Mexican

From the famed multicolored moles of Oaxaca to mole poblano made with an L.A. twist, Los Angeles has a robust mole scene. Here are 10 Mexican restaurants putting their stamp on Mexico’s most revered and complex dish. The mole rojo with chicken from

Mexican restaurant regularly inspires long lines on the weekends. The kitchen produces some of the city’s most unusual mole varieties, including a deeply flavored mole de café, a jammy strawberry mole and a surprisingly good tequila-flavored mole redolent

into the kitchen to make my moles,” she said. She learned to make mole from her grandmother in Zaachila, near Oaxaca City in southern Mexico. Together, they made it the way indigenous women have been making it for hundreds of years: grinding ingredients

stews cooked throughout Mexico. It is the country’s most complex, varied and revered dish, prepared for special occasions but also eaten casually on weeknights. Dominga Velasco Rodriguez, head chef at Sabores Oaxaqueños. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles

Lola Gaspar in Santa Ana closed for a short break in July while chef Luis Perez took a brief sabbatical south of the border. He came back freshly energized by Mexico City’s restaurant and bar scene, prompting him to throw out the old menu and start

anew.  The revamped offering is gloriously concise: a few tacos and quesadillas, plus several Mexican side dishes and snacks. Customers now order all food and drinks at the bar. Table service is gone.  Lola Gaspar opened more than 10 years ago, kindled

Burros Doña Guille in Hermosillo, Mexico. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times) Yáñez makes the thin, extra-large wheat flour tortillas commonly known as sobaqueras. The name, a derivation of the Spanish word “sobaco,” or “armpit,” inspires all manner of

it’s actually a converted plow disc. Meet the discada, ‘like a cast-iron skillet on steroids’ » Ramona Ruiz prepares tortillas de agua, sometimes called sobaqueras, at Tortillas y Burros Doña Guille in Hermosillo, Mexico. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles

I’ve written about the incredible duck taco at Sol in Newport Beach before. This is a taco I think about often.  Sol’s “carnarditas” combines two of my favorite things: tacos and duck confit. The confit leg and thigh are flash-fried and served...

talked at length about the diversity of regional American taco styles, the rise of “Sur-Mex” tacos, and why he says “Mexican food always wins.” Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. “American Tacos” is now available in bookstores. What

beginning. Mexicans have folded things in tortillas for thousands of years but they weren’t always called tacos — and we can debate that forever — but I think a taco is a representation and reflection of its time and place. It’s regional. And that

-sponsored pop-up restaurant from Roy Choi. At Tirsa’s Mexican Cafe, a casual restaurant on the edge of Chinatown, the spicy corn puffs are the inspiration for one of chef Tirsa Nevarez’s most popular dishes: Flamin’ Hot sopes. Nevarez turns the pulverized

of cheddar cheese, chipotle aioli and fanned-out avocado slices, and then finished with a thick, vivid dusting of crushed Hot Cheetos. The Flamin’ Hot sope with chicken from Tirsa’s Mexican Cafe. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times) The masa cake has

A bumper crop of new Mexican restaurants has sprouted in Orange County this year, at least half a dozen in south Orange County alone. The fanciest one yet is Todos Santos, which opened in September at Rancho Santa Margarita Town Center, about a mile

The taco salad, a midcentury Mexican American dish, has never gotten much respect in food circles. Its credibility hit an all-time low May 5, 2016, when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted a picture of his lunch: a mystery meat “taco

-down Mexican cooking. At Amorcito, a new counter-service Mexican restaurant located inside the Hangar, the aviation-themed food hall located at the Long Beach Exchange shopping center, chef Thomas Ortega presents a version of the taco salad that’s, at

A staple of Mexican restaurant combo platters and meal bowls around the world, rice is nowhere on the menu at Milpa Grille in Boyle Heights. “A lot of customers don’t believe me when I tell them we don’t have rice,” owner Deysi Serrano told me

recently. “There is pressure as a restaurant to serve what we’re used to eating. But it’s not necessarily what our ancestors used to eat.” What you will find is corn, along with other vegetables native to the Americas. Milpa Grille — a small Mexican