SPECIAL EVENT : CINCO CON GUSTO : Santa Ana Eateries a Bonus for Hungry Holiday Celebrators

This has been a rough year for the Mexican economy, particularly so for the embattled peso. But here in the States, that’s not likely to dampen the sparkle of Friday’s Cinco de Mayo festivities.

Anyone in the mood to celebrate will do well to head over toward the center of the county’s Latino concentration: 1st Street, Santa Ana. This amazingly cross-cultural street does double duty as a community supercharger. West of Harbor Boulevard, it’s Bolsa Avenue, the main artery for Little Saigon, America’s largest Vietnamese community.

But when you head east into Santa Ana, Pho noodle shops and gaudy storefront shops selling wares such as herbs and electronic goods begin gradually to be replaced by taquerias, discount emporia and shaggy lots that look to be at peace with the world.

As you approach the corner of Fairview Street, things get downright quiet. It’s almost as if it were possible to travel from the night markets of Ho Chi Minh City straight into the hot sun of Sinaloa.

Things around here bubble under the surface. The stretch of the avenue between Fairview and Broadway is lined with good places to eat: snack stands, juice palaces, bakeries, meat markets and small family restaurants specializing in anything from seafood soup to roasted goat.

I propose paying a visit to this street anytime this weekend, and I offer a short list of what is available there. One promise: You won’t leave hungry.

Antojitos Clemente

We begin our tour near 1st and Broadway. The southeastern corner contains a small, unnamed shopping plaza with three interesting stops.

Antojitos Clemente is a family-owned snack shop where the plates of food tend to be as gaudy and colorful as Mexico itself. The Clemente family hails from Uruapan in the colonial state of Michoacan. Their narrow, homey space is lined with hard stools, a few vinyl booths and various posters of their home state.

Although the specialty here is seafood cocktails and sandwiches on terrific grilled Mexican breads, almost everyone here can be seen drinking aguas frescas, refreshing sweet drinks ladled up from huge glass jugs. Horchata is a sweet rice punch, redolent of the dusky aromas of fresh cinnamon. I prefer naranja, a cooling orange drink composed mostly of hand-squeezed fruit.

Cocteles (seafood cocktails) are served in plastic cups, but these prices, about $3.95, make that a forgivable sin. Octopus, abalone and shrimp cocktails are unassailably delicious, and all three can be had in the combination cocktail (called campechana on the menu here.) Where else but in Santa Ana do you find a half-dozen fresh, succulent oysters on the shell for only $4.25?

Everything else is sold at bargain-basement prices, too.

The huge sandwiches called tortas are less than $3, bigger and far tastier than what you get at a sandwich chain for a similar price. Try milanesa, a lightly breaded pork filet grilled to crispness on a hot flat bread with lettuce, tomato, onion, jalapenos and mayo. Great taquitos are only $1.75.

The only caveat applies to anything made with jaiba --Spanish for crab. The restaurant uses surimi, tasteless imitation crab in place of the real stuff. But what did you expect for $3.25, beluga caviar?

* 210 W. 1st St., Suite 111. Santa Ana. (714) 541-4414. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Cash only.

Ruben’s Bakery

Directly next to the snack shop you’ll find one of Orange County’s best Mexican bakeries, Ruben’s.

Most of the business here is takeout, though it is possible to sit yourself down at the bakery’s one table and sip cinnamon-flavored coffee with your pastries. Goodness knows there are enough of these goodies to choose from.

Bready and crumbly cakes sit piled up in a glass case by the entrance. Tell the cashier which ones you want; she picks them up with prongs and transfers them to a round metal tray. Novelty cakes with whipped cream and frosting are in a back refrigerator. Incredibly, most of them are $1 or less per slice.

You might try orejas-- literally “ears”--crisp, flaky dough with a sugar crust baked on, or galletas de pina, crusty pineapple turnovers. If you want something richer, how about tres leches, a legendary recipe from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. For this cake, the batter is made with three milks, condensed, evaporated and regular, resulting in one of the most moist, richest cakes anywhere.

I’m having myself a churro, for the lofty price of 35 cents. Perhaps you’ve had one of these oily, squiggly crullers at a county fair, where they are extruded from a machine and pan fried. Ruben’s makes the churros the old-fashioned way, in a kettle. Alberto Martinez, 38, is head churrero, and he’ll fry you one to order if you ask nicely. Have a hot one with lots of cinnamon and sugar. Hey, it’s Cinco de Mayo.

* 210 W. 1st St., Suites 107 & 108. (714) 571-0130. 6 a.m.-9 p.m. daily. Cash only.

El Patzcuaro

The third stop on this colorful esquina is El Patzcuaro, a sit-down seafood restaurant named for a famous mountain lake in Michoacan.

Fish are painted on the outside windows, to inform potential customers that this is a seafood restaurant. The main interior wall is hand painted in pastels and features a bucolic mural depicting boaters on the famous lake, for an extra shot of authentic atmosphere.

It really isn’t necessary. Little English is spoken here, and a CD jukebox is likely to be turned up to high volume, playing the latest pop hits from the Spanish-language music industry. At lunch, El Patzcuaro is popular with blue-collar workers, but at dinner it is more of a place for family gatherings.

Because the specialty is fresh fish, prices for entrees run a bit higher than those at the average place on this street. The best things to eat here are bagre (catfish) or mojarra (perch), done a variety of different ways.

