A Good Meal is Hard to Find

With Jane feeling a bit under the weather and taking a much-needed day off to recuperate and laze about the house, and with a new library job set to begin next week, it seemed as good a time as any to hit the road for a quick day trip through the scraggly parts of the gigantic back yard we San Diegans are blessed with. 94 East peels off the 5 just past the center of downtown, and after a few congested areas clogged with suburbanites and their SUVs exiting the freeways, the route turns delightfully rural. Winding through increasingly rugged and mountainous territory, Route 94 takes the curious traveler through blink-and-miss-it townships and unincorporated areas like Dulzura, Engineer Springs, Barrett Junction, Potrero, Manzanita, Boulevard, and Jacumba. Many of these towns are little more than a feed station and a few homes. Some of them hug the Mexican border so closely that border agents outnumber residents. By the time the route took me through the Campo Indian Reservation, across the Tecate Divide, and up the foothills of the In-Ko-Pah Mountains, I felt worlds away from the urban development of the San Diego County coast. In the thin, cool morning air at 4,000 feet, the landscape dotted with ranches, horse trailers or nothing at all aside from boulders and live oak groves, one remembers that at one time, Southern California was as much a part of the Old West as Wyoming or Northern Nevada.

My destination wasn't any particular place at all, just a desire to explore the back roads. But I did have one specific point in mind, and that was a bite to eat in the vast Imperial Valley. A Google search the night before had turned up some rave reviews for a tiny Mexican food joint stuck improbably among the bisecting agricultural roads that dot the canal-and-field landscape of the El Centro / Calexico region. I plunged from the mountains into the expanding Valley, passing first through the 90-degrees-in-October Yuha Desert, within sight of Mexican mountains just over the border....



....and continuing along lonely Route 98, a little-used roadway that bypasses the busier Highway 8 just to the north.

A few miles outside the town of El Centro, the Yuha Desert abruptly ends and the air becomes noticeably (and unnaturally) humid, thanks to the astonishing number of freshwater canals bringing needed moisture to help sustain one of the largest agricultural regions in the country. A few wrong turns, a couple bumps across dusty dirt roads, and I found myself along tiny Wahl Road, literally in the middle of nowhere. Clustered underneath the welcoming shade of a large grove of trees lay my destination - a tiny yellow sign for Camacho's Place....

...although the sign greeting visitors coming the opposite direction was a bit more auspicious (and probably a bit more traveled).

Being a firm believer in the fact that the most authentic food hails from the most humble of locations, I was delighted by the tumbledown structure, the overgrown palms, the dirt parking lot, the sun-blasted 7-Up sign, and the handmade sign promising menudo daily.

Even better, the inside of Camacho's Place was an odd combination of dining area and general store, with random paperbacks for sale at the front counter, a rack of clothing, steer horns over the kitchen doorway, and walls decorated solely with newspaper clippings concerning local high school athletes.

I wish I could tell you that this charming little oasis proceeded to offer up the greatest Mexican food I've ever tasted, a meal to rival the oyster taco extravaganza we enjoyed in La Paz this past winter, but that would simply not be the truth. The food was decent Cal-Mex fare, with little in the way of variety meats tacos (head, tongue, eyeball, you know - the good stuff), but plenty of Americanized deep-fried choices like chimichangas and "super tacos," some mild guacamole, and nothing in the way of horchata, tamarindo or jamaica for beverages (my can of coke was fine, but how much better would a glass bottle of real-sugar Mexican coca cola gone down?). No big complaints. But no revelations.

However - and I want you to pay attention to this - the chips and salsa were fantastic. This may not sound like a big deal, but those of us who frequent Mexican joints have learned that properly prepared tortilla chips and freshly made (and wickedly fiery) salsa can make the entire meal. These chips were still warm, nicely crisped, properly salted, and had just a hint of grease. The salsa was red, full of seeds, cool to the touch, and possessed a slowly-gaining burn. I'm salivating now just thinking of it.

I can't recommend making the entire journey to the outskirts of El Centro just to sample this salsa and chips offering. One of the frustrating aspects of living in Southern California is how difficult it can be to actually sample authentic Mexican food uncorrupted with Texan / Arizonan / Californian co-optation. But I treasure stumbling across hidden places like Camacho's Place, where the decor is last week's newspaper and the food comes wheeled out on a tray. It wasn't the best taco I've ever had, and maybe I should have sampled the menudo. But anybody who can make great salsa is a great cook in my estimation.