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Sorry for being away for so long, but as you know, these are strange times.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but you know... can't go out right now. At least not to discover new restaurants and dishes.
Still, it's good to order delivery or take out to support local restaurants, and let's be real, there's a moment when you just don't want to cook for at least one day.
And that's why I did this week. I went to Uber Eats and searched for something other than burritos or fries.

The Place

The location of this place it's kinda confusing because it does not appear in Google Maps and does not have a webpage. But it obviously appears in Uber Eats.
It's called Buckaroo Foot Long Tortas, and it's in National City, CA.


It seems like it's two restaurants operating in the same location because if you search for the address, you get "Chamango"... but honestly, that doesn't matter as long as I get some good food and it's delicious.

As you can get out of the name, the main dish in this place are tortas. Most of them are the traditional ones, nothing too fancy.
For example, ham torta, chicken torta, turkey torta, even veggie torta.
Of course, they also offer other things but mainly to complement your torta, like fruit salad, regular salads, and esquites (more on that shortly).
For beverages, there are juices, smoothies, water and sodas. And that's pretty much it.
Sorry I can't talk about the location or the interior, but I didn't go this time.

The Dish

For a couple weeks I've been craving specifically for a milanesa torta. I couldn't do it at home because either I did not have the correct bread, or the supermarket was out of the beef required to prepare the milanesa (hate you all who are overstocking, it's just a health crisis, not the end of the world! ...yet), and then I found this place online! It had exactly what I wanted! So, a milanesa torta was the chosen dish.


Don't know what a torta is? Well, it basically is a sandwich, but what makes a torta, a torta, is mainly the bread which in Mexico is known as "pan telera", or torta bread (duh). This is a telera:


Then the primary ingredients in a torta are, besides the bread, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, jalapeños, onions, avocado, and the main protein, in this case, it was milanesa... oh, and I took out the onions and avocado (because team #NoAvocado).

And what is a milanesa? Just breaded beef. This dish is typical of south and central America (the continent, obviously, don't be a nationalist moron). By itself, it can be pretty good and tasty, but put all these ingredients together, and you get one perfect torta.

What I like about this place, and why I liked this torta, it's that it really is prepared the Mexican way. It has the right ingredients and nothing more. No yellow cheese or any other Chicano-us inventions.
No, if you're looking for something like the real deal, this is the place. In fact, I want to order again from this place and try other tortas.

For the side, I also got another great dish; while I love fries, it wasn't time for fries. A Mexican dish deserves a Mexican side: esquites!


Esquites are a popular, and delicious, snack in Mexico. They're also known as "elote en vaso" (corn in a cup). The corn grain is generally boiled in water and then toasted, but it needs to be in a cup.
What's great about it is that it can be prepared in different ways, for example with lime and chile, mayonnaise and cheese.
Fun fact, the word esquites comes from the Nahuatl word ízquitl, which means "toasted corn".

The verdict: It was great. I satisfied my craving, and I appreciate the fact that this place prepares it the Mexican way, as it must be.
I can't give it the 100 grade because it still not Mexican, but it's pretty close. At least this place just became one of my favourite eateries because I love tortas (c'mon, who doesn't).
I also liked and appreciated that they don't charge you extra for those essential ingredients. In other places, they charge you extra for jalapeños! That's crazy.
I'm definitely ordering from this place again, and I think it will be sooner than later.

So, if you are in the San Diego, National City, or Chula Vista area, you can definitely order from its place through Uber Eats. Or you can go and order for take-out.
Remember to stay safe, stay home, and support your local places as much as you can.


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One last stop in Mexico City before I return home. This time it was my mom who chose the restaurant because it was her birthday, and that's the law, birthday gal gets to pick. Luckily she's got pretty good taste.

This time we went to the south of the city, to Coyoacán. This is actually a must-go for any person visiting Mexico City. It's a nice neighbourhood, it's full of history, there are a lot of Museums (like Frida Khalo's house), and there are lots of places to eat, lots of great options. But this time we went to an old favourite.

