Restaurant 11: El Huarache Azteca

If good Mexican food to you is a buffet line at El Torito than read no further. We just don’t agree on the answer to one of the great philosophical questions of our time: what is great Mexican food? If you swear by Acapulco or Baja Fresh then chances are we can never be friends, and if you are a single woman, then our romance may never bloom. Mexican food, after all, never comes from a chain and rarely is found in a buffet line. The great ones tend to be hidden in pockets of low-key cities like Bell, Highland Park, and South Gate. Highland Park’s El Huarache Azteca is a case in point. You can drive pass this place a thousand times and never see it. You can walk in and think you’ve made a mistake. What happened to the chips and salsa plopped down on greasy tables? And don’t all Mexican restaurants have that same neon Corona sign? No chips and beer here. What they have in abundance though is huaraches. These are huaraches stuffed with carne asada, cream, and a green salsa that is as complex as a Bekenstein-Hawking formula. The lady in front is cooking something interesting like chicken quesadillas but I’m wrapped up in my huaraches to study her too keenly. The patron to my right has committed the unpardonable sin. He has ordered a wet burrito as if we are in some low-rent Chipotle Grill. I want to send him my trademark scowl but my barbacoa has arrived. It is a lamb that is rubbed with a pungent red chili, spicy and just perfect. I’ve already forgotten about the carpet bagger who ordered the wet burrito. When food is this good you just want to eat. There is no time to waste for food snob pettiness.