The Hungry Chola

My friend Monica called me the other day. She had purchased a Groupon for three facials somewhere in Newport Beach and she wanted to know if I would go with her to the first appointment.

Because I'm a gay man, many women wrongly presume that I love getting manicures, pedicures and facials. The truth is that the notion of going all the way to Newport Beach to watch someone get a facial seemed abysmal. I would have usually just said no.

There was one tantalizing prospect though …

There were a couple of places I wanted to try out in Orange County. Monica is not really a foodie and I knew that if I suggested going to try out new food places, she would shut me down. I was going to have to be suave about this.

“You know, by the time we finish, the traffic back to LA is going to be really bad. We should hang out in the area and wait it out,” I said.

“Oh, that’s a good idea," she said. "We’ll grab something to eat afterwards. My treat."

Monica didn’t know what she was getting herself into.

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Sidecar Donuts

While Monica was at her stupid facial, I snuck out in her car to do a little culinary tourism while someone peeled off her face.

Tucked away in a Costa Mesa shopping center, Sidecar Donuts is a tiny establishment decorated like an old railway car. When I walked in, the first thing I noticed that everyone who worked there was a pretty blonde white woman who looked like she was the runner up to play Piper on “Orange is the New Black.”

(NOTE: I was the runner up to play that hot guard’s artificial leg. I lost the part to an actual artificial leg. Mexicans can’t get a break in this town.)

Let talk about the donuts …

The selection is limited to about eight different styles of donuts. About half of them are yeast doughnuts (of which I’m not a fan). The other half is made up of cake donuts. I love cake donuts.

I don’t write for a newspaper so I didn’t memorize any of the donuts I didn’t actually try. I will tell you that one of the most popular donuts is a maple glazed donut with bacon on it.

Yawn.

Ugh. I’m so over the bacon donut. I feel everyone is doing that. Low hanging fruit, I say. It’s a shame really that this is one of Sidecar’s most popular donuts because the ones I tried were phenomenal.

I got three donuts: the old fashioned, huckleberry and “butter and salt.”

The “Old Fashioned” tasted like a really good old fashioned; one that you would get at like Donut Man in Glendora. It was good. Don’t get me wrong. It was just not as good as the others.

The huckleberry donut was great. It’s one of the best donuts I’ve ever had. The donut was a moist cake topped with a delicious fruity huckleberry glaze. The glaze is a really purple purple (does that make sense?). It reminds me of the Purple Pie Man, the villain from the Strawberry Shortcake universe.

Which reminds me …

There was this stupid girl Jennifer who lived across the street from me when I was growing up. Her dad was a banker and one of his big clients was a toy company. So Jennifer would get all sorts of Strawberry Shortcake toys for free. Whenever I would go over to her house to play, she would make me be the Purple Pie Man. She was always Strawberry Shortcake. As a growing gay boy, I wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake once in awhile. Ugh. I hated her.

Anyway, this donut tastes like what I imagine the Purple Pie Man would taste like if he weren’t made of deliciously fruity-smelling plastic.

The last donut I got was called “Butter & Salt.” I didn’t know what to expect from this donut but Piper told me that it was her favorite donut. The other Pipers seemed to agree with her so I got it.

Girl …

This “Butter & Salt” donut was the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth – and I’ve blown two famous people. Two, girl!

It’s a simple cake donut. From the looks of it, you wouldn’t think it would be that special of a donut. It just looks like a plain donut. But let me tell you, hunty, this ain’t no plain donut.

It’s clearly brushed with lots of melted browned butter right out of the fryer and then, I imagine, sprinkled with sea salt.

The flavors are phenomenal and I am positive this is the best donut I’ve ever had.

As I sat there eating my donuts, a disheveled Mexican man walked into the store next door and then was promptly chased out by the owner. They were arguing about the price of a van.

It was an entertaining show for me to watch as I ate my donuts.

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I met Monica in the waiting room after her facial was done.

“Does my skin look smoother,” she asked me.

It actually did. I was shocked. Maybe I was the kind of guy who wanted facials (well ...)

“Sorry it took so long,” she said. “You must be starving. Let’s get lunch.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was already kind of full.

As we got in the car, she was doing that thing where she was wondering where we should go for lunch in Newport Beach as if we lived there and we had all these regular spots where we always have lunch.

“There’s nowhere to eat around here,” I said.

We were heading north on Pacific Coast Highway. Along the way, we passed Mozza, Fig & Olive, Red O and a place called Jack Shrimp. There were also several chain restaurants that would have all been perfectly suitable places to eat.

“What are you talking about? We’ve passed like four places during this sentence,” she said.

I just sighed and looked out the window ... I snapped my fingers.

“I’ve got it! Let’s go to Huntington Beach. We’ll walk on the boardwalk!”

Suddenly, I was Miss “Full of ideas.”

“But I’m starving,” she whined.

“There’s like a whole little town by the pier and we can get food there,” I told her. “There's a place I want to try out. Anyway, it will get us a little closer to LA.”

She agreed and we headed to Huntington Beach.

It was all going according to plan …

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U.S. Taco Co.

