Mexicatessen: Back to the Roots of Mexican Food

Andy Lujan is not a man who shies away from challenges—and for that, every lover of Mexican food should be thankful.

After 14 years in the real estate business, and with no restaurant experience, Lujan opened two years ago, with his wife Blanca and his sisters, Connie and Christy. The latter is the chef responsible for CaCao’s so-called “mexicatessen” items, such as homemade salsas and mole sauce, as well as unique culinary offerings that include corn truffle tacos and wild boar sopes.

Authentic, Indigenous Cuisine

The restaurant’s unusual menu items are an example of another challenge that Lujan and his family have undertaken—offering not just authentic but indigenous cuisine.  

“A lot of Mexican restaurants tend to focus on the region the family is from, such as Michoacan,” explains Lujan in the warm, terra cotta-colored eatery on Colorado Boulevard. The place is decorated with bright luchadore (Mexican wrestler) masks and proudly sports a sign that reads “Hecho en Eagle Rock” (Made in Eagle Rock).

While many Mexican restaurants describe their fare as authentic Mexican cuisine, says Lujan, “we wanted to take it a step further and offer dishes that went deeper into the indigenous [culture of the] Aztecs and Mayans where we come from.”

Aztec and Mayan Hunter Fare

The result is a menu that features a variety of unusual ingredients. For example, the Spanish brought cows and pigs to the so-called New World, and as a result “the carnitas and carne asada [at most Mexican restaurants] are authentic,” says Lujan. But at the same time, such food is “more post-conquest Mexican.”

According to Lujan, the Aztecs and Mayans were hunters, which is why the “Taqueria de los Mayas” section of the menu lists the ”Indigenous Meats of Mexico.” They include:

Guajalote (turkey)

Chicharron de pato (fried duck skin)

Carnitas de pato (ground duck confit)

Chorizo verde (wild boar sausage)

All are offered as tacos and sopes, with the turkey and duck confit also offered in burritos ($2.65 to $10.50). The menu has also featured rabbit and venison, says Lujan, adding that he and his wife and sisters decided against offering other indigenous Mayan meats such as iguana and frogs.

Eagle Rock Foodies Appreciate Authentic Dishes

Lujan specifically wanted to open CaCao in Eagle Rock not so much because his family lives locally—his parents have run the flower shop next door for the past 20 years—but because Eagle Rock has a lot of well-travelled foodies, he says. 

“The menu intrigues them,” he says. “They ask where it came from, the philosophy behind it.”

Lujan notes that in addition to wild game, the Mayan and Aztec diet featured vegetables, such as cactus, zucchini, squash blossoms and corn truffle, which is also known as huitlacoche and has an earthy, mushroom-like taste. 

“A lot of people have the misconception that Mexican food is greasy and unhealthy,” says Lujan. “That is absolutely not the case.”

Familiar Mexican Faves for All Tastes

With menu offerings such as Callos Con Tocino (pan-seared, bacon-wrapped scallops on a bed of esquites—spicy creamed corn and hominy for $15.75) and Camarones Enchipotlados (sautéed tiger shrimp, onion and tomatoes topped with a spicy, citrus-garlic sauce and topped with a cilantro-lime gremolata—also $15.75), pescatarians and fish lovers will also leave CaCao full and happy. 

Lujan, whose comprehensive knowledge of Mexican cuisine encompasses modern as well as ancient regional cooking, points out that what most people don’t realize is that Baja California has a large Asian population. It’s because of the Asian influence, he says, that the battering technique got introduced, resulting in the ubiquitously addictive fish tacos now found all over Alta (“upper”) as well as Baja (“lower”) California.

Besides indigenous cuisine, which is a specialty at CaCao, the restaurant also offers more familiar favorites, such as tacos, sopes, and burritos filled with pollo, chorizo or cochinita pibil (smoked pork in achiote, citrus and Yucatan spices.”  ($2.65 to $7.95; other meats available)

Cooks Create Rotating Regional Specialties 

Lujan’s family also wanted to offer cuisine from a variety of regions in Mexico. Accordingly, they specifically sought out CaCao’s six cooks from states such as Guatemala or El Salvador, says Lujan. “We decided to be very particular about who we hired,” he says. “We invested in our cooks to bring talent to our kitchen.”

To keep CaCao’s constantly rotating menu of specials fresh and inventive, the cooks take turns recreating or reinterpreting dishes from their regional “homelands.”

All of the specials are coordinated with Chef Christy, who grew up cooking in the kitchens of her mother, grandmother and aunts before attending the Culinary Arts Academy in San Francisco and working locally as well as in Hawaii.

Although the cooks are encouraged to be creative, it’s “easy to cross the line,” says Lujan. After all, “how many Japanese ingredients can you put in a burrito before it’s not Mexican?”