We always love it when Memo Torres stops by with a recommendation on where to eat in Los Angeles. You know Memo’s byline from LA Taco, and you may have used his dining guide on Apple Maps. This week, he pulls up a chair at Pozoleria Doña Ana.
Evan Kleiman: I love pozole so much. The idea of a pozoleria is very exciting to me. Who is Doña Ana? Tell us about her.
Memo Torres: She has a pozoleria. It's a shop in Pacoima. She has a second location over by Laurel Canyon. Funny enough, she started on the street. Her story is wonderful. She's a young grandma. She's in her 60s. She was basically at home all the time. She tells me, "Look, I was dying of anxiety and my mental health was going crazy and I just needed to cook. I would tell my family, 'I need to do something.'" And her kids were like, "No, no, you don't need to work and you need to do anything." So she took it upon herself to go out and start selling pozole on the street. Then from pozole, she started adding menudo, then birria, and basically the trifecta of everybody's favorite soups.
You go in there, you'll see her daughters and her granddaughter, Valeria, who I was just talking to earlier, her other granddaughters, her one son was helping out for a while cooking. Her husband helps. It's a family operation and it was all because she was dying of anxiety and pozole was her way out. She got so popular that her family noticed it and were like, okay, maybe we should jump in. So they started helping her out.
She's a funny lady. If you see her logo, she's there, she's got her glasses, her hair is made back. Her granddaughter was telling me how they needed to get the logo to look exactly like her, even with her nails painted, with her lipstick on. It's funny, where she's at now, in Pacoima, across the street is a nail salon. She was getting her nails done when she saw that "For Rent" sign go up. She called her daughter and said, "Look, I want to move into that space." The family backed her up and now it's a family operation.
Pozole rojo, made with pork and served with red onion, shredded cabbage, and radish, headlines the menu. Photo by Memo Torres.
I love that so much. It's called a pozoleria, so the pozole must be the star of the menu, but it's not the only thing on the menu, right?
It definitely is the star of the menu. If you go to most other places for pozole, that's what you're gonna get, right? Whatever they make. If it's a pozole rojo with pork or a pozole verde or a pozole with chicken, that's what they serve and that's what you're gonna get. With her at her pozoleria, she has different options. She has pozole rojo, she has pozole verde, she has chicken pozole. And you can get any proteins you want with the pozole rojo or the pozole verde. You can get pork ribs, if you want. You can get pata, which is pig's foot. You can get the querito, which is pig skins. You can get just meat, the thick pieces of meat. You can customize the pozole however you want, whichever broth and whichever meat.
But pozole isn't just served like a chicken soup. There's toppings.
Yes, so traditional toppings, the most basic of toppings, it'll be a chopped red onion or white onion and shredded cabbage. You can put radishes in there, too. If you go to some places, like the states of Guerrero or Baja, sometimes they'll put chicharron in it, pork rinds. You can put avocado in it. If you go to different parts of Mexico, they'll top it with different things. But the most basic of common toppings is the cabbage, the onion, radishes, and then you usually serve it with tostadas. You'll get a little pile of tostadas to scoop up whatever hominy and meat you get or bite it on the side to give it an extra crunch.
And does Doña Ana's adhere to some sort of regional style or is it her own?
Well, she does say that most of the cooking in her kitchen is her own. She is from Nayarit. Her husband's from Michoacan but she does say that her pozole is very Nayarit-influenced, although she will admit she didn't learn how to cook it until she got here in the States. She got here when she was around 17, and kind of learned as an adult how to cook.
Yeah, but having children and a family, it's like running your own restaurant, basically. So when you go there, is pozole the only thing you eat, or is there something else that we should explore in the menu as well?
Well, you should do as Memo does, and go there as often and explore the menu, especially at this place because everything's fantastic.
She also has albondigas, which, if you don't know, is basically a meatball soup. In Mexico, they'll make albondigas out of... the most common one is beef. If you go to Tijuana or Baja, you can find shrimp albondigas. She makes chicken ones. She likes the chicken better, and they're fantastic. They're really smooth, they're juicy, great flavor profile, and they're a little tangier with hers.
She has made the shrimp albondigas but the lines get too crazy and the staff starts complaining and they start getting bad Yelp reviews, because people are waiting up to an hour, and they're like, the wait's so long and so, which to me, is silly. Why are you gonna go to a place that's popular and then give it a bad Yelp review because it's popular?
Memo also recommends the tacos dorado with Mexican ricotta cheese. Photo by Memo Torres.
I love that, though. So is this a lunch move, a dinner move, or any time of day?
Oh, any time of day. When I first found it, it was peak summer, which is for us Mexicans, for whatever reason, I think we just love to beat ourselves, we'll have the hottest soups on the hottest days. I was there sweating, enjoying some hot pozole from her. So yeah, there's really no time of the year that you cannot have pozole, although traditionally, most commonly, it's in the winter time with tamales and during festivals when you get a lot of family gatherings. That's when pozole gets a little more popular, if you can make a big pot of it.
Once again, tell me where her locations are.
She has one in Pacoima, which is off of Nordhoff and another one off of Laurel Canyon.
Oh, I have to explore that one. Well, thank you so much, Memo.
No problem. I just touched on the top of the items there. She's got great chilaquiles. She has a good birria as well. And if you get there, get her tacos dorado de requeson, which is that Mexican ricotta cheese. Get those tacos dorados. Also, ask for a regular taco de frijol. I respect any place that puts intention into their beans, and they're not making it with just salt and water. Her beans are fantastic. So you get a handmade tortilla with refried beans on there and some of that crumbled queso fresco on top. Oh, it's just fantastic. The simplest of foods, the most delicious of ways made.
You have sold me. Thank you so much, Memo.
Thank you, Evan.
"I need to do something," said stay-at-home grandmother Doña Ana, before taking to the streets to sell her pozole. Photo by Memo Torres.