Food Critic

In between errands on a busy Saturday we drove down Imperial Avenue in San Diego for a more scenic drive. On this strip of the Avenue it is a sort of "little Mexico" there are Catholic Shrines in front yards, lots of garage sales, brightly painted murals on walls, and lots of street vendors selling tacos, tamales and my favorite the whole grilled onions grilling on a huge grill next to our restaurant. We had the windows down and the smell was too much to resist. Brian and I have been in that neighborhood before for dinner at El Salvodoreno. Brian loves to reminisce about his time in Ecuador and I love good Mexican food. This time we stopped at Casa De Pepe across the street from El Salvordoreno. Its hard to miss with the purple Pillars and bright rug painted on the stucco building. Brian said "You know the food must be good if there are bars on the windows"It was a brave move but we took all the kids with us into the little restaurant. We seated ourselves in the room decorated with Minni pinatas and were shortly greeted by a short happy woman who spoke little English. She gave us our menus Brian was exited to see most of the short menu was in Spanish. I ordered a Chicken Tamalie and I heard her tell an older man coming into the restaurant something about a "pollo tamalie" he turned around and left the then returned shortly with what looked like a tamalie wrapped in foil in a bag. I imagine he went to the street vendor or the other maybe kitchen? Where ever it came from it was good! Everything was good. I loved sitting next to the kitchen whenever our waitress came through the kitchen the door would swing open and I could see ladies cooking and talking together in the back. The atmosphere was friendly, the restaurant was clean, the food was great, and it was all priced very well!

I would give Casa De Pepe 5 tacos!