Easy Like Saturday Morning

The lyrics to the Commodore's song really are "..easy like Sunday morning," but today is Saturday. This morning I took a look at one of the websites on my normal daily tour, Chowhound.com, and read a post about the Mexican food goodies one of the hounds found in El Monte.

I'm a sucker for good salsa and chips so after reading how "bags of the best chips and salsa anyplace" were to be found at Los Toros Meat Market, and having a free morning on my hands, I just had to get in my car and drive a little ways to see if this claim had any validity.

The place was easy enough to find. It's just a little market. Inside I went, straight back to the meat counter and looked for the chips and salsa that the poster had raved about. There they were so I munched on a sample. The man at the counter told me this was the "medium" version and it seemed pretty hot to me so I asked for a tub of the mild. This, along with a plastic bag full of chips (which you see here) was taken to the checkout stand where a boy who must have been about 11 or 12 years old energetically rang up my order: $1.99 for each item.

I brought the goodies home and tried them out. Indeed these were good chips: crunchy, a nice golden brown color, very good texture and not greasy. They were of just the right thickness, too. Not that sickly Doritos thickness or texture, nor too thick that you had to overfry them to get them to be crunchy. I'd say there was about a pound or more in the bag, plus they were nice and warm. Obviously freshly made!

Okay, now on to the salsa. Of course I had to try the chips in a pristine condition before possibly having my tastebuds knocked senseless by the salsa. The chips got the thumbs up. As for the salsa, there was lots of stuff going on there. As you can see by the pictures, it was not shy on ingredients and it was a decently thick concoction.

I scooped some up in a chip and put it in my mouth. I am not sure but I think the guy gave me the medium version because unlike what the Chowhound poster said about the mild version being, well, mild, this definitely had a kick to it. My mouth wasn't on fire but it did give me a craving for water to cool off.

Tastewise, smoky, roasted pepper was what I noticed first, with the tomato being secondary. Then the heat kicked in. The flavors were nicely concentrated and the salsa itself had a nice chunkiness to it.

Were these the best chips and salsa anywhere? I've had chips and salsa like this before at a few restaurants and on those occassions have always given them the thumbs up for being a cut above the rest of the crowd. These are comparable, certainly the best I've ever gotten from a store. So I feel good about putting my Saturday morning to good use. Meanwhile, the rest of the bag of chips and tub of salsa are waiting for me and there's plenty to enjoy for the rest of the weekend and more.