EatMx: Real Mexican food, at home and on the road

Eat Well and Help a Cause at Homegirl

Getting a table for lunch at Homegirl Cafe in downtown Los Angeles can be difficult.

The restaurant is very popular, and not only because its mission is to save at-risk young people through training and jobs as part of Homeboy Industries. It's also fun and lively, offering big servings of reasonably priced food.

Look at this taco plate. You can choose any three tacos from the menu for $10.  They may not be long on meat, but the fixings make hefty bundles that take muscle to fold and wedge into your mouth.

The three in the photo above are, from left, red mole chicken with habanero pickled onions, sesame seeds and cilantro; white fish with cabbage jícama slaw, crema fresca, chile morita salsa and cilantro, and pork carnitas with apple-tomatillo slaw and, again, cilantro.

You can ask for two tacos instead of three, and they'll make up the difference with huge servings of beans and rice.  

Homegirl guacamole (above) isn't your usual avocado mash-up. It includes grilled pineapple.

Here's a drink that's as green as the guacamole. It's a blend of cucumber, pineapple and lime juice. 

You will definitely want dessert, because the Homeboy Bakery provides the cafe with excellent baked goods. This apple crumble pie (above) had real home-baked flavor. Pumpkin and cherry pies were just as good. Hint--you can buy pies to go for Thanksgiving dinner.

And right now you can get handmade gingerbread houses (above) to give as gifts or use as holiday decorations. 

If you can't get a  seat for lunch, don't come back for dinner. Homegirl Cafe is open for breakfast, lunch and Saturday brunch, but not at night. It's on a corner facing Chinatown, across from the Metro Gold Line stop, and there's plenty of free parking. 

Homegirl Cafe, 130 W. Bruno St. (corner Alameda), Los Angeles, CA 90012. 
(213) 617-0365.

How to Feast at La Casita Mexicana

What a great idea, turning rajas into a sauce for fish.

Chefs Jaime Martín del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu of La Casita Mexicana came up with this when they were charged with creating a dinner for a group that included three chefs, two craft beer makers, a couple of bloggers and others along for the feast.  

The fish was bathed in the typical rajas mixture--poblano chile strips, corn kernels and crema (at the top). It was simple and effective, the sauce collaborating with the fish rather than dominating it.

Dinner started with green ceviche, but the next course really wowed the diners. It was Azteca cheese fondue, a mixture of four cheeses with poblano chiles, cactus and mushrooms wrapped in a banana leaf (above). The sharp flavor of epazote cut through the soft, bland mixture.

Moving from soft to crunchy, crisp fried taquitos del mercado were stuffed with chicken and topped with crema and crumbled cheese (above).

The taquitos set the stage for the fish with rajas. After the fish came chamorro de res--beef shank seasoned with guajillo chile adobo (above) and so tender that you only needed a fork to cut it. A chile de árbol salsa came on the side along with rice and refried beans.

It's pomegranate season, so there were plenty of fat, red pomegranate arils (seeds) to decorate the creamy pecan sauce of La Casita's signature chiles en nogada (above). How could anyone not love the rich filling--meat, dried fruit, walnuts and candied cactus--tucked inside a poblano chile. Yet by now some were too full for more than a taste. What they left went home with me.

Fried fish came next (above), accompanied by a salad the way Jaime Martín del Campo's mother serves fish at her home in the state of Jalisco. 

And there was more--chicken enchiladas topped with three moles, green pipián, mole poblano and red pipián (from the top down). 

Time for dessert, but not time to take it easy, because there were three. One was a sweet tamal composed of pumpkin and fine-grained requesón, which is similar to ricotta (above).

Another was arroz con leche--rice pudding--folded with whipped cream and cajeta into an irresistibly voluptuous mixture.

The third was green papaya (above) cooked with sugar, agave syrup and fig leaves.

And of course there was Baja wine including L.A. Cetto's Chardonnay and Nebbiolo from La Casita's wine list. Also stellar contributions from Baja wine advocate Bill Esparza including my favorite, JC Bravo's Carignan. Thanks Bill. This was a sweet touch, considering it was my birthday.

The food, the wine, the company were perfect. But there is one more factor to consider--the setting. Who would not be happy eating in a room that looks like this?