too sweet, but it was good) and the tuna tartare tower (a little tower that had various layers of ahi tartar, cucumber and mango with pimento aioli … I can’t believe none of the local sushi places serve mango with their dishes -- it works really well and it would give any dish a Mexican flair).

And we still weren’t done eating.  We walked around, high-fiving strangers and being silly for a while, then we decided we wanted nothing better than to have some comfort food.  In this case, Asian noodles in broth, again thanks to Miza, who was on fire with the impulsive demands this night.  Unfortunately, San Diego is really short on good Asian restaurants that are open late, and it was after 11 pm at this point.  So we rushed over to Convoy Street in Kearny Mesa thinking its high concentration of Korean restaurants was our best bet.  We were after Nozomi Noodle & Teriyaki, a place we had eaten at before for its Endless Sushi Menu (they have all kinds of rules like a two hour max, can you believe that?!) and had noticed then how spectacular their noodles looked, but it was closed.  But in that same little shopping center was another Korean restaurant, one with a name spelled only in Korean, that was still open!  We fidgeted with the menu for a while and the lady running the restaurant said we should get the beef hot pot.  I love this lady.  The hot pot was served on a burner she placed at the edge of our table, so this was fun to eat.  But the soup was genuinely great.  Thin sliced, tender cuts of beef, green onions, white onions, carrots, squash, rice cakes, tofu, mushrooms and glass noodles -- all in a slightly sweet beef broth served with several little side dishes and rice.  This didn’t just hit the spot, it destroyed the spot.  It killed the spot’s extended family.  It erased the spot from the annals of history.  The spot no longer exists and is remembered by no one.

Sorry there aren't more pics in this post.  Sevilla and Royal India were too dark for pics!...  You can see the blur of Miza's chop sticks attacking this dish at the very top of this photo.

(By the way, I think next time me and the boys will have to have the dishes recommended by Soul, Miza and Humbert’s gym buddy Song, a Korean ex-pat who for some reason completely loves these guys.  We sent him pics of our dish at midnight and he cheerfully responded we should have ordered Korea’s trademark dishes, Galbi (grilled short ribs) and Bulgogi (thin sliced marinated beef that’s just a touch sweet and also grilled -- Soul and Miza had a Korean neighbor when we were kids and we know this dish well).  Song says these dishes are to Korea what carne asada is to Northern Mexico and sushi is to Japan.)

The day after our Second Greatest Night of Eating we were all belly aching.  Theories on what caused this abound.  “It was the Indian food.  Thanks a lot, Rigo.”  “It was the tuna tartare tower.  Way to go, Rigo.”  “It was definitely the Korean place.  Nice job, Rigo.”  I was in charge of ordering everyone’s food for the evening, and as usual, I was made the whipping boy for anything that didn’t go perfectly.  I insist everything we ate was wonderful.  We just ate too much!

-- Rodrigo

HIGH 5

This has got to be the greatest way to celebrate or brighten some strangers day.  Last Saturday night we were in downtown San Diego, after a long day of working, to get some dinner.  We were so satisfied with our day of work, the high fives started between us.  "Hey Miza, Rigo we kicked butt today!!! HIGH FIVE". 

We went back to the hotel, showered, changed and waited for Soul.  As soon as he got there, we went downtown for some Spanish food at a restaurant called "Tapas".  A place Rigo ate at in L.A. and has been talking about since.  The wait was over an hour and we were starving, so then we decided to "Restaurant Hop".  There was a Indian Restaurant across the street and I've always wanted to try.  So we walk over only to see it was almost complety empty.  This kind of concerend us but we proceeded anyways.  And it was an awsome decision, food was great.  There was also a dude jamming on a Sitar.  I liked it so much I went over to tip him and I couldn't resist to give him a high five.  As I put the tip in his jar I told him "Bro you are Rocking that thing, High Five!!!"  He stopped playing, turned to me, looked up and slammed my hand!!!! HIGH FIVE!!!.  He gave us some demos. 

On a high five high we walked over to Tapas, Rigo went over to see if our table was ready and the hostess said "Almost, about 10 min.  These parties are still ahead of you".  We waited for about 3 min. and I saw some of the people waiting had menus, so I walked over to the hostess to ask for one.  When she handed it to me, I put my hand up and told her "HIGH FIVE!!!" She did the same thing as Sitar Rocker, put her pencil down, turned to me, looked up and slammed my hand!!! HIGH FIVE!!! I walked away with menu in hand only to be received by high fives from my boys.  A few seconds passed and the hostess called us over saying our table was ready, oh and the other parties were still standing there!!! NICE!!!.  A flury of high fives ensued, waiters and waitresses, people walking down the street, hostesses anybody and everbody we walked by.  We got shot down a few times but it didn't matter.

I highly recommend to give someone a high five. 

THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY

I'm not so sure it's the most important meal of the day but it's my favorite.  I have recently discovered the greatness of the over-easy egg.  I used to be repulsed by this, I would see someone eating it, I would here someone order it and I'd give them my "you must be the stupidest person in the world" face.  But now I can't get enough of it, I eat it with hashbrown or tots, put in sandwiches (slice it down the middle and let the yolk ooze out), put it in hamburgers (same cutting down the middle), I even put it on a tostada with salsa, es da bess (Nacho Libre reference).

Everytime I would go to a restaurant for breakfast, up until about 4 months ago, I would order the Biscuits and Gravy meal.  Loved that stuff, I'd order extra gravy, pour tabasco sauce and sprinkle pepper over the top, es fantastic (Nacho Libre, again).  When I started looking for meals having to do with eggs over-easy, I then found the most incredible thing, Eggs Benedict.  It's simple, bread (alot of people use english muffins, but I've also seen people use biscuits), canadian bacon, egg and then drowned in hollandaise sauce. 

I liked it so much I decided to make this tour de force at home.  The only thing I needed to look up how to make was the hollandaise sauce.  And in doing this it ruined it for me. Why? Let me give you the recipe.  This is for a single serving: two eggs (yolk only), teaspoon of lemon, teaspoon of water, dash of hot sauce (I used Salsa Amor) and here's the kicker 1 STICK OF BUTTER.  I didn't think much of it as I was making it, I didn't think much of it as I took my first bite, it didn't really hit me until I was almost done.  I JUST ATE A FREAKING STICK OF BUTTER FOR BREAKFAST.  It was delicious, don't get me wrong, but how can I eat this on a regular basis knowing I'm cutting my lifespan by several months if not years everytime I do?!?  If anyone knows a healthier version of this please let me know.  I'm obliged to tell y'all I'm not a health nut, I hate all that diet stuff, but if I could avoid a heart attack by the time I'm 35, I'm all for it.

HUMBERT

World's First Produce-less Farmer's Market

I admit it.  Calling June's farmer’s market organized by the city of Alpine and hosted by Golden Acorn Casino “The World’s First Produce-less Farmer’s Market” isn’t fair on several levels (hey, at least I resisted the urge to call it a hobo’s market since 75% of it looked like a garage sale … wait … I guess I’m not great at controlling urges).

First of all, it’s been my experience that the term “farmer’s market” gets thrown around pretty loosely, so Alpine wasn’t the first to abuse me and they won’t be the last.  After all, El Centro’s farmer’s market should have been the greatest of all time.  Think about it.  “The Center” of one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world hosted a farmer’s market, yet not a single farmer had a stall set up.  Clearly, local farmers really don’t need a local place to sell their produce, but it’s once a year boys.  Do it for kicks at least, yeesh. 

If there is one thing I learned from the El Centro market back in January, it’s that even if it’s not truly a “farmer’s market” there are always good bites to be had.  Like the nice German woman selling hand-prepped schnitzel sandwiches and the best sauerkraut I’ve ever had:

 

And that was certainly the case at the Alpine market.  There was one stall selling pacific island food, but the problem was that they were on island time and I hate waiting.  Smelled and looked amazing though.  There was also a couple selling homemade beef jerky, which was perfection (not too tough, not too salty and it tasted like carne asada).  That same couple was selling homemade zucchini relish, which was really good, but just sweet enough that it could have used a spicier kick at the end.

 

But what stole the show, for me at least, were “The Seasonal Gourmet’s” jellies and jams.  And maybe best of all, it turns out TSG is from IV!  Charlotte Levy cooks up and packages a nice assortment of preserves in a commercial kitchen in Holtville.  (OK, look.  She told me the restaurant kitchen she uses is a Holtville institution that according to her mother-in-law, an apparent biscuits and gravy snob, has the best biscuits and gravy.  Anywhere.  I’m not here to promote anyone, but this is vital information, no?  When are you ever going to go to Holtville enough times to find the place out for yourself?  I twisted her arm a tiny bit.  Nana’s Café.  There, I said it.)  

I took home two jars from The Seasonal Gourmet.  One filled with Apricot Habanero Jelly, which is great on crackers, but will take a kosher hot dog to a whole new level.  And another filled with Caramel Spiced Pear Butter, which is so good on pancakes and waffles it should be illegal.  (If anyone is interested in buying from The Seasonal Gourmet then just mention it in the comments section and I'll pass along her number there.)

But poking fun at Alpine’s market is unfair on yet another level, local farmers couldn’t harvest!  My wife chatted up one grower who was at the market selling some sad looking little beets, and he said that with the unseasonably cool weather his crops just weren’t ready to go.  So maybe next year Alpine will have an amazing farmer’s market.

All in all, it was worth the hop, skip and a jump we took up the hill.  Yes, there were quite a few hill folk selling rusty knives and what not, but the mountain air was crisp and cool, the goodies we took home made it worthwhile anyway and, after strolling from stall to stall for about an hour and a half, jumping over to Janet’s Montana Café in Alpine was not exactly torture.  (If you go, always order breakfast.  If you order a burger there you might as well ask the cook to come out and punch you in the face.  You’ll be happier.  Trust me.)

