Make way for the coming of the anti-taco.
There's more to the authentic Mexican quick-bite than the taco. And I'm not talking about a burrito. Heck, south of Monterrey if you ask for a burrito the most you'll get is a baby donkey. No, amigos, prepare yourself for the coming of the torta sandwich.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good taco as much as the next chowhound, but with the recent rise around here of the panini, the torta's distant, frou-frou cousin, I intuit a general upswing of the
***image1***
specialty sandwich (would this process be called paninization?). Who knows, the long, hard and mostly crunchy reign of the taco may at last be in its decline. Tortas are ubiquitous in Mexico and here, according to all clues on hand, it's just a matter of time: The moment for a torta revolution has arrived.
Now, the real thing can be hard to find. Having spent a good deal of time trolling the greater metropolitan area of New York City in search of this elusive sandwich, I know this to be true, at least in the northern enclaves; the cries of the revolution haven't quite made it to Queens. Is the taco to the torta as NYC is to Santa Fe? At any rate, here one can easily find the ripe rumblings of a torta underground.
The first satellite of the uprising is El Paisano, an emporium of Mexican products on Cerrillos Road. There, Pati Lozoya and Socorro Ferrer prepared me an astonishingly savory torta de carnitas ($3.75). The carnitas-shredded pork-were doused with a little bit of green salsa and nestled among avocado, onions, lettuce and tomato. But expertly applied ingredients aside, one thing made my heart leap: the bread.
The most important part of any torta-and what makes it so darn hard to find-is the bread. A flat, round roll called a
telera
, slathered with mayonnaise and gently toasted on a grill, is the torta's key ingredient. As providence would have it, Santa Fe has at least two bakeries, Panadería Zaragoza and a second El Paisano location in the form of a supermarket on the other side of Cerrillos, that bake
telera
along with its smaller, less assuming relative, the
bolillo
. El Paisano supermarket also carries some of the more obscure fillings for an honest-to-goodness torta, like carne adobada or
colita de pavo
(yes, turkey rump).
Later, hot on the torta trail, my investigation took me to an unassuming corner of Rufina Circle, Alicia's Tortillería. While the tortilla press squealed somewhere behind whitewashed walls, and patrons entered and exited with plastic bags filled with literally hundreds of tortillas, I ordered a torta de barbacoa, aka goat ($4). Equally as tasty as the torta from El Paisano, the Alicia's version also has
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smashed avocado and lettuce, with the salsa packed up wisely on the side.
But if anywhere in town is to carry the flag for the march towards the new torta order, it's Pepe's Tacos. With at least eight types of torta to choose from, as far as I can tell, Pepe's is torta headquarters, a subversive sandwich stronghold.
A torta a la Cubana ($5.50) from Pepe's is the synthesis of anything and everything a sandwich can be. The lightly toasted telera is loaded with turkey, sliced pork, ham and a special Chihuahuan cheese called queso asadero, and subtly brushed with a strange harmony of condiments, from refried beans, avocado and pickled jalapeños to a dab of mayonnaise and a squeeze of mustard.
Try and fit all that inside a measly tortilla. Viva la revolución!
