San Diego Spotlight : 2 Chula Vista Restaurants Are Tops for Mexican Food

If you can’t get into La Vela (The Candle), don’t curse the darkness, because La Fonda Roberto’s is just up the street. One recent Friday, Chula Vista’s new La Vela was so jammed that management declined to let anyone else in. The situation was a little disappointing because those lucky enough to secure tables looked to be enjoying themselves immensely, but walking all of one block to the consistently pleasing La Fonda Roberto’s was by no means a hardship.

With the opening of La Vela and the continuing excellence of La Fonda Roberto’s, Chula Vista has a solid lock on the best authentic Mexican restaurant cooking to be found in the county. The cooks and recipes at both establishments come from the heart of Mexico, and at both there seems a sincere and consistent desire to offer genuine cuisine, rather than the more readily salable Cal-Mex style that in these parts passes as Mexican food.

At the entrance, La Vela appears to be quite small, although it opens into a second, larger room, itself backed by a patio in which meal service soon will be offered. Although the mood certainly is casual, the restaurant has style. Tables are set with white cloths and triple-tiered cast-iron candle stands--it seems only logical to dine by candlelight at “The Candle”--and trailing leaves cascade from the green plants that hang from the ceiling’s weighty wooden beams. The radio quietly broadcasts classical music.

Proprietor Fred Foley, whose wife, Maria Elena, heads the kitchen crew, shares dining room duties with a small staff and is instantly recognizable by the firefighter-style red suspenders that support his trousers. A retired San Francisco businessman, he met Maria Elena while living in her hometown of Puebla, Mexico, and La Vela is a recent product of the union.

That pollo en mole (mole poblano , naturally) heads the house specialties list seems almost inevitable, given Foley’s expressed fondness for the dish. “There are two authorities on mole , the San Carlos Hotel in Puebla, and me,” he told a guest about to try it. “I’m not sure that I could tell my wife’s mole from the San Carlos Hotel’s in a blind taste test, but there are no better.”

This particular preparation, widely available around the county in versions ranging from the inedible to the formidable, is known especially for the bitterness of the nearly black sauce in which chicken is stewed to perfect fork-tenderness. Gratings of unsweetened chocolate supply the bitter effect; other spices and chilies contribute an exotic flavor and low-key but insistent heat. Another of the four specialties , the cochinita pibil , again is increasingly familiar, although Maria Elena prepared this traditional Yucatan pork dish in an unusual and more likable manner. Generally, the meat for this dish is spiced, wrapped in banana leaves, steamed and then chopped or shredded, which, given pork’s natural fattiness can make for a greasy final product.

At La Vela, the meat is sliced, dressed with some its own savory, mildly spicy juices, and topped with a few marinated onion rings. Both of these generously portioned entrees were accompanied by good Mexican-style rice and cheese-topped black beans lengthily cooked in the style of frijoles refritos .

Among other items, the complimentary chips and salsa were better than most; in fact, the two salsas, the fresh pico de gallo and a smooth, hot green sauce, were quite superior, especially with the unusually good melted cheese and sausage appetizer called queso fundido con chorizo . Full meals include a plain salad or a choice of three soups, including a somewhat bland but unusual lima bean soup, and the rich, full-flavored sopa de tortilla, both of which start with a base of excellent chicken broth.

Entrees include the very Mexican chicken in almond sauce ( pollo almendrado ); a deluxe version of chiles rellenos ; spiced red snapper baked in foil; shrimp with chilies and garlic; and enchiladas filled with mole or pork. For dessert, La Vela offers an authentic, very rich flan de queso , and a delightful sweet called Carlota de durazno , which we would call “peach Charlotte” and which consists of liqueur-soaked ladyfingers layered with sliced peaches and whipped cream.

La Fonda Roberto’s, operated by a family from Oaxaca and twin to an establishment in Tijuana, is noted both here and below the border for its extensive selection of regional specialties. The style of the Chula Vista location reminds one much more of restaurants in Mexico than of American Mexican restaurants, and is informal but rather charming. The cooking rarely disappoints.

Whenever huitlacoche are available, as they are now, the kitchen offers a terrific appetizer of crepes stuffed with these truffle-like fungi (they grow on ears of corn) and cream sauce. Another seasonal alternative is crepes stuffed with creamed squash flowers. Meals include the choice of salad or soup, and both are excellent, the salad more thoughtfully arranged than most (the honey-mustard dressing sounds like a bottled concoction but tastes both homemade and good), and the sopa de tortilla a deeply flavored broth spiced with chilies and rich in crisply fried tortilla strips and melted cheese that clings to bowl, spoon and chin.

The entree list makes much of beef and offers many steaks, including the “Pancho Villa” (wrapped in a tortilla and covered with chipotle chile sauce and melted cheese); the filete Roberto’s, buried beneath huitlacoche and cheese; the sabana , or wafer-thin pounded steak, and the oreja de elefante , or “elephant’s ear,” a thin, breaded steak that covers the platter and goes down very well, especially with an occasional squeeze of lime. Potatoes fried with onions and garlic accompany this particular dish. Best of all may be the puntas de filete en chipotle , or tenderloin tips braised in a miraculously murky, brilliant blend of spices and chipotle chilies; although distinctively Mexican, the flavors have much in common with those of India.

Other specialties include stuffed zucchini; chicken stewed in the sauce of crushed pumpkin seeds, tomatillos and serrano chilies called pepian verde ; tongue simmered in roasted sesame sauce; spiced lamb leg baked in foil, and the always-entrancing chile en nogada , a bizarre but sensational variation on chile relleno in which the fried pepper is stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, nuts, dried fruits and raisins, and finished with a creamy, hot-sweet nut sauce. It’s wild but it’s good, and it almost serves the dual purpose of dessert, which otherwise will be met by a serviceable flan.

LA VELA 321 3rd Ave., Chula Vista 427-2946 Meals served 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, closed Sunday Entrees cost $3.95 to $12.95; dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $15 to $40

Credit cards accepted

LA FONDA ROBERTO’S 300 3rd Ave., Chula Vista 585-3017 Lunch and dinner daily Credit cards accepted Entrees cost $5.95 to $11.95; dinner for two, including a glass of wine each, tax and tip, about $20 to $40