San Diego Reader

Sammy Sosa leans over confidentially. "It was a special treat for the king. For the Aztec king. Ordinary people couldn't eat it."

I look at the black morass on my plate. I almost expect him to take it back and say, "Sorry, you don't qualify."

Instead, he says, "Buen provecho."

"Is this the real thing?" I ask.

"The real thing," Sammy says.

Great, because that's what I've been searching for. Serious mole. That's "molay," the sauce, not the black-eyed burrower working beneath suburban folks' rose gardens.

I've found this ancient Aztec food here at La Espadaña ("the bell wall"), in Tijuana's Rio district: mole poblano, the most famous of them all, with chicken enchiladas. Hey, near enough to September 16. Mexican Independence Day. Happy birthday, Mexico!

Sammy's the real thing too. That is, his name really is Sammy Sosa. Okay, he never whacked balls for the Chicago Cubs. But he's been a waiter here at La Espadaña so long, you know he knows how to whack a mole together.

Searching for the perfect mole is like searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Mole's an icon in its own right, the way curries are to Indian cooking, or olive oil to the Mediterraneans: it's one of those definers of culture, and an open telephone line back to the Aztecs. Of course, this mole is a southern-central Mexican thing, a lush, oozing accompaniment to chicken or turkey or pork, lifted from jungle kingdoms dripping with plantains and chocolate trees and mangos and other rich sauces. It's not like the tart, crackling-hot rattlesnake 'n' scorpion dishes of Sonora and Baja. You don't hear a lot about mole up here in the desert north.

"Mole" comes from the Náhuatl word milli or molli, which means "sauce" or "concoction." But people talk about it in almost mystical overtones. 'Specially mole poblano. It seems to be not just the best known but the Cadillac of moles. To many, even up here in Tijuana, mole poblano over turkey (mole de guajolote) is the national dish, eaten, since Spanish times anyway, at Christmas.

"It's the soul of Mexican sauces," Alberto Mondragón, the manager of El Agáve restaurant up in Old Town told me the other day. "It's sweet, spicy, and rich. Drink plenty of water with it. Don't eat it early or late. It's richer than other sauces. You need time to digest it."

He takes the tradition seriously. "Mole is for Mexican cuisine what baroque art is for architects," Mondragón writes on his menu. I'd love to eat at El Agáve, but it's a little on the "up" side for me.

So here I am, sitting at La Espadaña, down on Sánchez Taboada Avenue in the Rio district. It's about six in the evening. Plenty of time to digest. Nice place, too. La Espadaña is where local government officials meet, business people, families, the middle class. It's like a bright ranch house inside, with a low-sloped rafter roof, a campestre (a bell tower, with ropes you can pull when you have something to celebrate), orange walls, arched alcoves for intimate eating, lots of interesting Talavera pottery, and against the far, luminous-blue wall, chefs flipping steaks on flaming grills.

So, okay, Sammy, here goes. Big moment. I haul a chunk of enchilada up through the black lagoon of my mole poblano. Send it down the hatch. Wow. Is this what Moctezuma tasted? Rico. My first thought is: distant echo of molasses. Mole. Mol-asses -- coincidence?

Of course, this mole is way richer. It's multilayered, and the more you taste it, the more interesting it gets. That sweet, slightly tarry flavor mixed with...hell, I don't know, but I'd guess banana? Chocolate, for sure, and there's something nutty, chile-hot...

Whatever, it does make the enchiladas delicious. If I was a wine-critic type, I'd say this mole delivers swoony vividness that envelops your taste buds like thunderclouds -- hey, that's good! Of course, you definitely need your iced tea. The rice and frijoles help too.

From the simplified recipes I've seen, this mole will have, at the least, a bunch of chiles, and interesting things like almonds, torn-up corn tortillas, raisins, cloves, cinnamon, and a certain amount of bitter chocolate.

"How much chocolate is in this mole?" I ask Sammy.

"The chef's over there," Sammy says. "You could ask him."