The place

It's called "Los Danzantes", and it's located next to Coyoacán's central park, or actually, Coyoacán's Downtown.


The other location of this restaurant is in another state, in Oaxaca.

This place is 100% Mexican, and they define their concept as a fusion between the ancient and contemporary Mexico, "a dance between the past, the present, and the future [...] with flavours that [can] transport you to every corner [of the] country."
Starting with the location, like I said it's in the middle of Coyoacán. The building screams "Made in Mexico" everywhere you see. And of course, the whole menu is 100% Mexican; even sodas, you can order one, but there's no Coke or Sprite or any American brand.

The Dish

I'm still in Mexico City, and even though I had already gone to this place, it's been a while since the last time I went. In fact, it's been nearly 6 years since the last time I went, and ever since I've always wanted to go back.

This place holds a special place in my heart because it's one of the first places I went out with my today fiancée, and again, it was she who showed me this place.

The Place

It's called Mama's Pizza, and well, with the name I'm sure you get the idea of what you can eat here.
It has snacks, salads, soups, pasta, and of course a wide variety of pizzas.
This place has only one location, and it's near Plaza Universidad.


They divide their pizza flavours in "classics", such as pepperoni, chorizo, chicken. Then there are "gourmet" pizzas such as bacon, bolognese, ham. "Seafood" pizzas with shrimp and anchovies. "Specialty" pizzas which combine several ingredients, and here you can find the Hawaiian, Mexican, ranchera, tropical. There are also the "taqueras" pizzas with ingredients usually used for tacos, like the pastor pizza, alambre or chicharron. And the "máximas", which I believe are more specialised because of the ingredients.
I just mentioned just a few of the available pizzas in the menu, but there are lots of options, and you can see the whole list on their website.

You can dine-in or take out. The restaurant also offers catering service for events.

Another cool thing about the restaurant is that they give you a white paper tablecloth and a bunch of crayons, so you can draw while you wait for the food to come out.
But it gets better. You can submit your drawing to their social profiles, and every month they run a contest to choose the best picture, the winner gets a free pizza and the honour to put your drawing on the wall.



If you're not good drawing, like me, you can pass and just admire the ones already hung in the walls. But if you enjoying drawing, why not give it a go? Free pizza is always a good idea.

The Dish

Pizza, of course! But which pizza?
A good thing in this place is that you can choose half and half to try two different flavours. Today we decided half pastor, which comes with carne al pastor, onions, pineapple, and coriander. And half gourmet which comes with sausage, pepper, mushroom and onion.

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A post shared by Max Sanchez (@mxbs13) on Mar 1, 2020 at 12:24pm PST

Trust me, the ingredients are there, beneath all that cheese. In fact, I've never seen so much cheese in any pizza before.
And if that's not enough cheese, you can always ask for the cheese-stuffed crust!

What makes this pizza so good, besides the amount of cheese on it 🤤, is that everything is so fresh, from the vegetables which when you bite them they feel juicy and flavourful. The meats are also cooked to perfection, and at least the pastor meat is perfectly marinated. Even the crust is excellent.

And have I mentioned it has a lot of cheese? Well, it does… in case I didn't say it.

Obviously, all pizzas are hand-made and made from scratch, so it's a guarantee it'll always be good, taken directly from the oven to your table.

There's no way to ruin a pizza, but definitely, there are infinite ways to improve it, and this place does a great job.

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Have you ever experienced a moment when the dessert was better than a meal?
Oh yeah, it happens! And it's delicious! (probably not healthy… but delicious indeed!).

This week I was back in Mexico City, and while I had heard about this place, I didn't have the pleasure to try its sweet offerings. In fact, it's so popular I had once tried to go, but the line was impossible, forcing me to pass on that time... until now!

The Place

If you've ever gone as a tourist to Mexico City, the probability of ever hearing about this place is high, as it is often recommended to tourists.
It's called "El Moro", and it's a churrería. Don't know what a churrería is? It's a place which sells churros.

