Quick Bite - La Super Rica (Santa Barbara)

Driving back down south from working in Santa Maria recently, I decided to stop for lunch at La Super Rica Taqueria in Santa Barbara for a quick lunch.  Now, having gone to college at UCSB, I have been hearing about La Super Rica for years, as it is practically an institution in the Santa Barbara area.  It is a small, family-owned, corner taco stand, which was opened back in the early 1990's, and has been going strong for over 20 years.  The reputation that I have always heard about this place is that it is serving some of the best, most authentic Mexican food in Southern California. It has also been featured on  the Food Network's show, "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", and The Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food."  Now, having grown up in Los Angeles, and having eaten my fair share of Mexican food, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

I was definitely curious to find out how this tiny taco stand in Santa Barbara had become such a legend of foodie lore?  Upon doing a bit of research, I was surprised to learn that Julia Child, the goddess of French cuisine in America, played a large part in creating the myth that surrounds La Super Rica.  The story goes that Julia, who was actually born in Southern California, and who later lived with her husband Paul in Massachusetts, started gravitating back towards California in her later years.  In the late 1980s, she was splitting her time between the east and west coasts.  When her husband passed in 1994, Julia decided to live full-time in the Santa Barbara area.  Apparently, she "discovered" La Super Rica around that time, and when various food writers and friends came to visit her, she would tell them all that her favorite place to eat in Santa Barbara was La Super Rica.  Foodies ate it up (excuse the pun), and found a certain amount of irony in the fact that the mother of French cooking  in America, was giving her highest praise to a small corner Mexican food stand.  She mentioned it in a interview with Bon Appetit magazine, discussed it on Good Morning America, and even inspired an article in The New Yorker about the tiny taco stand.  Legend has it that Julia continued to frequent La Super Rica until a few months before she passed away.

It was quite clear that the "legend" of this place survives to this day, because when I arrived at La Super Rica, around 1:00 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon, the line was out the door and down the street.  

But I was committed, so I waited in line for about 25 minutes before I reached the front door, and was finally able to check out the menu board, which was located right next to the small window where the food is ordered. Customers make their choices from the 20 items listed on the menu board, or one of the daily specials, order from the window, then take a seat at one of the picnic tables in the covered back patio area, and wait patiently for your order number to be called.

The handwritten menu board gives brief descriptions all of their offerings, which primarily consist of various types of tacos using chicken, steak, pork, chorizo, or vegetables. All of the tacos are served with homemade corn tortillas, and as you wait in line to order, you can watch a woman in the kitchen whose sole job it is to hand press and grill fresh tortillas.

As it was my first time, I decided to just order the basics.  My order consisted of two chicken tacos and one steak taco.  The chicken tacos, also came with grilled bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms, and were served with two fresh corn tortillas, which were buried at the bottom of the plate.  You can see from the photo below that the portion of meat was quite generous, as it completely covered the two tortillas, and the server had to tell me that the tortillas were underneath the avalanche of chicken and veggies.

The steak taco was only a single taco, but the serving of meat was still quite generous.

As you can see from the photos, the tacos are no-nonsense, and are basically, just a heap of grilled meat on top of the tortillas.  The homemade tortillas were great, and were definitely the stand out component of the tacos.  However, as good as the tortillas were, both the chicken, and especially the steak, were dry and under seasoned.  I was expecting the meat to have been cooked in some type of sauce, or at the very least, be well-seasoned, and I was quite disappointed in both the quality and flavor of the meat.

Luckily, there was a salsa bar, which included a spicy red salsa, a tangy green salsa, and some delicious fresh made pico de gallo.  I added a lot of the pico de gallo to both my chicken and steak taco, as well as, some of the spicy red salsa.  The addition of the pico de gallo and the salsa definitely improved the overall taste of the tacos, but I really felt the tacos were just mediocre at best.  I would say that, in general, I left feeling disappointed by La Super Rica, and believing it was really just over-hyped, and living off its reputation.

When I got home, I read some reviews and articles about La Super Rica, trying to figure out what I had done wrong.  Apparently, a lot of other foodies have been disappointed by the tacos, but many of these critics talked about how fantastic the chile relleno, pasilla pepper stuffed with cheese, and the chorizo especial dishes were.  I chalked up my disappointment to just ordering the wrong items on the menu.  I  decided that I will need to go back and re-visit La Super Rica on one of my future trips to Santa Barbara, and order some of the items recommended in the glowing reviews that I read online.  I should not have just gone with the basic tacos, and should have tried some of the more "authentic" Mexican dishes.  However, shouldn't a place with such a legendary reputation, and the endorsement of a food guru like Julia Child, be able to make better tacos than say, me?  Now, I've never made homemade tortillas, but I would venture to say that my own chicken and steak tacos have more flavor than those at La Super Rica.

Now, I love Julia Child, and I believe she did wonders for French cuisine, and for cooking in general, in America.  However, I think she probably should have visited a few more "authentic" taco stands in Los Angeles, and elsewhere around Southern California, before touting La Super Rica's greatness.  Just because Julia had great taste in beef bourguignon, does not mean she had great taste in tacos.