La Gran Parrillada on 5/17 at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes: Chefs Javier Plascencia, Carlos Valdez, Eloy Uribe, and Dante Neuquen Put the Spotlight on the Sonoran Grill

In Mexico, as in Italy, China, Japan, and France, every region have similar foods and dishes that are transformed and prioritized by local customs--every state has mole, but some states emphasize it, like Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Estado de Mexico. Every state prepares seafood, but Nayarit, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Baja California take it to the next level with preparations that highlight the superior product. And every state grills but none like the northern state of Sonora where quality steers and a dedication to fire make carne asada a sacred tradition--Oaxaca has mole,  Hidalgo has barbacoa, Jalisco has birira and Sonora has the parrillada, or grill. Four chefs have journeyed north of the border to bring a true taste of the Sonoran grill.

This Saturday at the Hola Mexico Film Festival's Gran Parrillada at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, from 12pm-5pm, chefs Carlos Valdez (Buffalo BBQ, La Paz, B.C.S.), Eloy Uribe (sb2, Hermosillo, Sonora), Javier Plascencia (Mision 19, Tijuana, B.C. and Bermejo, Hermosillo, Sonora), and Dante Neuquen (Neuquen Restaurante, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon). Valdez and Uribe are from Sonora, Plascencia has recently opened a modern Sonoran restaurant in Hermosillo, and Neuquen cooks in another great northern state, Nuevo Leon, and comes from one of the top grilled meat countries, Argentina.  This is an Olympian grill team.

Each chef will prepare their own parrillada, or grill plates to be served with a sobaquera tortilla and Mexican wine from Baja California.

This is a once in a lifetime chance to experience top Mexican chefs on the Sonoran grill, and even more amazing is the addition of a traditional sobaquera artisan, making the famous giant, and thin flour tortillas from Sonora that are essential to the cuisine.  

If you hurry, you can get a discounted ticket on guilt city from now until May 14th at noon, and after that just go to the ticket link.


Gran Parrillada
Saturday May, 17, 2014
Noon-5pm
$45 per person

Parts Unknown Mexico: Fear and Loathing or a Simple Misunderstanding?--Bourdain Indulges in the Worst Cliches

CNN's Part's Unknown paints a grimmer picture of Mexico than the Santa Muerte, or Lady Death herself


As a consultant, or source for Parts Unknown Mexico, I was of course eager to see how the episode turned out--that is to say I agreed to a phone conference with CNN's Mexico bureau to suggest where host Anthony Bourdain and ZPZ Productions should visit in Mexico, to reveal the unknown parts. In the half hour I spoke with CNN, I emphasized the importance of Tepito's food scene and about some other locations I feel have been underexposed that have tremendous cuisine. I was busy that Sunday and wouldn't see the episode 'til later that evening, but I saw a heartfelt blog written by Bourdain that made me feel very optimistic before I saw a tweet from Monterrey, Mexico's Chef Guillermo Gonzalez Berestain (Pangea), one of the founding fathers of Modern Mexican cuisine (No, he doesn't live in San Diego or vacation in Cabo, Mr. Bourdain), lamenting the shows content.


The episode was not the great show that had just done very food-centric programs in India, Las Vegas, and Lyon--perhaps the most food orientated show this season--instead it showed Mexico as a non-stop bloodbath, with everyone running for cover, and sort of glossed over the food. When it wasn't sensationalizing the drug war, it was doing ads for the Grey Goose of mezcal, Del Maguey, owned by a Texan, and doing the Fodor's guide tour of Oaxaca, visiting places that have appeared in practically every food show ever shot in Oaxaca. A viewing of your old episodes of Chef Rick Baylesses Mexico: One Plate at a Time would have done the trick. A surly Bourdain responded in the comments section to A Gringo in Mexico blogger Scott Koenig's Open Letter to Bourdain with a decisive dismissal of any concerns about Parts Unknown Mexico by San Diegans and Spring Breakers out to have Mexicans carry their golf clubs (the same ones that washed dishes at Les Halles). But why Mexico, at a time when the biased media has backed off of this story--was this an attempt to get ratings from low lying fruit, or was the show simply mistitled?              

Tepito: El Barrio de La Comida Brava

Vamos a Tepito!


Tepito, El Barrio Bravo, (fierce neighborhood) is a northern section of Mexico City less than a mile away from the Zócalo (town square) whose name instantly conjures up the sum of its notorious history, lore and mysticism. You can walk there from the historic center, but chilangos, expats, and anyone else that has heard of the place steers clear because of a reputation that no longer is valid--whenever I tell people I'm headed there to hang out they nervously chuckle, yet again, they've never been.


Since pre-hispanic times, Tepito has maintained a tianguis, or flea market for the poor, working class Tepiteños that are culturally, and economically landlocked. Today, the tianguis is Tepito's exoskeleton, an external maze of tarp covered apparel, pirated DVD's and CD's, luggage, electronics, shoes, and food stalls offering the best deals in town--this neighborhood does everything by its own rules from the products it sells, to the offal-rich cuisine, the public consumption of alcohol, the the Santa Muerte (Saint Death) religion. I was a location and food consultant for CNN's Parts Unknown Mexico, and when the Mexico bureau asked what was Mexico's best kept secret, I said the street food in Tepito. Although CNN's Parts Unknown Mexico was a terrible show for it's preoccupation with the drug war, and so many repetitive experiences, the world did get a glimpse of barrio tepito, a neighborhood I've been lovingly exploring for the past 2 years. Here's what you should have seen on the episode!

