When brothers Alan and Eric Adler first tasted Chef Luis Gonzalez’ tacos, they loved them so much that they wanted to open a restaurant. “We’d tasted his cooking at catered parties in San Diego and Los Angeles, and teamed up with our cousin Isi Lombrozo to open Puesto in February (2012),” Eric Adler said. “We wanted to offer La Jolla an upscale Mexican restaurant serving his street food.”

The brothers share a Mexican-American cultural background and grew up around taste treats similar to Gonzalez’ cuisine. “We’d never seen anyone cook such amazing Mexican food,” Adler said. “We also love Mexican architecture and design and wanted to open a modern Mexican restaurant.”

Open and bright with two colorful murals by graffiti artist Chor Boogie, Puesto offers a casual family friendly atmosphere. Its simple menu centers on tacos made from all-natural meats, including grass-fed beef, fresh chicken, sustainable seafood and seasonal organic local fruits and vegetables. Everything is made from scratch daily, including the salsas, stone-ground tortillas and freshly prepared fruits and vegetables.

Chicken al Pastor tops Puesto’s popular menu items. Freshly diced chicken cooked in an al pastor sauce, it comes wrapped in crispy cheese and topped with linga (hibiscus, chipotle) and pineapple. Puesto’s zucchini flower and cactus in crispy melted cheese is a vegetarian favorite. For the holidays, Puesto is featuring shrimp ceviche.

“We also have a lot of salads, including our grilled salmon salad, and people can have hot meats and vegetables in their tacos or in a salad or a bowl,” Adler said. “People love our tacos with crispy melted cheese; we put the meats or vegetables inside the cheese and let it get crispy before putting that on a tortilla.” Mexican side dishes include black beans, white jasmine or brown rice and sweet Mexican corn.

Dessert treats include frozen horchata (milkshakes) and fruit cups packed with juicy fresh mango, watermelon, jicama, cucumber and carrots splashed with fresh lime juice, chili and salt.

Later this month, Puesto’s food truck will start visiting Del Mar, Solana Beach, Cardiff and Encinitas, as well as downtown San Diego and North Park.

Puesto offers Negro Modelo and Pacifico Mexican beers on tap, as well as local craft beers, such as Ballast Point, Stone and Karl Strauss.

“Puesto is an upscale high-quality, but casual place to have a quick bite to eat,” Adler said.

— Puesto, at 1026 Wall St., is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Sunday. (858) 454- 1260. www.eatpuesto.com

http://www.lajollalight.com/2012/12/12/say-puesto-for-upscale-mexican-street-food-in-la-jolla/

By Brook Larios | Patch.com

MIHO Gastrotruck is Patch’s Bites Nearby pick of the week.

When the food truck craze began boiling over in Los Angeles, San Diegans were left scratching their heads. When would a similar bounty of traveling edibles make its way south to San Diego? Thanks be to MIHO Gastrotruck, which coasted in last year to fill the void.

Local food advocates Juan Mirón and Kevin Ho conceived of MIHO (a merging of their last names) after collecting sweat equity at The Linkery, a farm-to-fork eatery run by San Diego sustainability swami Jay Porter. Piloted by Mirón and Ho, the refurbished vehicle makes its rounds each week in Carmel Valley, Sorrento Valley, Kearny Mesa, Little Italy and South Park. All meat comes from humanely raised animals and all produce, breads and the like from local or small growers and artisans.

The monthly rotating menu is modest and typically features a grass-fed burger, meatless option and an additional goody. Unlike your typical roach coach, all ingredients are fresh and each meal made to order by the skilled Courtney Bryant. Bring a blanket or towel and park yourself on a nearby grassy knoll.

Visit mihogastrotruck.com or follow @mihogastrotruck for a schedule. The website also includes a list of purveyors.

http://lajolla.patch.com/articles/roving-fresh-and-simple-in-a-food-truck ]]> http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/06/san-diego-ca-roving-fresh-and-simple-in-a-food-truck/feed/ 0 http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/05/keep-on-truckin%e2%80%99-with-3-trendy-mobile-meal-makers/ http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/2011/05/keep-on-truckin%e2%80%99-with-3-trendy-mobile-meal-makers/#comments Wed, 11 May 2011 01:48:15 +0000 MobileFoodNews.com http://www.mobilefoodnews.com/?p=13195 by Staff | LaJollaLight.com

The blue-collar commissary trucks of decades past that made lunch-hour pit stops at office complexes and factories to fill workers’ bellies with pedestrian Wonder Bread sandwiches, bagged chips, and sugary drinks have been supplanted by the trendy gourmet mobile food trucks that tool around town and turn up at farmers markets and like venues. Here are a few for citywide meals-a-go-go.

