Food GPS - Food. Drinks. People.
Do you remember the days when ceviche was confined to seafood in Los Angeles? Me neither. I was lucky enough to have a front row seat for ceviche variations featuring beef and duck at Ceviche Nights, and ...
Food GPS - Food. Drinks. People.
Do you remember the days when ceviche was confined to seafood in Los Angeles? Me neither. I was lucky enough to have a front row seat for ceviche variations featuring beef and duck at Ceviche Nights, and the boundary bending continues in Mid-City at Petty Cash Taqueria, where chef Walter Manzke is front and center and one of his ceviche dishes showcases Cook Ranch Pork ($9).
Petty Cash, which previously housed Playa and has Bill Chait and John Sedlar as partners, came together quickly. Manzke traveled to Manila to help his family open a second Wildflour café. Within two weeks, architect Osvaldo Maiozzi executed Manzke’s vision for “East LA meets 1980s Tijuana.” They stripped down the space, adding a RETNA wall mural sporting the colors of the Mexican flag, decorative steel beams and clusters of drop down lightbulbs.
Some people might be intimidated by the prospect of “raw” pork, but we’re a long way from the Middle Ages, or even 1881, when trichinosis was still a concern. At Petty Cash, the lime-cured pork is premium, sliced from Cook Ranch pigs that feed on macadamia nuts just outside Julian. The tender meat arrives in rosy cubes, graced with creamy chunks of avocado, and delivering a united tang from pickled Fresno chile strips, tomatillo, and pickled red onions. Scallions and nopales cubes provide textural contrast, and a judicious amount of chile oil rounds out the flavor profile. If anything, people might find the dish was relatively tame. Well, at least compared to the chapulines and raicilla, which we also dispensed with at a communal table, Beastie Boys blasting in the background.
Dose of Vitamin P spotlights my favorite pork dish from the previous week.
Dose of Vitamin P: Petty Cash Taqueria Cook Ranch Pork Ceviche
