Best Mexican Food in County Explores More Unusual Regional Delights

The waiter, with his rather shy smile and diffident manner, did not seem the gambling type.

Nonetheless, when a guest expressed hesitation at ordering the chile en nogada , the fellow shifted gears like a Las Vegas dealer and made his wager.

“I bet you you’ll like it,” he insisted. “I’ll make you a deal: If you don’t think it’s one of the best things you’ve ever eaten, I’ll bring you anything else you like, on me.”

The waiter was never at risk, of course, as he well knew. The chile en nogada served at La Fonda Roberto’s in Chula Vista is not only a wildly unusual dish, but an exciting one that throws open a window on an aspect of Mexican gourmandise to which San Diego restaurants virtually never expose us.

Like a Mexican Fiesta

The preparation is something like a Mexican fiesta deposited neatly on a plate; it is as noisily colorful in presentation as it is explosive in flavor. The dish could be described as a chile relleno (just as bouillabaisse could be called fish soup), but only because of the batter-crusted chili pepper that forms its edible container. The filling, of spiced chopped beef, candied fruits, nuts and raisins, is a combination of hot, savory and sweet flavors rarely found in Western cooking, although it is very much the sort of dish the Chinese would invent.

On its own, the chile would be spectacular, but it is tamed and made somewhat cosmopolitan by the nogada , a smooth, elegant sauce of minced nuts and thickened cream. For good measure, the kitchen decorates the serving with a liberal sprinkling of chopped, candied cherries, both red and green.

The description above is a rather lengthy way of saying what could as easily be put in a nut sauce: La Fonda Roberto’s is, within this writer’s experience, far and away the best Mexican restaurant in San Diego County. Like its Tijuana parent (also called La Fonda Roberto’s, and quite a popular place), this unassuming South Bay eatery specializes in regional Mexican cooking, with dishes drawn from most areas, but especially from the south. It ignores the everyday burritos, tacos and so forth, which can be found at most San Diego Mexican houses, in favor of such savory, hard-to-find specialties as mixiote de carnero de hidalgo (spiced leg of lamb roasted in foil), cactus salad and tasty vegetarian dishes.

The premises in some ways take their cue from the cooking, and could be said to be colorful, although the five or six years this place has been in existence have blurred the once-prim decor, as if it were a frequently reheated and replenished stew that has grown a bit murky in the process. The glowing murals of village life in the province of Oaxaca still give the place a charming ambiance, but now stand out less noticeably thanks to the holiday decorations, strings of paper banners and the like that have accumulated over time, making the place seem like a dusty but permanent Christmas exhibit. Overall, the feel is that of a residence inhabited by a happy but not particularly tidy family.

The menu starts out rather grandly with one of its biggest guns, the crepas de cuitlacoche , a dish that should be immensely popular here but has yet to become well known. Cuitlacoche , an intensely flavorful fungus that grows on ears of corn, has been compared to black truffles both for its scent and for the way it brings harmony to the disparate elements of a complicated dish.

It one day will be discovered by the practitioners of California cuisine, and when that happens, it will become scarce and costly. At present, it is sufficiently plentiful and cheap so that La Fonda Roberto’s can saute it, fold it into a quartet of crepes, drench the plate in a wonderful cream sauce and serve this appetizer for a relatively modest $3.50.

The appetizer list continues with crepes filled with flor de calabaza , or squash blossoms, yet another favorite Mexican treat that gets short shrift in the United States; chalupa poblana , a more familiar snack consisting of a crisped corn tortilla topped with shredded beef, onions and hot salsa; and canelon de puebla , or Mexican-style cannelloni. These last also include a filling of cuitlacoche , but are finished in a more distinctly Mexican manner with a topping of melted mild cheese and spicy green sauce.

Besides these formal appetizers, meals also start with the usual basket of chips and salsa, the difference in this case threefold: The chips are hot, fresh and delicate, and there are a pair of salsas, one red and moody, the other green and feisty. The waiter described the green as the hotter of the two, but heat must be in the tongue of the describer, because the red salsa seemed even more volcanic than the sizzling green variety. Have plenty of water at the ready before essaying this snack.

The first courses really are so interesting that one could just as easily order several and dispense with a formal entree, although it must be said that grazing would not particularly suit the style of the place.

The soup list begins with an untried sopa de sesos , or brain soup, but continues more reassuringly with the classic sopa Azteca de tortilla , or fried tortilla strips and bits of cheese in a potent chicken broth, which the kitchen does extremely well.

Among the salads, the standout is the ensalada compuesta de nopalitos , a toss of tender young cactus buds mixed with onions, radishes, musky cotija cheese and sufficient cilantro to bring it all together.

Plenty of Choices

Although the chile en nogada is, in its endearingly bizarre manner, unquestionably the most wonderful entree, it is by no means the only dish worth sampling. The entree list reads well from top to bottom, starting with the vegetable tortas (a choice of broccoli, cauliflower or zucchini, each paired with mild cheese, battered, fried and doused with a heady tomato sauce), and ending with the oreja de elefante , or “elephant’s ear,” a thin, breaded steak fried to a crisply succulent finish.

In between come the familiar mole poblano , or chicken stewed with mixed chili peppers and a hint of bitter chocolate; lengua en pipian rojo , or beef tongue braised in a sauce of roasted sesame seeds; pipian verde , or chicken simmered with pumpkin seeds, serrano chili peppers and tomatillos, and the ever-delicious cochinita pibil. Cochinita pibil is a kind of gastronomic longhand for “Mexico,” since it treats the county’s favorite meat, pork, to a long stew in liquid flavored with Mexico’s favorite seasonings, such as axiote seeds, peppers, cumin, onion and garlic. The restaurant does this dish extremely well, cooking it so slowly that the meat and sauce blend into an incredibly savory mixture that melts slowly on the tongue.

Among other entrees are numerous steaks, all sauced in degrees from mild to hot (one filet mignon is dressed with cuitlacoche and melted cheese), and several simple fish dishes, from the simple mojo de ajo (sauteed in oil flavored with garlic) to the huachinango de Roberto, a dish of fish filets simmered in white wine and garnished with green sauce and melted cheese.

The kitchen also does a better-than-usual job with desserts. It offers the traditional flan , but flavors it with coconut for a nice variation on the custard theme. The natillas de puebla , or vanilla pudding dusted with cinnamon, is nice enough, but not nearly the equal of the creamy rice pudding, which also features a cinnamon flavoring but is so much more seductive in its texture.

LA FONDA ROBERTO’S

300 3rd Ave., Chula Vista

585-3017

Lunch and dinner daily

Credit cards accepted

Dinner for two, with a glass of house wine each, tax and tip, about $25 to $35.