Try a deep-fried catfish a la ranchera, crisp, moist whole fish that you hand filet amid a puddle of lardy beans and a mound of fluffy Mexican rice. Ranchera sauce is a heady mixture of stewed tomatoes, peppers and onions, a mild, rich sauce that complements fish perfectly. The more mildly flavored perch is better suited to stand up to a sauce like a la diablo, a fiery red sauce named for the very devil himself.

Have your fish a la veracruzano, and what you get is a saltier version of ranchera, enlivened by green olives. Purists, though, may opt for their fish al mojo de ajo, a near-perfect garlic butter sauce. When I order al mojo de ajo, I like to have the sauce on sweet shrimp, the way it is served anywhere on the Mexican Riviera. Add an ice-cold Corona, a few wedges of lime, some flour tortillas and a sunny day. Aaaahhh, paraiso.

* 220 W. 1st St., Suite 103. (714) 954-0228. 8 a.m.-8 p.m. daily. Cash only.

Jugos Acapulco

Mexican-Americans have a tradition of drinking juices fresh squeezed from the exprimidor, or juicer. No pasteurized concentrates for this crowd, thank you.

The wonderful Jugos Acapulco is a fine example of the genre. This cheerful, airy place specializes in concoctions made up from various fruit and vegetable juices. The health benefits notwithstanding, these juices are pulpy and delicious, and it is fun to watch the women behind the counter work. They pick fruits and vegetables from giant piles, peeling and chopping them to order. The last step is feeding them into a giant metal yaw of a commercial juicer, where they are processed at what seems like light speed.

People drive from miles around to have the terrific celery juice, apio on this menu, or the bright red betabel, beet juice. Try the pulpy pineapple and apple juices, or creations such as Grani-Plat, a filling mix of plantain, granola, rompope (Mexican eggnog), vanilla, sugar, milk and ice.

There are also a large selection of licuados, the Mexican equivalent of the American milkshake. These tend to be far lower in fat than their U.S. counterparts, and nothing slakes the thirst and cools down the body better on a hot day.

* 2003 W. 1st St., Suite A, Rona Plaza, Santa Ana. (714) 558-1414. 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Juices $2 to $6. Cash only.

El Herradero

I won’t say that El Herradero is the ultimate of taquerias on the street, but it is definitely the one that most makes me imagine Mexico. The exterior has a worn brick and tile patio, and there is a cactus tree a few yards from the front door.

Inside, a variety of meats-- carnitas, chicharrones, chivo and pastor --are heaped into metal trays behind a yellow Formica counter. Food is cooked or grilled to order, behind a large plate-glass window. The kitchen is faster than a Burger King on an incentive program.

Tacos are only $1, and many of them are just plain terrific. Because El Herradero caters to a local crowd, you shouldn’t be surprised to find items like cabeza (head,) tripas (tripe) and lengua (tongue) among these choices.

Birria is a delicate, tender stew of roasted bits of crunchy and tender goat meat, one of the best things ever concocted to fill a taco shell. Pastor-- diced, barbecued and highly spiced pork--runs a close second, but it will never be on a cardiologist’s short list of heart-smart foods.

That goes double for these chicharrones, fried pork rinds that you can eat as is, crispy, or stewed soft in a taco or burrito.

More conventional appetites may cotton to barbacoa de res or pollo rostizado, barbecued beef and roast chicken, respectively. I tried both and found them unremarkable, until I smeared them up with the murky, mysteriously hot and addictive and complex house hot sauce. Better is costillas (fried pork ribs), four to an order for only $4. Dinners such as beef, chicken and ribs come with tepid Mexican rice and some disappointingly soupy refried beans.

* 1604 W. 1st St., Santa Ana. (714) 558-3343. 9 a.m.-midnight, Sunday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-3 a.m., Friday-Saturday. Cash only.

Colima

Colima is named for a coastal town in Jalisco, just down from the famous beach resort Manzanillo.

This unpretentious but comfy restaurant belongs to a family named Valencia, and any experience here is a collaborative effort. Lupe, the materfamilias, makes wonderful corn tortillas by hand every day, some of the appetizers and several of the desserts. Her sons prepare the seafood and perform the courtly, attentive service.

Wonderful tortillas make for wonderful tortilla chips, and a basket of hot, fresh ones come with an irresistibly smoky salsa plus a dish of pico de gallo, a condiment of finely minced onion, tomato, chili, and cilantro.

I love Colima’s caldos (soups), especially siete mares (seven seas), a briny broth with a combination of seafoods, such as shrimp, snapper, and octopus. The restaurant is well known for fresh snapper, best when prepared a la plancha (grilled) or empanizado (breaded.)

Chile verde is a symphony of chunked pork and tomatillo sauce. Colima’s ultra rich chile relleno consists of a pan-fried breaded pepper stuffed with cheese, drenched in sour cream. All main dishes come with good beans, a dry but tasty rice, and an eccentric salad made from shredded carrot and chunks of pineapple.

For dessert, don’t miss rompope, the eggnog. Dona Lupe makes hers with 100-proof rum, egg yolk, heavy cream, and spices, and it is one of the most devastatingly delicious eggnogs on the planet. Colima serves rompope in a four-ounce glass, a portion large enough to make an ordinary person reel. On Cinco de Mayo, I plan to have two.

* Colima, 130 N. Fairview St. (at 1st Street), Santa Ana. (714) 836-1254. 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Cash only.