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August 29, 2007
El Cachorro: Tacos al Vapor
El Cachorro at Work
El Cachorro
Tacos al Vapor
Mercado de Abastos
Calle Trigo esq. Nopal
View in Google Earth
I have not gone into detail about the various types of tacos that exist here in Mexico; it's worth a dedicated entry, because they are numerous and diverse. It's not just hard vs. soft like you usually find on el otro lado, where the difference is usually the kind of tortilla (flour or corn). In Mexico, the type of taco is usually determined by the method of preparation.
One of my favorites is al vapor, which more or less means "steamed." This denotes that the person making the tacos has made a bunch of tacos with pre-cooked fillings in corn tortillas the night before, loaded them up in an enormous steamer pot, and is selling them directly from the hot, steaming pot. It should be noted that the stuff inside the tacos is not cooked by the steaming process; the steaming process keeps them hot for serving. An additional aspect of this process is that they come out nice and moist.
I learned about El Chachorro one day because I was talking with Charles about potato tacos. He told me that some of the best were to be found at a particular al vapor taco stand in the Abastos Market, the market where people go to buy stuff in large quantities. (abastos means "supplies," and this is where corner store owners go to buy cases of soda and kitchen managers go to buy 40-pound boxes of tomatoes) The problem was that tacos al vapor are a morning-to-noon thing, and I often do not even wake up until then. Yet the Abastos Market is a great place to buy top-notch produce at very cheap prices, and if you want to get the good stuff, you have to get there pretty early. Not like crack-o-dawn early, but like 10:00 early. Even I can manage that. So as these things eventually work out, I ended up at the Abastos Market one day at just the perfect time for tacos al vapor, so we made a preliminary stop at El Cachorro.
I've been a fan ever since.
El Cachorro Tacos al Vapor
Like a lot of food that fuels the machinery of the working class, El Cachorro is street food. Opinions vary widely on whether or not it is safe to eat street food; some people that will not touch it, yet many know it as their primary source of sustenance. There are a handful of things that validate a street food source for me, like the food being served hot, a considerable number of people at the stand, or the recommendation of a friend. This place had all three.
You can see the different varieties they offer in the top photo: cicharron, lengua, frijol, papa and huevo con chorizo (pig skin, tongue, bean, potato and egg with sausage). You can get a soda, or an agua fresca for MXN $7, which is just under USD $0.70 to go along with it. It says "agua," but this means agua fresca, and at El Cachorro, that means de piña (pineapple), always.
The family makes up a huge number of these tacos every day, in the wee hours of the morning, and then loads them into the steamer pot to keep them warm all through the morning as they're being sold. They keep the different types in different areas of the pot, but they are all mixed in together so the grease from one kind drips down over the others. I suspect that I've ingested pig skin or tounge grease that has dripped onto my potato tacos, and I don't even want to know if the frijol version has some kind of animal fat in it. For an El Cachorro taco, I'll deal with it. (I don't make such blanket exceptions often. The last time was with miso ginger soup at Taki's on Colfax.)
El Cachorro Serves it Up Piping Hot
The thing that really sets apart the El Cachorro taco al vapor is the double tortilla. Everywhere else I've had them, they come as a single tortilla encasing the filling. At El Cachorro, you get two fine quality corn tortillas wrapped around your tongue or potato, and it makes it not only a lot more filling, but easier to eat. The taco al vapor is by nature a very soft, mushy taco, given to splitting and losing its filling. This never happens with an El Cachorro taco because if the inner layer comes apart, the outer layer still holds it all together.
This also lets the lucky consumer of the El Cachorro taco load on more of the delicious salsas that they have at the taco stand. They have three different kinds, which they distinguish as mild, medium and hot, but they are three entirely different types of salsa. The hottest kind is made with tomatillos and habañero chiles, but I usually go for the mild kind just because I like the flavor the most. They also have the ever-present minced cabbage and the carrot-jalapeño-onion in escabeche. That's one of the great things about taco stands in Mexico - they inevitably have all kinds of delicious things you can add to the tacos or eat on the side. I have yet to see the range of condiments you find at taco stands here in Mexico equaled in the United States. It's not a selection of five or so hot sauces. It's pickled red onions, escabeche, avocado salsa, various chile salsas, cole slaw, chipotles en adobado, grilled serrano chiles, diced fresh tomato-cilantro-onion-chile (known often as pico de gallo in the US, but more often called salsa mexicana here), jicama, limes...the list goes on and on.
Oh, and note how, in the above picture, they serve you on a plastic plate, but it's covered by a plastic bag. This is done at nearly all street food vendors though; it is not limited to El Cachorro. This lets them reuse the plastic plates without their ever getting dirty. When you're done with your food, you (or the stand attendant) strips off the dirty plastic bag from the plate, throws it in the trash and slides a new bag over the plate. Voila! It's a fresh clean plate for the next customer.
Some of El Cachorro's Salsas and Condiments
El Cachorro is so popular that he has expanded this year. He now has a couple of other stands located in the Abastos Market, and this original stand has a self-contained lavamanos, a little sink where you can wash your hands before eating. You can see a corner of it in the left side of the photo below. For a street food stand, that's getting really fancy.
El Cachorro Draws a Crowd
Oh and for those of you interested in the language, cachorro means "puppy," and that's the owner's nickname. I do not know his real name. Charles always refers to him simply as el cachorro, and I always know exactly who he's talking about.
Posted by crispy at August 29, 2007 11:53 AM
Comments
There's a place in Santa Ana, (about 5 mi S or Disneyland) called Titos La Especial which sells Tacos al Vapor! More expensive than thos in TJ, however, quite comparable in taste! So far, this is the only place I've found near home in Southern California. The address is 701 N. Harbor Blvd, Santa Ana, CA 92703. Do you know of any place other place in Southern CA that sells tacos al vapor? I live in Whittier, CA
[crispy says: Gosh, before moving to Mexico, I'd never even heard of them. Maybe the article on Chowhound about it can give you some guidance!]
Posted by: Angel Ramirez at May 12, 2008 12:06 PM