May the food be with you.
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Taco Maria. $100 for the 4 course tasting. No aguachile but the food is still top notch. Their sauces are spicy, fresh, vibrant, alive and could eat most of them with a shoe.
Lovely mole sauce underneath this corn squash fried thing amuse bouche.
First course choices. I went with the Ceaser. Those crunchy little croutons were magic and the very anchovy forward dressing. So good.
Tongue and chorizo tostada. Nice layer of beans and the peas helped add some sweetness. I’d eat like 4-5 of these no problem.
Pork belly and guinea hen with accoutrements. Flower vase with cilantro and flowers, salsa negra, sous vide avocado and blue corn tortillas. 3 per person. The crispy skin in the hen added nice texture. Hen was moist. The sauce stole the show. Bright, smokey and spicy but not overwhelmingly so.
Desserts were good. I actually enjoyed the ricotta cheesecake more than I thought. The panna cotta had nice flavor but was a little soft.
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No time to go out for Cinco de Mayo so stopped for a tasty snack (I’m such a fatass).
Birrieria San Marcos in Van Nuys on Hazeltine.
Taco, taco dorado and queso taco.
They pack everything you need to dress them:
Damn good! Have to do a side by side with Teddy’s or Tacos El Compita.
These were pretty damn tasty. They don’t include the consomé so didn’t sip on any broth, which really would have helped in my evaluation.
The queso taco was so cheesy, like a grilled cheese with a tad of birria. So good with the salsas they give (one roja one verde).
https://www.birrieriasanmarcos.com/
Was going to bang with Salsa & Beer but as my car steered itself to NoHo, I was getting more full by the minute.
But driving by S&B, I noticed same side of Sherman Way, just a few doors down from the restaurant, there was this storefront under construction. I wonder.
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Early bird gets the worm!
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I know it’s been around for a while, but I wonder when they flipped to Birria. Used to just be a (good) restaurant called San Marcos Mexican Grill.
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Four locations now. Isn’t far from me so I will check it out. @Gr8pimpin has never led me astray.
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It was really good. I tried two queso tacos and a cup of consome. The consome put the tacos over the top! Thanks for the tip!!
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Glad to hear!! Which location?
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Hazeltine off Oxnard.
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My post about my visit to Funke (in May) was moved to another thread by the Mod. I’ve flagged for it to be re-included in the May Rundown thread.
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It’ll be more visible to more people in the Funke topic. Why do you care?
I,as the author of that post, intended for my contribution to appear on the May Rundown thread, as it is a relevant May 2023 experience.
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Funke (Beverly Hills)… Food and vibes are great. Good pacing of the food. The service is joyful, professional and knowledgeable. The team is to be commended.
Rooftop access involves going through their IG tunnel (nice placement)…
Lovely rooftop bar and open air vibes while waiting for our table. Mixology was solid…
Sfincione Palermitano… Airy and delicious, this is pan pizza which has achieved enlightenment. And I mean that in the most laudatory of manners.
Pizze Amalfitana… Tons of people recommended this one, but I gotta say this was a rare miss for me. No subtlety. Bitter, and just too overpowering. The dough is faultless, though, and that is a redeeming factor here. It should me mentioned that the Torino cocktail (partially pictured here) is worth trying. Single source coffee + bourbon = thoughtful, smooth sips with an intoxicating, fragrant finish…
Linguine alle Vongole… Spectacular dish, in every way. Truth be told, I was not expecting this to be a huge knockout of a pasta dish, but there you have it. This is stellar. The umami pervades every glorious millimeter of this gloriously cooked pasta. You could take all the juicy clams (and there are a lot of clams here, folks) off the plate and just enjoy the linguine alone, and you’d still be a happy camper. My Funke highlight of the night.
Dessert highlight: Crostata di Mirtilli… Served at a perfect temperature, the puff pastry, Sicilian almonds and cream di bergamotto proved to be more complex than a dessert needed to be, but in a most welcome way…
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