July 2, 2009
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Dos Mama y Papas Fantasticos
Hispanic Heirlooms of Des Moines
The Des Moines Register’s recently-published list of Des Moines’ “ten best Mexican restaurants” omitted three places that a lot of food professionals considered automatic selections, notably Dos Rios. That restaurant spawned two of Iowa’s finest young chefs ever — Hal Jasa and Scott Stroud. They use more fresh and local products than anybody this side of Chicago. Yet, they didn’t make a list filled with places that don’t even make fresh tortillas or tamales. I decided it was time to revisit two other places conspicuously absent from the Gannett Outlet Store’s judgment of excellence.
La Peña
In 2002, I wrote “La Peña is our happiest discovery since we started writing about food in this state.” Luis and Carmen de Avila’s seven-booth café remains truly authentic. Large basalt molcajetes and tejolotes are used not as arty décor but to grind flours, meals, spices and salsas. La Peña salsas use chilies de arbol, the legendary chili that Columbus first noticed in the New World. They produce a unique tannic, smoky flavor. Their high heat makes them rare in culinary applications but La Peña mixes them with more than 90 percent fresh tomatillos and tomatoes, sweet enough to cut the heat and perfectly complement chips still hot from the fryer.
Birria and menudo (made daily) are renowned specialties — goat horns on the wall note the café’s legitimate birrieria status. Goat is treated two ways: lightly marinated and braised in its juices; and “revolcado” — caramelized on the grill and smothered in onions and jalapenos.
Both delivered the most tender, juicy meat around. Bone stock menudo can be ordered with a whole calf’s foot, or without. Tacos were made with the best, freshly made tortillas in town. Tamales, enchiladas and gorditas were made from scratch with fresh stuffed masa. All came with choices of birria, carne asada (flank steak), adoba (baked marinated pork shoulder), chicken or homemade chorizo. Chilies rellenos were made with stem-on poblanos and Mexican cheeses. Even the creamy beans and corn-speckled rice were distinctive.
La Rosa
La Rosa, another Mom and Pop café, is a local legend for two reasons. Early this decade, owner Rosa Martinez Ruiz commissioned a Los Angeles muralist to paint her building. Despite hundreds of signatures or support, and not a single complaint, the city made her paint over every part of the mural except for a single rose. More happily, Martinez is the Hispanic queen of the holidays. Last Christmas Eve, customers formed a block long line at her door to retrieve their tamale reservations.
La Rosa’s tamales are a border-crossing heirloom. She explained that her former hometown, Gomes Farias in Michoacan, used to be surrounded by cornfields that produced the backbone of the local diet. Now, as a photo on La Rosa’s wall shows, it’s completely planted with flowers, a post-NAFTA export. So Gomes Farias’ tamales live on in Des Moines. Rosa’s father Don Juan Martinez used to sell them in an Eastside parking lot. She learned from him. They are still the state of the art in Iowa — meat, or cheese fillings ran the entire length of the tamale.
Hand cut steaks, stem-on chilies rellenos, enchiladas and tacos with multiple choices complemented the specialty. Just in time for the 4th of July, Rosa began serving two specialties that aren’t listed on her menu: sweet corn with butter and grated Cotijo cheese and chili salt; and guaraches (show tongued shaped masa) that are toasted on the flat top and covered with delightful things.
Rosa said that carpal tunnel syndrome has forced her to stop making her own tortillas but she’d never stop making from scratch, her gorditas, tostadas and, of course, tamales. The latter she sells by the dozen six days a week. On the seventh day, she closes the restaurant in order to make more tamales.
Bottom line — these Mom and Pop cafés belong at the top of any list of local culinary treasures.
