We return to the torta milanesa, previously seen here, here, and first here. I’m still searching for the perfect milanesa, and I’ve given up looking at counter-with-menu-board style establishments. There might be a winner out there, but I think I’m much more likely to find a long line of places with pre-fried ingredients getting soggy, waiting for me to show up. Better to go to an establishment with table service, wait a little longer, and get something made to order. That was what I got at Tacos Autlense, and it made a big difference. The beef was pounded incredibly thin, and if this was for reasons of cost control I’m not complaining. The result was an unbelievably crisp milanesa, with a deep brown crust. That was the high point of the sandwich, although the rest of it wasn’t bad at all. There was table cream, but not nearly so much as I found at Taqueria Tlaquepaque. It was just the right amount, with the creamy tang contrasting the well seasoned crisp of the steak quite well. The sandwich, like the one from Mexico Bakery, was primarily flavored by pickled jalapeño. That’s not a flavor I’m tremendously fond of, and the the vinegary heat kept me from enjoying the sandwich as much as I could. This same same sandwich presented with a good red sauce would be quite the number, I think. So it wasn’t a perfect torta, but it was a clear step up from some of the others I’ve had.

It occurs to me that I might be dooming myself to this sort of scenario. What are the odds that I manage to find a string of taquerias that builds ever slowly to a transcendent experience? It seems much more likely that I simple build a catalog of tortas eaten, they fall into some jumble of rankings, and an endless pile of “Good, but not great.” piles up. There are larger questions here that this sandwich doesn’t come close to settling, but I suppose that’s the world of sandwiches sometimes.

I have to say, friends, that upon eating this sandwich I felt like quite the fool. Part of that is the fault of Taqueria Tlaquepaque, but I deserve a share of the blame as well. I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect torta milanesa for a while, something I first discussed here. In both of the sandwiches featured in that post, the main issue is that the cutlet, the meat of the sandwich, was not freshly fried. Fried food on a sandwich is pass/fail, it’s either crispy and delightful or soggy and off-putting. So when I saw that Taqueria Tlaquepaque’s sandwich featured a freshly fried, crisp-as-can-be center, I was delighted. Sadly, my delight faded within the first few bites of the sandwich.

This is where my feeling like a fool comes in. The torta isn’t a complicated sandwich. You need a particular type of bread, most often a bolillo or telera roll. You need some some meat, some avocado, lettuce, tomato and cheese and you’re all set. It can certainly be more complicated than that, but at its most basic level the sandwich is a simple matter. And so, having had two decent-but-not-great tortas, I had assumed that every establishment would be able to put together the basics and once I found some place that was curteous enough to make mine to order I would be all set. Taqueria Tlaquepaque quickly disabused me of that idea, as I set in to a sandwich that was positively dripping with crema Mexicana. Mexican table cream is a bit like sour cream, but a bit thinner in consistency and more mild in flavor. I know people who abhor it, but like most things I think when used responsibly it has its place on a sandwich. But nothing about this was responsible, as there was so much cream even the fresh fried goodness was hard to find. There was avocado in the sandwich, but I’m relying on the picture to tell me that because I certainly couldn’t taste it. This sandwich really could have been something, and I take no joy in relating to you this tale of absurd levels of condiment. I should have known to take each sandwich on its own merits, and to never expect anything without good reason. But my heart got ahead of me, and it was a lousy sandwich that pulled me back to earth.

Due mainly to widespread availability and a high floor / high ceiling situation, the torta is the sandwich archetype I consume most frequently. On balance I think that’s a good thing, as a great many tortas are quite tasty, but it is not without its downside. This is the peril of any obsession, I think, that the more you learn, explore and experience, the more unforgiving your comparisons get. What I’m driving at is that this wasn’t a bad sandwich, but it wasn’t good either. Specifically, it was a far cry from what would be available at Mexico Bakery #2 or Los Reyes de la Torta. Los Reyes are a good distance away from my home base, so thoughts of them tend to be wistful and with a more romantic sense of regret. Mexico Bakery is very close by, though, and so when consuming a sandwich such as the one I got at Adelita’s I felt the sharper sting of a lost opportunity. This was a decent sandwich, but a little bit more effort and I would have had a very good one. The lettuce was crisp, the guacamole as tasty as guacamole usually is, the steak seasoned well enough and though the roll could have been better a few moments on the griddle gave it a decent crunch. In spite of all that, though, I have heard the songs of tortas much more lyrical than this one, and so I came away disappointed. This is no fault of the establishment, and originally I hesitated, sullying the internet with negative words they don’t deserve. But this is On Sandwiches, and sometimes we must overcome our hesitation in search of truths.

