Okay, we're here in San Diego
kicking off our Roadies tour,
a Mexican themed road trip from San Diego to El Paso.
And who better to show us than Mexican matriarch herself,
Claudette Wilkins.
What better place to start than Old Town
which is the first town in San Diego.
We're gonna go to Cuarto Milpas which is, for me,
one of the coolest spots in San Diego.
The restaurant line is like this everyday
Monday through Sunday.
Shredded beef tacos, probably chuck
or something that can be easily slow cooked
and shredded to bits.
Here we have our spicy beans and rice
eaten with fresh flour tortillas.
And that usually has like the rendered bits
of all the meat that they cook in the beans
so it's very, very delicious.
So, this is just a straight up carne asada taco, grilled.
I can smell the charcoal smell.
So, you get that like street-taco effect in a nicer spot.
This is where it all started,
this is the gateway to taco-landia.
So here we have the mulita de adobada.
So we have, in Mexico City,
you would call this an al pastor.
In Tijuana, we call it adobabda.
And adobada is the adobo taste
that you put on the meat, topped with cilantro, onions,
and this green salsa that's amazing.
This is a stewed beef dish, birria.
Traditionally, in Jalisco, it's made with goat
but here it's just a lot more common
to eat it in the north with beef.
And the trick here is, I always order them,
tacos de birria doralitos, meaning that they are crispy.
They dunk the tortilla in the top layer of fat
that sits on top of the broth
and then they put it on the griddle
so that makes it like it's almost like deep fried
but it's not, it's so good.
Cheers. - Cheers.
Third stop in Tijuana, we're at Taqeria El Franc.
One of my favorite taco shops in TJ,
and they're one of the only taco shops
that you have like a host stand
that tells you when you're to sit down.
I think, as culture, we really love those cuts
because we can really do anything to them
and, you know, low slow cooking
really transforms an inexpensive cut
and makes it turn into something very, very,
like luscious and decadent.
Super simple, like a ciabatta-type of bread,
carne asada, also grilled over charcoal
then you have avocados, tomato, mayonnaise.
The original one just cooked it on the street.
We're in the heart of Yuma.
So, we're heading to a place called Lute's Casino.
Good burgers, apparently.
Let's go check it out.
We've got our, what was it called?
The Lute's Especial.
Which makes it fancy.
It's a burger with a hot dog in it.
Cheers.
It's surprisingly delicious.
We made it to Pheonix.
We're at Macayo's?
- Macayo's, Macayo's!
It's a bird right?
Allegedly, the founder, Woody Johnson,
invented the chimichanga in 1920
when he dropped a meat filled burrito into the deep fryer.
And ruined it for all Mexicans.
Now everyone thinks chimichangas are Mexican.
This is delicious.
This is the kinda food you eat when you're kinda
like drinking really heavily
but I wouldn't call it Mexican food.
We're trying to find the Emerson Fry Bread Truck.
It's one of the like staple Native American foods.
Here it is!
Nice to meet you!
This is my wife and I,
this is her, she started this.
Fry bread is basically a Native American delicacy.
Our people had no food, the Navajos,
and the government gave us rations
of flour, canned foods,
some oil, lard and that's where it came about.
We put our carne asada on it.
And what cut of beef is it?
A shoulder clod.
- You see how it's all juicy.
This is meat that we make in the dutch oven.
We got a flat tyre.
What's something we haven't tried before?
The al vapor,
which is a tortilla
that's dipped into salsa and then steamed, I think.
That's what it says.
Is that right? - Yeah.
- Yeah.
And the meat is braised beforehand
and stuffed in the tortilla before it's dipped
so you get braised meat, usually it's like shredded beef
with some shoulder or
some inexpensive cut of meat
because these tacos are generally very, very cheap.
But, they pack a good flavour punch.
This fried crispy taco, you don't see it past the North.
This is very much a merging of northern cultures
which is American, Native American
and Mexican put together.
This instantly made my mouth water.
This enchilada, they're topped with chile con carne
which is a meat that's been marinated
and cooked and braised, like a slow braise.
They're just really good at what they do.
This is our last stop
on the Roadies adventure.
This is what you eat when you go to your grandma's house.
Green chile stew with potatoes, tomatoes, onions.
Coriander, (cilantro).
Some hash peppers it looks like.
It's very flavourful.
Super beefy.
When in Texas.