Chef Rick Bayless to Surrender the Chips and Salsa and Open a Modern Mexican Restaurant?

Chef Rick Bayless, feeling naked without the guacamole


During the Grand Cayman cookout back in January a rather giddy Rick Bayless was tight-lipped about a new concept he was working on which he called "a completely new concept that you've never seen before", as he told Eater(the original announcement was back in November of 2013), in the self-stimulating hyperbole we've come to expect from Bayless-- [there's]"virtually nothing like it in the United States." The Oklahoma native has been spending lots of time in the Modern Mexican restaurants of Mexico City and throughout the republic in the last couple of years, as opposed to the tourist friendly traditional restaurants he's favored in the past like El Bajio and El Cardenal. 


This will come as a shock to many Bayless devotees who for years have considered Baylesses' restaurants to be alta cocina (high cuisine), or Modern Mexican kitchens. This is due to the fact that few U.S. citizens have experienced Modern Mexican cuisine, including the ones who've traveled to Mexico City, preferring the mid-priced, commercial restaurants found in guide books like Contramar, Hacienda de Los Morales, or Cafe Tacuba. Bayless is exited about the advancements in Modern Mexican cuisine happening in Mexico right now, claiming that it "just emerged 5, 6, or 7 years ago"--once again, the anthropologist is way off--try about 18 years ago, Chef. Regardless, this will be the first real challenge for the most famous Chef cooking Mexican flavors in the U.S.

Food Truck Royalty to Headline the 1st Annual Ktown Night Market on April 18th-19th

Ever since the food truck craze of the years 2008-2010, the streets of L.A. have become a bit more calm and have fallen into a sustainable level of fancy food trucks. It’s clear that we love them and they are here to stay (we’re also glad that we no longer have a new food truck opening every week). Some of the veterans of the food truck wars will be serving up their signature dishes at the 1st Annual KTown Night Market alongside the winners of the first 3 seasons of the Great Food Truck Race on April 18th to 19th.

That’s right, the Great Food Truck Race champs, Grill ‘Em All (Season 1), The Lime Truck (Season 2), and KTown Night Market food truck curators, Seoul Sausage, will be bumper to bumper for the very first time.  They will be joined by old-timers—Coolhaus, India Jones, and the White Rabbit Truck, plus East LA Tacos, Fluff Ice, Jogasaki and Belly Bomz. Don’t see your favorite truck on the list?—well, you can vote for your truck to win the last spot at www.KTOWNnightmarket.com/thelasttruck

The KTown Night Market is free to the public with over 100 food and merchandise stands, and 40 food vendors representing the multi-ethnic cuisines of the Los Angeles and Orange counties.   There will be live music to celebrate the special occasion, and with Seoul Sausage in the driver’s seat, L.A.’s newest night market experience promises to deliver the flavor.

KTown Night Market, April 18th-19th, Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools. For more information go to www.KTOWNnightmarket.com

Club Tengo Hambre in the LA Weekly on Craft Beer and Tacos

Baja California Craft Beers in Tijuana 

Check out LA Weekly's Sarah Bennett, fresh back from our Best of Baja: Tijuana Tacos and Craft Beer extravaganza this past weekend. If you haven't been to Baja, there's no better way than to join Club Tengo Hambre, my roving supper club with partners Jason Thomas Fritz of Tijuanalandia and Antonio and Kristin Diaz de Sandi of Life and Food Blog.

Season 2 is off to a tremendous start--look for more of these original events in our 2014 calendar.

Club Tengo Hambre  

Sedlar, Salgado, and Ruiz Serve up Modern Mexican at Los Angeles Magazine's Social Hour on 3/19

If you haven't heard, chefs Eduardo Ruiz(Corazon y Miel) and Carlos Salgado(Taco Maria) are a pretty big deal--no, you didn't hear? Well, then be sure to pick up the March issue of Los Angeles Magazine where L.A.'s best and most trustworthy critic, Patrick Kuh, talks about the quiet revolution happening at these two restaurants. Not to mention, you can read about my first Road Trip for the travel section in which I write about one of my recent Baja adventures.

The two young, trendsetting chefs will join chef John Sedlar tomorrow night (3/19), who was the first Latino chef in the U.S. to blaze these trails over 30 years ago at St. Estephe, and then did a historic repeat by opening the only Modern Latin cuisine restaurant--Rivera--in the U.S.

This story is just beginning, about Modern Mexican in the U.S. led by Mexican-American chefs--all three grew up with the matriarchal cooking of their grandmothers, mothers, aunts, and cousins and have absorbed a lifetime of flavors, techniques, and cultural cues filtered through the practice of cooking in the best kitchens in the world.

You are invited to taste the future of Modern Mexican in the U.S. tomorrow night(3/19) at Rivera in 3 courses with Los Angeles Magazine Dine editor Lesley Barger Suter and I for only $40.00--it's a steal--exclusively for our Social Hour series. Viva la revolucion!

Modern Mexican Cuisine @ Rivera with chefs John Sedlar, Eduardo Ruiz, and Carlos Salgado
Wednesday, March 19 @ 7PM, $40 a person
Rivera, 1050 S Flower St #102, Downtown Los Angeles, call (213) 749-1460 for reservations