{"id":249766,"date":"2016-01-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/kensingtons-invincible-kitchen\/"},"modified":"2016-01-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T08:00:00","slug":"kensingtons-invincible-kitchen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/kensingtons-invincible-kitchen\/","title":{"rendered":"Kensington\u2019s invincible kitchen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Frank Sabatini Jr.<\/p>\n

Business owners had warned Ponce Meza in the late 1960s not to open a restaurant in the heart of Kensington, believing that it would fail in a neighborhood that didn\u2019t support much culinary activity at the time. But Meza proceeded anyway, taking with him the experience he gained from working as cook at Nati\u2019s Mexican Restaurant in Ocean Beach.<\/p>\n

The venture panned out. And 47 years later, Restaurante mexicano de Ponce<\/a> operates consistently to a full house, pretty much from the moment it opens its doors in the morning until closing them at 10 p.m. on most nights.<\/p>\n

\"Ponce<\/a>
Ponce Meza Jr. oversees daily operations at Ponce\u2019s Mexican Restaurant in Kensington (Photo by Frank Sabatini Jr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even on a cold and rainy Monday evening last month, the wait time for a table was 40 minutes. Or on a recent Friday lunch, both dining rooms and most of the bar had filled to capacity before the clock struck noon.<\/p>\n

Meza\u2019s son, Ponce Jr., said the draw is \u201ccomfort food with good portions,\u201d a simple formula that he\u2019s upheld since his father retired 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad still pops in sometimes to chit chat with the longtime customers, many of whom love his original chile rellenos and chicken enchiladas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Enchiladas<\/a>
Enchiladas suizas adorned with Mexican crema (Photo by Frank Sabatini Jr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For this customer, the ground beef tacos and burritos hold sacrilegious appeal in the face of shredded beef versions served in all other Mexican establishments \u2014 except for Nati\u2019s, from which Meza adopted the recipe. He\u2019s since tweaked the seasoning with added measures of cumin and oregano.<\/p>\n

The crispy quesadilla, too, is a Nati\u2019s carryover involving a bubbly layer of cheddar or Jack cheese (or both) on a thin, fried tortilla sporting the fragility and lightness of filo pastry. Pair it to a sturdy margarita harboring a loose pour of Cuervo Gold tequila, and you begin to understand why Ponce\u2019s has become wildly contagious in a town brimming with stiff competition.<\/p>\n

D\u00e9cor plays into the restaurant\u2019s allure as well. Since its remodel in 2003, the main dining room came to include a \u201cwall of women,\u201d which captures numerous paintings of senoritas, some of them humble, others seductive. The framed works were acquired mostly at flea markets. Those that appeared non-Mexican were touched up to look Latina, Ponce Jr. said.<\/p>\n

Several items have been added to the menu over the past several years such as the simple, brothy chicken tortilla soup, standard fajitas, and chicken enchiladas suizas, which are the best I\u2019ve had anywhere. Plump and crepe-like, they\u2019re stuffed with tender breast meat and manchego cheese, and topped with Mexican crema and tomatillo salsa.<\/p>\n

\"Shrimp<\/a>
Shrimp tacos with cabbage and chipotle sauce (Photo by Frank Sabatini Jr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Equally noteworthy is the carnitas cooked in lard, oranges and Mexican Coca- Cola. What I especially like about the preparation is that the pork isn\u2019t flash-fried before it\u2019s served. The result is slow-roasted soft meat with its juices fully retained, and sans the greasy finish.<\/p>\n

On my last visit, I tried the shrimp tacos containing crispy cabbage and robust chipotle cream sauce, which surprisingly didn\u2019t upstage the sweet, delicate flavor of the shrimp. It\u2019s the closest thing you\u2019ll find here to a luxury taco, with the exception of the adobada tacos stuffed with guajillo chile-seasoned pork, cilantro and pineapple-avocado salsa.<\/p>\n

The menu otherwise spotlights traditional dishes: chorizo sopes with nopales salsa, chimichangas, tilapia tacos, dressed-up quesadillas, tamales, and the like. A couple of burgers are also in the offing \u2014 the \u201cguero\u201d and \u201cMexi.\u201d Both are topped with a chile relleno, although the latter contains a slightly bigger patty served on an oblong roll with lettuce, tomato, mayo and guacamole.<\/p>\n

Chilaquiles verdes are relative newcomers to the breakfast menu. But I\u2019ve defaulted regularly to the classic huevos rancheros with standard ranchero sauce, if only because of the creamy refried beans served alongside. The frijoles appear on most plates, although only in my morning visits have they sported a crispy top layer. Whether intentional or not, I found it appealing.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a>As a dining anchor to the neighborhood, Ponce\u2019s has become a charitable force in the city by donating annually to elementary schools and the Mid-City Little League. It also takes part regularly in Dining Out for Life, which raises money for the San Diego LGBT Community Center\u2019s HIV\/AIDS services and prevention programs.<\/p>\n

\u2014Frank Sabatini Jr.<\/em> es el autor de \u201cSecret San Diego\u201d (ECW Press), y comenz\u00f3 su carrera como escritor local hace m\u00e1s de dos d\u00e9cadas como miembro del personal del antiguo San Diego Tribune. Puedes localizarlo en <\/em>fsabatini@san.rr.com<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Por Frank Sabatini Jr.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":816,"featured_media":249767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Kensington\u2019s invincible kitchen","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}