Description
Elvirita is a small double storefront just up the hill from El Mercado and across the street from a big cemetery. A decade or so ago, the original Cemitas Poblanas, a café in the same location, was probably the first Puebla-style restaurant in Los Angeles, the first place specifically devoted to cemitas, perhaps the greatest of Mexico's sandwiches. These are the best I've ever tasted - careful, lush compositions of crisp milanesa and quesillo; juicy carnitas and quesillo; head cheese and quesillo; and, in one memorable instance, quesillo and quesillo, punctuated with avocado and chipotles. There is the Poblano specialty called taco arabe, carbonized nubs of pork (perversely enough for an Arab taco) dressed with chipotle salsa and rolled like shwarma into a flour tortilla standing in for the pita. And there are giant quesadillas stuffed with the black, musky fungus huitlacoche. You can combine the two most famous Puebla dishes in cemitas de mole: sandwiches stuffed with shredded chicken in a spicy, pitch-black mole Poblano - as perfect as it is possible to imagine a sandwich to be. Recommended dishes: tacos arabe, cemitas de carnitas, cemitas de milanesa con quesillo.