This restaurant/churrería first opened back in 1935 by Francisco Iriarte, a Spanish immigrant who after arriving in Mexico and realising nobody was selling churros started to sell them in a street cart at Mexico City's Zocalo in 1933. With the money he made with the street cart, he opened the first restaurant.
Nowadays "El Moro" has 13 locations across Mexico City; this time I went to the one located in Zona Rosa, but you can check all of them on their webpage.


The menu is not extensive, but what's in it is enough for a good time.
Obviously, the main dish and specialty are churros which you can order in orders of four or singles. Right now, they are offering red velvet churros for a limited time.
For your churros, you can add a sweet dip of cajeta, chocolate, or condensed milk.

They also have what is called Consuelo and Consuelitos, and are like ice cream sandwiches, but instead of a cookie, the ice cream is between rolled churros. The difference is that a Consuelo is a big sandwich with one ice cream flavour, and the Consuelitos are three little ones with three ice cream flavours. You can choose among chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla ice cream, you know, the classics.

Of course, they also have hot, cold, and sweet beverages to accompany your desserts such as coffee, hot chocolate, milk, almond milk, frappes, tea, and sodas.
Oh, if you get hot chocolate, you can add little marshmallows! 👌

Looking for something not sweet? You can order a torta for dinner! Although not available in all locations, you can have pastor and pierna con mole (adobada pork and pork leg with mole) tortas. This time I had neither, but I've heard they are pretty good and tasty. I should go back and confirm this premise.

The Dish

You know what I ordered. Churros!
And yes, they are pretty good making me understand why they are so popular.


Verdict: Delicious. They're crunchy and feels like taking a bite from sweet heaven.
The order of 4 churros, the one I had, is perfect to share between two people as they're big enough, but if you're brave or hungry enough, it's not hard to finish one order all by yourself.

They are so great because they are made at the moment so you can be sure they are always fresh, and that provides a great flavour. Because the place is popular and often there are big queues, they are continually preparing churros, so nothing is more than 20-30 minutes old, at least from what I was able to see. Once they are ready and out of the oil, the cook passes the tray to the front bar. Before handing your order they ask if you want your churros with sugar or cinnamon (team cinnamon here!), and they add it right there.

Definitely, a great option to enjoy a classic, timeless dessert 👌.


Cover photo taken from El Moro's webpage

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My opinion may be biased due to my cultural background, but still, I firmly believe there is no better food in the world than Mexican food. Don't @ me.
The thing is that in San Diego being so close to the border, one would think it wouldn't be hard to find some good Mexican food, right? False.

Obviously, there are a lot of so-called "Mexican" food restaurants, and nostalgia has led me to eat in lots of those places.
Don't get me wrong that doesn't mean they are bad! In fact, I've enjoyed most of those places, and I often go back. The thing is that it is NOT real Mexican food. Once you understand that simple fact, you can still enjoy the food.

But hope is never lost, and if you search carefully, you can hit the jackpot. Today I get to talk about one of those jackpots.

The place

Curious; I found this place a couple of years ago thanks to Uber Eats and to my fianceé who once sent me some chilaquiles to my workplace. Why? Because she's cute and she's the best.
At the moment I thought those green chilaquiles were pretty good and that's it.
A couple of months after I wanted some chilaquiles again and checked the app, but the delivery and service fees were more expensive than me driving there. So... I went to this place, which luckily it's not far from where I work.

At that time when I discovered the place, it had another name, but now it's called Cocina 35. If I thought the chilaquiles back then were great, I found they were voted the Best Chilaquiles in Town.
The place is famous for their chilaquiles, and obviously, they're my favourite dish when I go there; but if you're not into them (we can't be friends if you don't) or want to try something else, they have different options depending on the location.

There is one location in Downtown San Diego. They offer chilaquiles with different salsas and toppings, and also serve breakfast options like eggs, tamales, tortas, and desserts.


The other location in Otay, near the Otay border, besides offering the same as the Downtown location, they have some more lunch options such as burritos, enfrijoladas, and sandwiches.


You can check the menu for both locations here.

The chosen dish

Chilaquiles, of course. But what kind?
When ordering, you can create your own by choosing the ingredients on top and salsa, or simply choose a creation from the chef.
In my case, I love ordering the "La Bomba" chilaquiles.


