It was around March when two local councilman got into a gastronomical bragging contest. National City councilman Luis Natividad and Chula Vista Councilman Rudy Ramirez each proclaimed their respective cities were home to the best menudo in South County.
Like any good populist, both determined the people should decide. Just who was telling the truth and who was blowing hot air? That was for a panel of three impartial judges to determine, a panel that was to include me.
Maybe it was my public confession that I’m not a menudo fan that left a bad taste in their mouths. Or it could be that, as with most things involving politicians, the formation of a committee was weighed down and suffocated by discussion and compromise. Whatever the case, I never heard from them again.
No directions. No criteria. No deadline. Nada.
So I convened my own expert panel — myself, my mother and her gentleman caller. In addition to having free time and expendible income, my mother and GC happen to enjoy a good bowl of tripe soup. They’ll enjoy a bowl at least once or twice a month — which is twice as many times as I.
Mother takes her menudo seriously. She knows that any restaurant serving good menudo will run out before noon so she called La Sierra Cafe on Highland Avenue — Natividad’s choice — to make sure there would be plenty of soup on hand. Yes, they told her, the stove was fired up and menudo was cooking. But we were urged to arrive early because late-comers seldom find seating and the restaurant always runs out. The next morning a sign on La Sierra’s windows said the restaurant would not be open because of a nearby fire. A follow-up phone call went unanswered.
A quick query to Plaza’s in Chula Vista sent us racing south. Someone at Ramirez’s choice for tastiest menudo told my mom on the phone they made “the best” menudo in San Diego and if we arrived soon enough they’d prove it. Evidently we didn’t arrive soon enough. As we pulled into the parking lot the taco shop was closing. Something in the restaurant needed immediate fixing, the owner said. But if we returned the next day…
My mother glared at me.
“Hey, so, uh, who told you about these places?”
I know the tone. It was the same tone I heard as a teen when my mom didn’t approve of the company I kept. It was a question posed just before one of them did something stupid. I muttered an apology but didn’t give up my sources.
“Mensos,” she said.
“You want good menudo? I’ll take you to the best menudo,” she said.
Twenty minutes later we were back in National City, waiting for a table outside Menuderia Don Vicente.
I don’t know if they serve the best menudo. But at least they were open.
