Poncho's Tlayudas

"Historic South-Central Mexican $ Take out When Alfonso “Poncho” Martinez’s Friday night pop-up in South L.A. returned in March after two long years, so too did one of the city’s defining dishes. Home to the largest Oaxacan population outside Mexico, Los Angeles knows tlayudas: Our restaurants usually serve them as open-faced discs, their crackling, foot-wide tortillas showered with quesillo and crumbled chorizo Oaxaqueño or sliced avocado and nopales like spokes on a bicycle tire. Martinez grew up eating tlayudas grilled and folded by cooks in Oaxaca’s Central Valleys, where he was raised, so that’s how he prepares his as well. He begins by painting his masa canvas with asiento, a toasted lard he renders himself, before spreading over frijoles refritos, cheese pulled into short strings and shredded cabbage. His masterwork is the tlayuda mixta with three meats: crumbled chorizo; tasajo, a thin cut of flank steak salt-cured for a few hours before grilling; and moronga, a billowy, herb-laced blood sausage made from a recipe that was a wedding gift to Martinez from the father of his wife and business partner, Odilia Romero. Warmed over mesquite, Martinez’s tlayuda is astounding with its density of tastes and textures; you won’t forget your first bite, or your 100th."