A little while ago, I took you on a tour of Los Angeles taco trucks, looking for basics like carne asada and carnitas. These no-frills fold-ups got us to the heart of the taco, but what about businesses that try to expand on the fundamentals?
Enter Homegirl Café, where they thrive on exaggeration of the essentials. The restaurant sits on the ground floor of the Chinatown’s Homeboy Industries, an organization based in Boyle Heights that helps at-risk youths and gang members by giving them transitional jobs. The company oversees restaurant, bakery, silk-screening, merchandise and maintenance services, all of which employ formerly at-risk or incarcerated men and women.
It’s important to keep all this in mind when you arrive at Homegirl. After awkwardly questioning the existence of a hostess, my group sat ourselves and waited 15 minutes, feeling slightly invisible, before flagging down some menus. The Saturday lunch crowd was hardly putting constraints on the large staff, but the girls did runs between the gallery kitchen and tables as if we hadn’t plopped ourselves down at a barren table in the middle of the space. I slurped up drool dribbles as table after table got bowls of blue corn chips and bright orange habanero salsa.
Finally our turn, we ordered eight of their inventive tacos and a coffee, then tucked in to gorging ourselves on chips and salsa. We could have splurged on pineapple guacamole or sourdough walnut raisin bread with cilantro, jalapeno and pecan pesto, but I saved the dough for dessert. In the meantime, we were served a small side of disappointment—Homegirl’s website had made the false promise of all-day breakfast Saturdays, which proved heartbreakingly false. Sorry, squash blossom omelettes and cactus eggs—perhaps another time.
Regret pangs subsided soon enough when the waitress graced our table with tacos, tacos and—wait, what are those? More tacos! Eight sounds like a lot, but they’re really no bigger than the paper-wrapped goodies at La Estrella. And similar to their mobile cousins, these wore the simple garnish of two lime halves and radish slices. Three tacos for seven bucks ought to come with rice and beans, if you ask me. Or at the very least, charge less than two bucks each for those sides. But the quality of the taco ingredients makes you forget you could be eating something a little simpler for a lot less back in Highland Park. Beginning with the meat, as I have a tendency to do, the journey began with apple-tomatillo-topped carnitas, which proved that the tried-and-true apple pork combo exists for a mighty fine reason. The flavor pairing overpowered my ability to discern quality carnitas from their mediocre counterparts, but suffice it to say, you’ll probably enjoy eating this.
They continued to excel at flavor pairings, sticking carne asada with a thick peanut sauce in an unexpected but pleasant marriage. This was followed by beef tinga, a dish of shredded chicken and chorizo I recently cooked at home. Homegirl’s was better.
Next was another filling I’ve tried my hand at in the past—cochinita pibil. Homegirl’s drove me to exclaim “favorite,” while still chewing and staining my lips with its orange grease. Cochinita was famous by Once Upon a Time in Mexico’s main character, Agent Sands, who kills any chef who prepares it too well. No one killed me when I made it, but Homegirl’s chefs out to watch their backs.
Stepping out of Central American terrain for a moment, the ladies behind the counter cooked up a chicken taco topped with orange slices and tamarind sauce that tasted very Thai and a salmon taco that smacked of the sea. They return to the southwest, however, for the big finale of the nopales salad taco—that’s right, cactus. These green strips come off a little too pickled at first, but give it time. Like any infamous taste shrouded in infamy, such as Marmite, caviar or pate, this is an acquired taste.
The wait resumed as we resorted to pushing lime rinds around the plate and pressing our thumbs against chip crumbs to pass the time. Eventually dessert was ordered, coffee was refilled and new paintings by local artists were hung by Homeboy Maintenance crew members. We marveled at these and their flavorful coffee, a mild brew with orange blossom and cinnamon, while we waited to put the finishing touches on our meal.
The mango upside-down corn bread finally came in all its dense, sugar-soaked glory. Crusty at the edges and warm throughout, the ice cream melted onto this slice of maize heaven. A caramelized mango slice was embedded in the center while thin strips of fresh mango had been spilled around the plate. Baked in-house by the Homeboy Bakery, this dessert was a mere $3.50, and the fresh muffins were similarly affordable. The delicious jalapeno corn and banana nut came highly recommended by the tattooed bakers, and I’m anxious to return for Mexican wedding cookies to dip in their spicy coffee. Sounds like the perfect accompaniment to an omelette, don’t you think? Next time I’ll know to get downtown before eleven o’clock rolls around.
For more information on Homeboy Industries or the Homegirl Café Menu, visit www.homeboy-industries.org
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