When you walk into a Mexican restaurant and you’re the only one there conversing in English, you know you’ve come to the right place. Add that to a menu offering a whopping 21 different varieties of tortas and you know deep in your soon-to-be busted gut that the time has come to unbutton your jeans and settle on in for some of the finest and most authentic Puebla eats in town.
This is exactly the situation I found myself in when I wandered into the Mission’s beloved La Torta Gorda, a quaint and no-nonsense Mexican hole-in-wall diner whose electric blue and yellow exterior is as vibrant and filled with character as the bustling Mission neighborhood it has called home since 2001. Walk down 24th Street and you can’t miss it. Your stomach can’t either.
Mine dove in. Unexpectedly shivering from the first fall chill of the year, I decided to sample the Sopa Azteca first. What a knowledgeable and efficient waitress placed in front of me less than five minutes later was a monstrous and steaming bowl of tender chicken and crispy tortilla strip-laden soup, topped with a divine combination of sour cream, avocado, and queso fresco. With a dish that I’ve had many times before, La Torta Gorda transformed the mundane into the unrecognizably sumptuous. I order it in my winter wonderland dreams.
Next on the list were a couple of richly-flavored carne asada and carnitas tacos, both piled onto corn tortillas and beautifully garnished with red onion and cilantro. Simple, fresh, and delicious. The most impressive dish I tried, however, was my last. After seeing more than one regular dig into this bad boy, it was time to order the king of La Torta Gorda’s namesake for myself: the pierna enchilada torta. Piles of thick and gorgeously tender pork packed between two slices of delectably crunchy bread, slathered with refried beans, queso fresco, onions, mayo, and some kickin’ chipotle, make for a heaping plate of one of the most glorious sandwiches I’ve ever had.
If meat isn’t your thing, the Vegetarian Torta is equally masterful. Delicately braised beef and chicken are replaced by extra chunks of queso fresco and the unique addition of house-pickled carrots (boxes of raw carrots are piled high in the hallway, which leads to a charming four-table outdoor patio). My advice? Don’t leave before sinking your teeth into one of La Torta Gorda’s tortas gordas and fearlessly carbo-loading like there’s no tomorrow.
Other dishes worth a try are crisply composed quesadillas filled with an unusual array of veggies (including roasted jalapenos, braised squash flowers, nopal cactus, and an inky corn fungus known as huitlacoche) and a Mexico City specialty called Pambazo—a small roll dipped in a thin, red chile sauce and stuffed with potatoes and chorizo before being recrisped on the griddle and outfitted with a ring of fresh green lettuce and a decadent dollop of sour cream. Accent both of these with a squeeze of the intensely smoky chipotle sauce brought over by your waitress, and thank your lucky stars that founder Armando Macuil brought the flavors of his homeland to the Bay Area. To hell with accent, empty out the entire bottle and rise up to inferno heaven. You know you want to.
