Follow @MXBS13

Follow @MXBS13

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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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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We all can agree that one of the best things to do is to eat. I am not too picky, as long as it looks good, I will give it a try.
But the experience gets so much better after you've been stressing for a while, and can finally let it all out having a nice meal to relax.

Something like that happened to me a couple of days ago when I travelled to Mexico City.
I needed to take a test, and it was cheaper to do it down there than in San Diego, and while I was confident I was going to do great, there's still that little feeling that something could go wrong, that it could be harder as expected, or that my knowledge, in fact, does not suffice.  Added that I needed to keep my cool because my fianceé was even more nervous than I was, and I did not want to worry her more.

In the end, I did well in the test, and while I'm still waiting for the official results, I am confident I did as good as I expected. I felt it more as a formality I needed to take and an actual examination (yes, I'm that confident 😎). Once we finished, we were hungry. Good thing we were in la Condesa, where there is a different restaurant or eatery every 2 steps.

The Place

What caught my eye was that it was a German restaurant, and I wanted something different from Mexican or American food.
It's called "FRANKFURT: Salchichas y Cervezas" (FRANKFURT: Sausages and Beers), it has several locations in Mexico City, but as I mentioned, we visited the one in la Condesa.


Its concept is of European sausages and beers in a restaurant with that European feel and look. While the food and bread are German-style, it offers beers from the whole European Union… and some American ones, but if you're in a place like this, you can ignore those.
If you're in the mood, you can even have some wine.

The chosen dish

If you did not understand the title of this post, well, it's what I ordered, but in German: beef hamburger and beer.



This burger is the "Frankfurt burger", it comes with bacon and gouda cheese. But don't be fooled, the patty is not the regular ground beef meat. No, it's a beef sausage-shaped as a patty. It is, of course, accompanied by some fries.

And to drink?

I chose an Eku 28, a German amber beer; I did not know it at the moment, but with 11% ABV is one of the strongest beers in the world. It was not bad, and while I prefer amber beers, this one is not quite for me. Tasty… but too strong.


After this great European meal, I was glad I had taken the test in this location. By the end of the day, I was pleased with the experience and ready to go get my next meal!



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For a couple of days I’ve been trying to write my next post, but honestly, I’ve been having a hard time, I was not loving what I was writing. The only thing that came easily to my mind was food because I really enjoyed my last post which was supposed to be the start of a series of writing challenges, and I didn’t want to be a foodie and write exclusively about, well, food. But after thinking for a while I came to realize, why not? If that’s how words easily come to me, why deny me that? After all, what I want is to write, so I’m taking that road, but with my twist.

I don’t want to be the typical foodie searching and recommending for local dishes and just the best of the best, instead, I want to share what food got in front of me and the story and how behind it, because every dish has a story, and I think that’s interesting.

For example today, I had some asada fries! If you follow me on Twitter or read my last post, you know that I love fries. Actually potatoes in general; if I had to choose one thing to eat for the rest of my life it would be potatoes because they’re delicious and versatile. But the presentation I like the most are french fries (yeah, I know they’re actually not french), so it’s an understatement to say I like asada fries.

Recently on my twitter I pledged to find the best fries in San Diego, and luckily I almost instantly received a recommendation, and that is always great and welcomed because it makes it easy to start.

Saturday was the chosen day to go search for this place, and again I was in luck because there was a location near to where I fly my drone. So after finishing the flight and packing everything up, it was time to eat.

Este es un cuento que escribí cuando estaba en Preparatoria para un evento cultural de mi clase de literatura. Alguna vez fue publicado, pero cuando cerré el blog por un tiempo lo borré y no lo volví a publicar en ningún lado… hasta ahora.
Decidí volver a hacerlo público y compartirlo. Con ustedes, Viaje al gran queso: