torta ahogada

tortas los picudos, 24th & alabama, san francisco

after I ate at La Torta Gorda the other week, the consensus in the comments seemed to be that Los Picudos should be my next torta stop, and so JoJoJoJo and I swung by a few days later. one commenter, Subframe, mentioned that Los Picudos had tortas in "el estilo de DF" (in the style of Mexico City), and I assume that referred to this sandwich- the torta ahogada, which I have previously only encountered in DF. a torta ahogada ("drowned sandwich") is just that- a sandwich covered in a somewhat sweet tomato sauce. the meat inside was carnitas, in this case cooked on the crispier side, rather than moister as some carnitas are. it was pretty messy- I think when I was in Mexico we just went for it with our hands, but this time I decided to make use of the knife and fork provided. the bread pretty quickly soaked up the sauce, and soon I had a mushy pile of bread, carnitas, and an absurd amount of red onions. I could have done with considerably fewer onions, but on the whole this was good torta. and I've never seen this type of sandwich served anywhere else, so Los Picudos seems to be the place to get one.