And make no mistake, friends, this is not a small issue. What this comes down to is the matter of habit versus experimentation. I could have headed downtown and gotten a torta at Mexico Bakery #2, and it would have been good. For that matter I could have made plans to travel to Arizona and gotten one that was truly spectacular. But I wanted to try a new establishment, even knowing that I might come away disappointed. This is an issue we must all confront virtually every time we set out to have a sandwich, and there is no easy answer. You could try as many places as possible, but you would be doing yourself a disservice by never returning to the truly great sandwiches. You could rely on a set of standby sandwiches, but you would be haunted by thoughts of opportunities wasted. Of course there’s a balance to be found between these two extremes, but what comfort is that? At every opportunity you feel the tug of both viewpoints, and there is never a hope of satisfying both. The best any of us can do, I suppose, is to weigh our options, trust our gut, and know that there will come a tomorrow, with another opportunity for a great sandwich.

Mexican food doesn’t get a tremendous amount of respect. Whether or not it gets the respect it deserves is a matter for another site, I suppose. Something about its ubiquity and its ability to remain tasty while suffering in quality, though, has led to it assuming a place in American cuisine where nobody is expecting much. I think that’s too bad. I eat a fair number of tortas, probably more than any other particular type of sandwich, and I’m hoping that one of these days one of them is going to really knock my socks off. What I have long suspected is that there is a sandwich out there that is as transcendent an experience as the bánh mì at Saigon Bánh Mì. That there is a torta out there that is genuinely sublime, something that when I find it will forever influence my greater sandwich worldview. I had a great, great sandwich at Los Reyes de la Torta, but the very fact that I’m writing this suggests that it didn’t have quite the impact that it could have. You might be wondering what makes me so certain that sandwich is out there, and I’ll admit that for a while it was just an idle thought, something I would consider from time to time but never really embraced. But when I sat down to eat the Torta Milanesa from Adelita’s Taqueria, I knew my search had begun in earnest.

It isn’t a particularly great sandwich. It’s an above average torta, better than La Victoria, but not as good as Los Reyes. What jumped out at me here, though, was the milanesa. The milanesa, cousin to the Italian cotoletta and the German schnitzel, is a thin slice of beef spiced, dipped in egg, dredged in breadcrumbs and shallow fried. That last step was the downfall of this particular torta, as the milanesa had been fried well before it ended up on my sandwich. By the time it got to me the coating was a bit damp and well detached from the beef in places.  In spite of that the beef was tender and the whole thing hinted at what could have been. A crunchy coating on a tender piece of beef, creamy avocado, just the right salsa…it could have been something really special, had it been well executed. I finished the sandwich a bit disappointed, but now certain that there is a torta out there, a transcendent torta just waiting for me. So I went looking elsewhere.

My first thought was to try Mexico Bakery No 2, the downtown location of the place that serves what might be the best torta in the south bay. My previous experience with them was downright delicious, a chorizo torta that was that wonderful kind of greasy. If anyone had mastered the milanesa, I figured, it had to be them.

The torta milanesa from Mexico Bakery is considerably more elaborate than the one from Adelita’s. Where Adelita’s brought simple lettuce / tomato / avocado accompaniments, Mexico Bakery provides those things plus a couple slices of soft cheese and a healthy dose of pickled jalapeños. It’s very different than the sandwich at Adelita’s, and very good. They had a bit of a heavy hand with the jalapeños, but a small adjustment evened things out. When consuming the second half of the sandwich I swapped out about half the jalapeños and put in their place a good dose of tomatillo salsa, and that really made things sing. This was a very good sandwich, but ultimately it is not the end of my search. It suffered from the same thing that derailed the earlier torta, namely that the milanesa itself was not freshly fried. Fresher than Adelita’s, but not cripsy or showing any other hallmarks of the genuinely fresh. If it isn’t fresh, there isn’t a whole lot that can save it. It speaks to the quality of Mexico Bakery that the sandwich was so good in spite of that, but ultimately fried food on a sandwich is pass/fail. This sandwich didn’t pass.

So the search continues. There’s a torta milanesa out there, one that’s really, really good. One day I’m going to find it, and on that day I’m going to eat it.