Baja refresh

In March we took our family to Baja, Mexico. After spending most of 2015-2016 opening the Louisville store we felt it was important to refresh our inspiration for Mexico. 

What did we find during our trip? Lots of fish delicious Baja style fish tacos. I think our favorite was in Todos Santos at a little tiny shack on the outskirts of town, manned by two women. Fish tacos, agua jamaica and cold topo chico - what could be better than that? 

Aside from a day excursion to La Paz we mostly stuck to Todos Santos – walking the beaches, watching the ocean, whale spotting, attempting to surf, occasionally shopping, eating a lot of tacos, and trying to keep our pasty white skin from getting crisped.

Todos is definitely a little bit gringo (steer far away from Hotel California) but there is a reason it is popular - beautiful town, friendly people, great food. 

It was a great recharge to the batteries. Have you been to a great place in Mexico? We’d love to hear about it. Post it on our Facebook wall.

An entire wall of mezcal at a specialty store in Todos, but these bottles stood out. They were made from clay and the mezcal was exceptional as well. 

Hibiscus flower

Pastor tacos. We ate a few of these. 

Sopes and Topo Chico. 

Holy Molé

We've ramped up our production of our Mole Poblano. 

The recipe comes from our mothership in Jackson, Wyoming and their head cook, Fidelia. 

Customers have been pretty psyched on our molé enchiladas and we don't think you'll find anything quite like it on the Front Range at least. 

Do you even Adobado bro?

I feel like our Adobado is the black sheep of the menu, but I tend to think of it as the unsung hero. 

I mean all day, the name just gets abused by people basically in this form - "I'll take the adoobadoobadoo?" 

A little piece of me dies whenever I hear that. 

So what is Adobado? We see variations of this word all over - adobo, adovado...but what is it? There’s Philippino adobo and then there’s a Spanish origin adobo. It’s possible that the Phillipino version influenced the Spanish version but it was definitely the Spanish version that came to Mexico.

At Pica’s we tell customers it’s similar to a Mexican bbq sauce but that doesn’t quite do it justice. It shares the complexity of a mole – many ingredients cooked together to create a complex balance of flavors.

Most often you will see adobo used as a marinade or flavoring.

At Pica’s we make an Adobado sauce. We use it to smother our Pork Adobado burrito but it would also be lovely on a veggie burrito. We use it to saute up duck carnitas for our duck tacos (topped with cilantro and lovely pickled onions) and we also use it in our pork carnitas for our carnitas torta.

It’s vegan, it’s delicious, we encourage you to try it.

Just please don't call it Adoobadoobadoo. Please. 

Day Without an Immigrant

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Our proud kitchen staff, after prepping food for a dinner at which Governor Hickenlooper was the keynote speaker. 

Today we are donating a portion of our sales to local immigrant advocacy groups such as Boulder Ayuda, Intercambio and the Spanish Institute.

Here is why…

We don’t like to mix politics and pleasure at Pica’s.

But as owners of restaurants we understand the importance of our immigrant community and felt it important to stand in solidarity with all immigrants on this “Day Without an Immigrant”.

On Facebook and Twitter it is easy to share bits and pieces of things and become enraged because of this and that and the other and then move on, more or less unaffected.

It is different when you see the personal side of things and how it affects people who work for you, with you, and alongside you and who have become your friends and essentially your family.

“Day Without An Immigrant” is not a new phenomenon but it has taken on more immediate relevancy over the past few months and especially weeks.

Our immigrant community is scared. Rumors are flying around of raids and people are afraid of being torn from their homes, their families, and the lives they have created here.

We stand in support of our immigrant community and believe they are not only important economically but they add to and enrich our community and lives.

Thank you for your support and if you’d like to support local advocacy groups here is some information:

Boulder Ayuda: non-profit, attorney-led organization, serving immigrants of Boulder.

www.boulderayuda.org

Intercambio: Uniting communities by teaching English and providing resources

www.intercambio.org

Masa Masa Masa

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Rosa, making the tortillas. If you're nice, maybe she'll give you one while you wait in line. 

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Stack of fresh corn tortillas, still warm from the griddle

We think that if Jan Brady worked at Pica's today, she would of course be exclaiming "Masa, Masa, Masa!" because that's what we're thinking about A LOT. 

Everyday at both of our locations, we make corn tortillas fresh. We have four women who come in through out the week and do the work you just don't really see in Mexican restaurants in the United States - they mix the corn flour (masa), with some water and salt, roll up some balls of dough, press them, and cook them. 

At each location we do between 200-400 tortillas a day depending on the time of year. 

That's a lot of masa and we think Jan would be proud...

Maybe she really meant Masa Masa Masa?