Enzo Mauri and Marco Pavlinovic will be in La Jolla with their food truck. Photo: Dave Schwab

1. Marko Pavlinovic, who was born and raised in Milan, operates the fledging Italian eatery on wheels called Mangia, Mangia Mobile. He serves such divine family recipes as hand-crafted gnocchi, lasagna with garlic bread, chicken parm, Italian Lollipops (tempura-dipped meatballs on a stick with marinara dipping sauce), fried calamari and fresh wild-caught salmon or mahi mahi paninis with fries — all priced around $8 a meal.

Pavlinovic opened the food truck since he didn’t have the dough-re-mi to fulfill his dream of launching a full-service restaurant. He’s already caught the eyeballs of discriminating lunch diners and the folks at The Food Network, his food truck makes an upcoming stop on “Street Eats” this fall.

Look for Mangia Mangia weekly at the Ace Hardware parking lot off Prospect in La Jolla, Saturday at the Farmers Market in Golden Hill, and at the La Jolla Fresh Aire Market on Sundays.

Above: "Devilicious" food truck hit the streets of San Diego January 2011.

2.  Dyann Huffman and Kristina Repp have been feeding San Diegans since December with “food so good, it’s bad” off their Devilicious food truck. You be the judge with butter-poached lobster grilled cheese with caramelized onions on sourdough, Drunken Duck on a Truck in a lettuce wrap with rice noodles and habanero kimchee sauce, Bison on a Stick paired with blue cheese smashed potatoes, Fried Yumminess (deep-fried chili), and truffle fries with black pepper.

The Green Truck

3. Organic fanatics should look for David Holtze’s Green Truck at assorted locales around San Diego, after debuting in Los Angeles and New York City. Holtze’s mission “Healing our planet one meal at a time,” is accomplished through sustainable practices, such as fueling the truck with the filtered vegetable oil they used for cooking their food, generating energy for their commissary kitchen with solar-power, and replacing plastic and Styrofoam with compostable materials made from potato starch, wheat and corn.

As for the food, the ingredients are sourced from local farms like Suzie’s Organic Farms, Stehly’s Organic Farms and Bread on Market.

Menu items include the Mother Trucker Vegan Burger, (signature made-from-scratch veggie patty topped with organic sprouts, heirloom tomatoes and the secret sauce) the Chipotle Wahoo Fish Taco with pineapple pico de gallo and scratch-made chipotle sauce enveloped in a natural corn tortilla or grilled Jidori chicken pesto wrap served on warm lavash bread. Add some fresh pita chips with organic hummus made daily, and wash it down nicely with an Organic Palmer, seasonal iced teas blended with agave and fresh squeezed Meyer lemons. More at GreenTruckOnTheGo.com

The Kitchen Shrink’s Truckin’ Truffle Sweet Potato Fries

(Where possible, use organics)

2 medium yams or sweet potatoes, peeled

1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons of black or white truffle oil

Cayenne pepper, sea salt, paprika, black pepper to taste

Directions: Heat oven to 450º. Cut sweet potatoes in shoestring strips (3 inches long, 1/4 inch thick, your choice). In a mixing bowl, combine oils and seasoning. Toss the sweet potato strips in the mixture until well coated. Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake until crisp on the outside, soft inside, about 25 minutes. Serve with blue cheese dressing for dipping. Enjoy immediately.

Related posts:

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3. Valentine’s Day calls for vitality vittles, n’est pas?
4. It’s true! Caesar Salad tops the list of fountain of youth foods
5. Kitchen Shrink: A trio of December celebrations tempt clever cooks

http://www.lajollalight.com/2011/05/10/keep-on-truckin%E2%80%99-with-three-trendy-meal-mobile-makers/

Enzo Mauri and Marco Pavlinovic will be in La Jolla with their food truck. Photo: Dave Schwab

You may see Marco Pavlinovic and executive chef Enzo Mauri’s lunch trunk — named “Mangia Mangia: (eat, eat in Italian) — selling Italian gourmet cuisine in a La Jolla parking lot.

They are giving their venture a three-month trial period, parking every Tuesday and Wednesday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Ace Parking lot at 2131 Cave St.

“I always wanted a restaurant but I can’t afford it. Now I can say the economy put me on the street — it really did,” quipped Pavlinovic.

Mobile food vending, which is starting to catch on in the United States, is a staple in his native Italy frequented by patrons late at night exiting clubs, he added.

Appetizers cost $4, paninis and lasagna are $7, and desserts like tiramisu and connoli are $4.

The mobile lunch wagon is also available for catering. For more information call (858) 405-0070.