Torta Movil
🇲🇽 DISTRITO FEDERAL, MÉXICO / FREE FRIDAY FAVORITES: Behind a South Central market on weekends, the party is on at this CDMX-inspired torta trailer.
🇲🇽 MÉXICO (Distrito Federal)
📍 2623 San Pedro Street,
South Central, South Los Angeles
🅿️ Small lot and street parking
💲 Cash Only
🥤 No Alcohol
📸 All photos by Jared Cohee
for Eat the World Los AngelesFREE FRIDAY FAVORITES is a series of articles that revisit choice restaurants featured on eattheworldla.com over the years. These will never be behind the paywall, but will update information as necessary and always be about meals that are worth returning for again.
📆 Original Article 15 November 2020Before the pandemic, this little corner of the parking lot of the Mexicali Meat Market & Liquor was such a great place to grab a seat at their table, enjoy a torta and the camaraderie of your fellow in-the-know customers. Halfway through your sandwich, neutrals would take the side of whichever group was more strongly cheering whichever Liga MX match happened to be on the television. The orange cart and tent, and sometimes umbrellas for shade were a welcome sign in good weather.
Since the pandemic the parties are on hold as the business remains to-go only. The only people hanging around are waiting for their tortas they walked up to order or phoned in, but the matches are still on and the sandwiches are just as good as ever. When the trailer is parked here on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, they add a nice mural banner to the back wall with all the famous streets and sights in the capital city, the place that inspires their torta recipes.
The orange color comes of course from the signature look of the metro trains in Mexico City, even the trailer is painted to resemble one. The system's distinctive "M" symbol is plastered all across the sides of it as well as the menu. These "D.F. Inspired Tortas" are created and served from almost a replica of a D.F. metro car.
Business is good enough that a smaller support griddle has been moved outside for busier days, as well as the ordering and staging areas. As you can see above, there are often large orders of many tortas ready for pickup at any given time.
At the top of their menu and what gives off the aura of being a showcase sandwich at Torta Movil is their Chilanga ($11.75, above), which takes on the nickname of someone from the capital city. It is a good place to start and different than most tortas you have probably eaten in the past because of the thick wedges of pineapple that are pressed between layers of meat.
In addition to this fruity sweetness, the savory side is provided by thin milanesa, ham, head cheese and smoked pork leg. As with all of their tortas, there are ample amounts of beans, avocado, lettuce, jalapeños, and queso blanco. When you start dripping on their housemade salsa, this sandwich is quite the experience.
That salsa is good on most of their creations and is full of the rich smokiness of chipotle peppers. If you are the type of person that usually asks for some of them to be added to your tortas, that is unnecessary here.
One of the options that seems to get a lot of attention from their Instagram feed and warranted a try on a return visit was the Cubana ($11.75, above), which swaps shredded pork for smoked and adds a layer of chorizo. It proves that the textures and complementary tastes from that thin milanesa are doing a lot of work and choosing a torta here with that as an ingredient is a good idea.
No matter which you select, you are guaranteed to get their extremely good bread, which is toasted up masterfully. When you could get closer to see the griddle in better times, you would see it right next to the meats, but what is so good here is that despite its thinness, the interior of the bread is still soft while the outside is extra crispy yet far from burnt.
The menu is almost too long for a first time visitor, but it is nice to see a few of their own creations alongside the usual suspects, some which have been given slight alterations. For those more in the mood for a simple sandwich, try the pierna desebrada ($10, above), which lets the shredded pork leg speak for itself and can be modified well with the salsa.
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