USTC (it’s easier) is Taco Bell’s foray into more upscale dining. They’re not getting fancy; they’re just trying to get in on what Chipotle has been doing for years.

This location in Huntington Beach, which had just opened a few days before, is US Taco Co’s only location. Taco Bell is testing it out; if it’s a hit with the public, it will go nationwide.

I'm not one of those gay guys that knows the names of colors so I can’t say what kind they are but the place is blue and yellow in that "douchey 12 year-old surfer named Spencer" kind of way (Instead of a number, they give you a license plate). USTC has also appropriated Dia de los Muertos icons to make it seem dangerous and hip.

The place is very colorful and fits right in on The Strand, Huntington Beach's surfside village. It’s actually a brilliant move to open this first USTC on The Strand. Millions of tourists from all over the world flock to Huntington Beach because it’s a surf mecca. Now, these tourists will eat at USTC and take the memory back home with them. When USTC opens up in the local towns of these tourists, they can tell their friends, “This is that place in California I was telling you about!”

Let’s talk about the food …

Anyone can look at the menu on their website. Again I didn’t memorize anything I didn’t order. I guess I have to get better at that.

But between Monica and myself, we ordered the top three tacos at the place according to the very nice girl who took our orders. And here is what we ordered

The 1%er: Flatbread. Lobster. Garlic butter. Slaw.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner: Flour tortilla. Crispy chicken. Jalapeño southern gravy.

Southern Squealer: Flour tortilla. Pulled pork. Peach jalapeño. BBQ sauce.

With the exception of the flour tortilla, the word jalapeño and a sprig of cilantro that garnishes each “taco,” there are few Mexican flavors in these street wraps.

There. I said it. They should call them street wraps. Or surf wraps.

This isn’t remotely Mexican food and to cherry pick the culture for its iconography and ignore its culinary contributions is sort of bizarre.

But how does the food taste?

It tastes like nothing. It’s hard to explain. It doesn’t taste badly. It tastes like nothing. And it’s a little off putting.

The food tastes as if it's been focus group-ed to death and what’s left is this soulless mix of proteins and carbohydrates that looks pretty but signifies nothing.

I don’t even need to break down each taco. They taste exactly how you would expect them to taste. – no better, no worse.

The standout, if there is one, is the 1%er (what a douchey name). The lobster is sizable and tasty and it feels like you’re putting something special in your mouth.

But it also costs $10.

Mind you, I FREAKED OUT when I went to Petty Cash and spent $7 for an amazing taco (I don’t believe a taco should cost that much).

I’ve had some of the best tacos in the world and none of them is over $3.

For the record, my friend Monica loved her food. She also thinks ketchup is spicy.

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I’m a huge fan of Mexican food. To be more specific, I’m a huge fan of the California Chicano iteration of Mexican food. I prefer the tacos cooked over a converted shopping cart over the tacos that arrive straight off the line at a fancy restaurant.

Tacos made by hand and served in the parking lot of a warehouse have a soul.

For that reason, people often think that I have a beef against Chipotle. That’s not true. I actually don’t mind Chipotle and eat there fairly often. Say what you will about Chipotle, the flavor profile is distinctly Mexican. And the fact that Chipotle is spreading like wildfire speaks to the fact that the flavors of Mexico are as popular as ever outside of the Southwest.

My problem is with people who think Chipotle is quintessential Mexican food. To me, Chipotle is just the starting point. And that’s what’s exciting. Once the inexperienced palate gets accustomed to Chipotle, then it’s ready for the next step into the exciting world of Mexican-American food.

Chipotle is the gateway drug.

Which is why it puzzles me that Taco Bell, which routinely bastardizes Mexican food in its eponymous chain stores, decided to go after Chipotle on its home turf. Curiously, instead of taking advantage of the accustomed American palate by taking Chipotle’s food a step further, Taco Bell instead chose to move backwards and create a menu that pretends people had never had tried Mexican food.

That’s what US Taco Co feels like: a restaurant to which you would take someone from a place like England or Belgium to sort of work them up to one day trying Chipotle.

Bitches, we’re past that. That’s so 40 years ago.

U.S. Taco Co. is just tacos in shitty drag. It's what drag queens would call "basic."

Great California Chicano food, like you get in some of the best places in East LA or other parts of the state, honors Mexican flavors and puts them on a pedestal. They’re familiar flavors taken to another level. That’s great food drag.

US Taco Co, on the other hand, takes Mexican culture and waters it down to a culturally flavorless mass in order to appease those whose palate might be offended by Mexican flavors. It's akin to what white people did to Mexican food a hundred years ago. At least back then it made a little more sense because the flavors of Mexico seemed too exotic to the average American. So, to make Mexican food more palatable, the restaurateurs just across the border watered the food down, removing the complexity, until what was left was just a basic combination of tortillas, beans and tomato sauce.

A hundred years later, Taco Bell and US Taco Co have managed to bring Mexican food back full circle. They've taken the flavors of Chipotle, run them through focus groups and removed any complexity and arrived at a flavor profile that your favorite local drag queen would disparagingly call ... basic.