So I do. Carlos Ramírez stands at the open grill station. He's a big man. Been chef here 15 years. "I put in 20 different spices," he says. "I fry them up together. It's in the combination of chiles, nuts, chocolate. You have chile negro, chile pasilla, chile California (the dried red Anaheim chile), creamed peanuts, plantain, piloncillo..." He says piloncillos are cones of solid, raw brown sugar with -- aha! -- a molasses flavor, even though the molasses (the first stage of the process that converts cane to sugar) has mostly been refined out of it.

This is just the beginning. He blends it all with chicken broth, stirs, drains, tastes, seasons. I'm sure he's not going to tell me his secrets. So I don't get how much chocolate, or cacao, is in there. "My recipe is traditional" is what he says.

***

"No, no, no," says my friend Victor a few days later. "La Espadaña's fine, but the best mole in Tijuana is at Herminia Amador's."

So here is your intrepid correspondent, back tramping eastward alongside a dusty railroad track a few hundred yards south and east of the San Ysidro border crossing. It's around five in the afternoon. Behind me, in the shade of the old, unused Tijuana railroad-station platform, men gather at about this time of day to decide whether to try to make it across the line from here after dark. This is Colonia Libertad. So close to the border, yet couldn't be more Mexican. Politicians' banners bleach in the sun and get hazy in the dust. Tiny taco stands pop up in little gardens. Sidewalk comes and goes. Traffic is a bit crazy but kindly to the many walkers, like me.

Avenida Ferrocarril ("Railroad Avenue") turns into a calle, Fourth Street. I realize I'm heading directly back toward the U.S. The road climbs to a black border fence. Beyond, halfway up the bare hills, a second fence plays backup. Then, in the last 100 yards of México, little Avenida Aquiles Serdán tees off to the right. I scan the row of low buildings and muffler shops. Ah. There, next to Radiadores, Mofles Tony, and in the deep shade of a ficus tree, the magic words appear.

"La Casa Del Mole."

I cross the road. This has to be where Herminia Amador created the original Casa. The restaurant has a traditional tile-roof frontage, cream walls, black metal-barred windows. The towering ficus makes it look small. You wonder how anyone ever finds it, hidden behind a black metal security door. And yet the inside tells you they have prospered -- and the clientele is obviously from all parts of town, and across the line too.

Tijuana's love affair with mole is said to have begun right here, 16 years ago. Herminia Amador dreamed of bringing the flavors of her native state of Puebla to Tijuana. That meant one thing: Mole Poblano. The place has done so well, it's spawned three other Casas Del Mole around town, including a new one out at Playas de Tijuana, near the beach. This original restaurant is used but confident, comfortable, a bright interior dressed to look like an old Mexican courtyard. It has a little jungle of flowers and ferns, a gurgling fountain, yellow stucco walls with brown highlights, a tile "roof" overhanging the open kitchen, arches decorated with false cherries on branches, red-tile floor, shiny brown leatherette booths, and piles of thick china plates stacked and ready for the customers they know are coming tonight.

Prisciliano Camacho Flores turns up with a menu. "Our founder, Herminia Amador -- unfortunately, she passed away last October -- she was from the state of Puebla. Mole 'poblano' means 'from Puebla.' That is our full name. 'La Casa del Mole Poblano.'"

They have plenty of choices, but really there is only one decision you have to make. What's going under your mole? Thigh or breast of chicken or three enchiladas?

I choose the breast of chicken, which comes after a tasty chicken soup (included in the reasonable price, as is a sweet tamal dessert). Somewhere under this beautiful-smelling browny-black gloop, a chicken's hiding. You chomp into your first bite. And -- is it that I know better what to look for? This mole tastes less sweet, more complex, nuttier, more pointed, deeper, and perhaps cruder. For sure, it fits the casera-style feel of the place. And, actually, I like it better. Oh, and on top, some ajonjolí -- sesame -- seeds provide a neat little counter-punch for your tastebuds. I guess if you think of the French, with their béarnaise, and the Italians, with their marinara, we're probably looking at Mexico's major sauce statement.

< Previous Next >