Huevos Rancheros: Huckleberry

For reasons of exploration and adventure and discovery, I ended up in this up and coming neighborhood far from my usual terrain, a place they call Santa Monica (pronounced Sandthah Moneyyeeka or something like that, I couldn’t understand the local accent) that is super close to Los Angeles but totally a world away. It is a strange but friendly world of Regular people, an ethnic group mostly located outside of LA County, but they are welcoming and will usually take the time to figure out our shared language issues. “Cool-man!” (I hope I got that right!) And this enclave in So. Cal is a great place to experience being around them in their own environment, its pretty nice actually. Some of the neighborhood is a bit sketchy but doesn’t seem unsafe, although I wouldn’t recommend being here at night. In any case, it felt great to discover and be around this culture for a few hours, diversity is a great thing for all of us to experience every once in awhile.

It turns out Santa Monica is only about 20 miles away but almost in a whole ‘nother universe! For one, I was happily surprised at the racial diversity in the kitchen and that they employ people you would not expect to be in the kitchen, so awesome. The other thing I noticed was that lots of the people coming in to the eatery seemed to be struggling financially: a multitude of the customers could only afford cheap flip-flops as shoewear (amazingly, the workers treated them like normal humans, yay!) and more than a few of the women wore their shrunken, skin-tight gym sweats as if they were normal pants, but they were also treated with utmost respect. Pretty cool.

I came to this place cuz I heard they had biscuits. Unfortunately, the also have bacon in them. That is so crazy! Not all cultures are the same I guess. But they did offer their own interpretation of Mexican Huevos Rancheros. Hmm? Should I try this cultures version of my food (aka the joke dish) or should I stick to their food instead? Well, I am kind of a rebel and I did come all the way over here, maybe I will go all in and soak up the local culture for the laughs. Haha! Huevos Rancheros please!

WTF?!? That actually looks pretty good. Goddamnit!

I was so ready to hate. I so wanted to hate. But this was a plate of Huevos Rancheros that hit most of the right spots. Two perfectly cooked eggs. A tomato-chile sauce that was a bit sparse but had enough flavor to tie it all together. A dash of queso cotija. But the element that pushed this dish into my category of respect were the two perfectly fried and crisped tortillas underneath, one for each huevo, that gave this breakfast meal the proper crispy texture it deserves. I was able to use my hands to eat my breakfast, that is a big deal! I’ve been telling everyone that a proper HR meal is on a fried, crispy tortilla but nobody listens. The fact that this weird ethnic place called “Huckleberry” decides to get it right is kinda disturbing. I mean, it’s almost wrong that they do it right. But they do. And it is good. This seemed to be a very popular dish as it was being served all around us.

It ain’t perfect though, since I would prefer the beans on the side. But at least they don’t use those hard ass black beans from a can. Their beans seem perfectly cooked and broken down into a paste so it is not that big of a deal that they are slathered on the fried tortilla. The $12 price tag is fucking crazy, considering there ain’t no chips and salsa included in the meal, but I guess that is part of the cost of travelling to strange neighborhoods.  But all in all, this is on the right track of what I consider the perfect form for a plate of Huevos Rancheros. Yes, from the other Ethnics and from the other side of town.

Goddamnit.

Huckleberry   310.451.2311
1014 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
www.huckleberrycafe.com