By the Secret Diner –
In our last review, Mrs. Secret Diner and I were describing our experience at Edie’s Grill, 5101 Telegraph. Please check them out. Tell them The Secret Diner sent you! Read below and guess where we are off to next.
I’m curious about process and passion and their relationship to…well, perfection, to be alliterative. I love to hear people who’ve achieved some level of virtuosity in any field talk about how they’ve come to be: guitar players, comedians, writers…chefs. I’ve always attributed the quote, “I hate to write, but I love having written” to Earnest Hemingway. A quick Google search as I type this review tells me it’s most widely attributed to Dorothy Parker; though, Google is quick to point out that there is no evidence that Parker even said it. That the quote is so widely uttered and attributed to many different writers tells me there is something there.
Struggle is an essential ingredient. I heard an interview with Jerry Seinfeld during which he said that comedy is hell, but that it is a hell of his choosing. Those who swim against the current, march to a different beat, face their demons (the metaphors are endless) to put something of themselves into the world are artists. They are our heroes. It’s all very Joseph Campbell.
I had a writing professor in college who offered us a different angle on the trope of the tortured artist. Sure, these folks may have suffered adversity and battled addiction, but maybe those aren’t requisite for art. Maybe art is the medicine. Imagine how much more difficult their lives would have been if they didn’t write.
I say all this because the tortillera at a new restaurant in town has seen some stuff. We knew it from the first bite. Mrs. Secret Diner asked our server, “Do you make your tortillas in house?”
Our server smiled, “You know how there is a server. A bartender, hostess…?”
“Yes,”
“We have a person, she just comes in and makes the tortillas.”
***
Let’s back up. Mrs. Secret Diner and I knew of the location of our latest mission for some time. This once empty building wore a banner for the longest promising a new barbeque joint. We’ve been on the hunt for good barbeque, and we had hopes for this place. It’s open now, but not as a barbeque joint. It’s serving up Mexican food with a story, with soul. If Jim Gaffigan had eaten Mexican food like this, he might not have quipped that all Mexican food is the same.
Enter this eatery through a gorgeous arch into a foyer with seating set around a tree. An opaque skylight softens the California sun and fills the space as water fills a pond. “I feel like I’ve been transported to Mexico,” Mrs. Diner said. She said it several times during the meal. We chose to sit near the kitchen, banquet seating. A birthday party sat at the large, elevated table in the middle of the dining room. We all sang “Happy Birthday to You.”
Mrs. Diner ordered a large margarita, and I asked for a coke. With our drinks, the server brought small plates for our appetizer, the potato doradito. This dish arrived – three rolled and crispy tacos filled with potato, cheese, and poblano atop a salad of tomato broth, crema, pickled jalapeño, salsa cruda, and guacamole. With forks like fencing foils, we parried and lunged our way to the bottom of the plate. The perfect bite was crisp and savory, dripping with broth.
For my entree, I went for the mole con pollo taco – black almond mole and blue corn tortillas. Wiping my plate clean with the last bite of tortilla, I was convinced I’d ordered perfectly. Then I tasted Mrs. Diner’s dish: the chicana quesadilla. We will be chasing that bite of food at every restaurant we visit…forever. Sauteed wild white shrimp, cheese, corn, poblano, crema and salsa cruda on a homemade tortilla slapped to life by a master.
“Give me some advice on eating this,” Mrs. Diner asked the server.
“You just gotta get in there,” she said. She was right.
We often leave places promising to return and explore the rest of the menu. I’m coming back here for the chicana quesadilla and the potato doraditos. I probably need to try the Aztec Old Fashioned, too, with chocolate bitters.
Think you know where Mrs. Secret Diner and I were? Check out our next review to see if you’re right, and to join us on our next adventure.