This magnificent creation has cochinita pibil, creamy habanero salsa, avocado (which of course I took out), sour cream, cotija cheese, cilantro, and pickled onions.

What's great of the chilaquiles here are the tortillas used. They are not bought from Costco or Walmart. They really are cut and home-fried tortillas.
They're made perfectly, not too fried, not too soft.

Now, what makes "La Bomba" chilaquiles great is the habanero salsa, which one would think is unworldly spicy, but no. Because it's creamy, it's barely spicy, and it has an amazing flavour. And of course the cochinita pibil on top. Here I have to admit it's not authentic Yucatan's cochinita pibil, but it's still pretty good.
And the portion size is more than generous 👌.

This place definitely has earned the title for the best chilaquiles in town!


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You read the title right. At first, I didn't believe it either, but then again I remembered what poutine really is. Plus, today the Mexican poutine was not the only thing I ordered.

After the December parties, it's moment to pause for a while with so much eating. It is actually proven that in December, people tend to gain from 2 to 4 kilograms, and that is not cool. Sadly, I'm not the exception to the rule, and, I'm not going to diet, but instead, I'm doing a 10-day challenge to cleanse myself and put in order what I eat and the portions.
But of course, before I do this, I indulged myself to one last not so healthy meal.

At noon I didn't really know what I wanted, I only knew I was hungry, so I took my phone and searched for something good in San Diego. That's when I came across…

The place

It's called The Crack Shack. It has 6 locations, 5 of them in California near the San Diego and Los Angeles areas, and one more in Las Vegas.
The one I went to is located in Little Italy, near Downtown San Diego.


This place's specialty is chicken and eggs. Everything on the menu has either chicken or eggs.
You can check the full menu on their website.

It's all outdoor. You arrive, order, and if you're eating there, you get a number. Sitting is open, so you choose the table or bar that's available.
In the back of the place, there is a bar which offers wines, beers, and cocktails. And even though it's outdoor, there are some TV's, something much appreciated to watch the playoffs.

The chosen dishes

Yep, I order a sandwich and something more than fries.

I chose the Firebird, which is made up of a spicy fried thigh, ranch dressing, crispy onions, pickles, potato roll.
I just read spicy and went with it… but the thigh is not my favourite part of the chicken, I prefer the breast because it has more meat, is firmer, and has less fat. And because of this, I honestly did not love it.
But that doesn't mean it was bad. The chicken was actually pretty good, it was tender and juicy. The bread was firm, but fresh.
What I didn't like much was that it wasn't spicy enough, I was expecting more, but I guess if you're not into spicy food, you'll probably enjoy it.
Again, even though I did not love it, I see myself going back, but now ordering the sandwich with chicken breast.



For the side, I ordered, as the title says, Mexican poutine.
Backstory: last year, my fianceé and I went to Canada for the first time, and we ate authentic Canadian poutine, I fell in love with it immediately. During that week I didn't eat enough poutine to fill my heart, and since then I've been looking for a place here in San Diego that serves poutine, I mean, how hard can it be to find one? (spoiler alert: it is, I haven't found one!).  So when I saw Mexican poutine in the menu, even though I knew it wasn't the real thing, I had to try it.

This dish, of poutine it only has the fries and the name in common. It is made of schmaltz fries, pollo asado and jalapeño cheese wiz.
It is simple, but it looks appetising, and oh boy, it's tasty. I actually liked it more than the sandwich.
But still, it is NOT poutine ☝. 

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New post in my blog! Today I present you Mexican poutine and a Firebird, from #SanDiego’s The Crack Shack. Link is in my bio! . . . . . . . ——————————————— #california #foodie #writing #food #poutine #chicken

A post shared by Max Sanchez (@mxbs13) on Jan 11, 2020 at 5:27pm PST

One more thing I liked about the location is that it is practically next to the airport, so you can see the planes no more than 100 feet above you just before they land. If you, like me, love planespotting and aviation in general, it's a nice place to see aeroplanes going by.



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