-- Rigo

Capapas!

One of the most amazing things about the Greatest Night of Eating Ever is that you could take almost any of the 15 different things we ate that night and have it be a pretty satisfying meal.  That’s right. In one night we had over a dozen satisfying meals.  It’s wrong, I know.

Me and the boys have done this a couple of times since we’ve gotten together over the past few weeks to watch the Lakers battle their way to yet another NBA Championship.  (A quick aside.  This isn’t a sports blog, but I’ve gotta say, having the icon of the Lakers hated rivals present Kobe with the Finals MVP trophy is complete chicken bleep.  Kobe finally got something right and blew Bill Russell off.  Kobe’s best move this year.  OK, thanks.  I’m done.)  On top of the fun of watching the games and screaming at the TV, the food has been great.

One night we had tripe tacos -- which really are not my cup of tea -- but Miza told me he bought the tripe precooked at Cardenas Market in El Centro and then sautéed it at home with some onions and peppers.  The tripe got a little crispy and was a little chewy -- some salsa and lemon and those tripe tacos were stupendous!

Most recently Miza recreated the Greatest Stuffed Potato Ever, which is simplicity itself and is one of the funner baked potatoes to bring together.  He starts by grilling up some carne asada and it only gets better.

By the way, apparently these are called "capapas", which I hate (but I've also heard it simply called Papa con Carne).  Capapas sounds like kids' slang for bowel movements.  "Where's the bathrooooom?!  I have to capapas!"  I would tweak it just a bit and call them "carnapas".  That sounds like a party, doesn't it?

While ma boy has an excellent propane grill to work with, more and more often he’s been grilling on that little charcoal grill which he puts in the nice outdoor fireplace the Soulman got him.  You can’t argue with results, the carne was perfect.  If you’re wondering what cut that is, it’s Lomo con Diesmillo, which is fast becoming my favorite cut for carne asada.  You don’t have to do anything to it.  Sprinkle some kosher salt and grill for a couple minutes on each side.  That’s it.  It’s a cut that has plenty of tender fat which melts into the meat and makes it very tasty and juicy.  It’s not a healthy bite by any means.

After letting the meat rest Miza dices it up while he bakes the potatoes (I’d pass along his cook times but the bastard has a convection oven) and then preps the other ingredients: chops the green onions (green parts only) and shreds some mozzarella cheese (a new wrinkle Miza added that took the whole thing to another level).  Once the potatoes are done you cut them in half and scoop out all the flesh into a bowl, then add in the cheese, chopped meat and onions and season to taste.  Spoon the mix back into the potato skins and put them back in the oven for a few minutes so the cheese gets nice and melted.  If you want to serve them up Mexicali style, then go nuts with Mexican sour cream and top it with more green onions.  And enjoy!

 

Sorry.  I couldn’t get the camera to focus.  The potatoes were so delicious the camera kept getting woozy I guess.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Strawberries are in season, which means they are good and cheap.  That's got me prancing around the house, energetically singing, "Fala-lala-la-la-la."  There's nothing to chocolate dipped strawberries.  Just take semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips, heat them in a double boiler until the chocolate is just melted, which is how my wife gets an extra thick coat of chocolate, and chill them over night.

There are more complicated ways to bring choclate and strawberries together, my brother is still waiting for my wife to recreate Jenna’s Strawberry Chocolate Oasis Pie from the movie Waitress, but this is perfection, so why bother?

Well that was a stupid question, wasn't it?  Have a good strawberry recipe?  Post it here!

-- Rodrigo

Not your granny's apples.

I thought this was fun considering the fair was in town.  What you see above came from Mexicali, but it would certainly make for excellent fair fare.  It Mexicali's version of the candied apple.  Instead of tinted sweet syrup or caramel, this giant, juicy, green apple is coated in tamarind candy.  The result is a sinful snack that is at once sweet and spicy, yet slightly salty with a fun sour bite. 

You can buy these at candy stores in Mexicali.  There is a little candy store district that is very near the border, which I like going to every few months (you don't have to go often since candy stores in Mexicali sell mostly in bulk).  Even if you've never been, it's pretty easy to get to.  Once you enter Mexicali through Calexico's "Old" Port of Entry, you stay right when the road forks.  After four or five blocks (I checked on google maps -- it's five but in the dense traffic it would feel like four, I'm sure) you turn a sharp right and you'll see a street lined with brightly painted candy stores.  The street is quite short and ends with the "Parque de los Mariachis," a small park that for years has been full of Mariachi groups that congregate at night, waiting to be hired for parties.

Or you could do what we did.  When a friend brags that a lady delivers these treats to her office in El Centro every couple of weeks, demand that she buy you one.

-- Rodrigo