Some Hot Tamales

Anthony Pidgeon

Silky, Spicy, Almost Flanlike: La Limeñita's take on a chicken tamale.

Location Info

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La Palma Mexicatessen

2884 24th St.
San Francisco, CA 94110

Category: Restaurant > Mexican

Region: Mission/ Bernal Heights

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Roosevelt Tamale Parlor

2817 24th
San Francisco, CA 94110

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Mission/ Bernal Heights

Details

Barrasa Market, 2840 Mission (at 24th Street), 824-4474. Open daily 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wheelchair accessible. Parking: difficult. Muni: 14, 48, 49, 67, BART too. Noise level: friendly.
Nicaraguan tamale: $2.50
Mexican tamale: $1.50

La Limeñita, 3161 24th St. (at Shotwell), 824-2833. Open daily 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Reservations accepted. Wheelchair accessible. Parking: difficult. Muni: 12, 48, 67. Noise level: dignified.
Chicken tamale: $3.50

La Palma Mexicatessen, 2884 24th St. (at Florida), 647-1500. Open Monday through Saturday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday until 5 p.m. Wheelchair accessible. Parking: difficult. Muni: 27, 48. Noise level: bustling.
Beef tamale: $3

Panchita's, 2990 24th St. (at Harrison), 431-8852. Open daily noon to 11 p.m. Reservations unnecessary. Wheelchair accessible. Parking: difficult. Muni: 48. Noise level: balmy.
Chicken tamale: $3

Roosevelt Tamale Parlor, 2817 24th St. (at Bryant), 550-9213. Open daily 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Reservations unnecessary. Wheelchair accessible. Parking: difficult. Muni: 27, 48. Noise level: convivial.
Tamale: $3

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More About

• La Palma
• Tenochtitlan
• John Smith
• Eating Out
• Mexican Food and Cooking

Another good source for the multicultural tamale experience is Panchita's, a Salvadoran pupuseria just up the street. It's a bright and sunny place with tropical accents here and there and a counter off to the side where you can order up licuados, jugos, and aguas frescas made from papaya, guanabana, cantaloupe, tamarind, mango, and other exotic flora. Its chicken tamale is the perfect comfort food: The masa is absolutely yielding in texture, with a nice subtle taste of corn, and the filling is wonderfully mild and forgiving and chunky with chicken, potatoes, and tender green olives, like a good, enriching pot pie.

The best place to sample the tamale in all its multicultural glory is Barrasa Market, where you can purchase incredible, freshly prepared tamales from three different traditions. The Salvadoran version features creamy, custardy masa that bursts apart into a steamy, fragrant volcano when you edge off its banana-leaf wrapping. Inside: tender potatoes that merge and mingle with the corn pudding surrounding it, and sweet, tiny green olives, and either chunks of moist pork or huge shards of tender chicken. The Nicaraguan variety is huge and sturdily wrapped in string, paper, and banana leaf, like a parcel from some exotic locale. The masa here is even more moist than the Salvadoran version, even risottolike, with a sensory zap of citrus and spice and the elements. Mingling within its folds are circles of al dente potato, a sweet, deeply flavored stone fruit I couldn't identify, chunks of slow-cooked pork and chicken, and big, juicy capers: a treasure trove of beautifully balanced flavors. Finally, the Mexican tamale comes in two versions. The yellow-husked variety is a savory confluence of somewhat dry pork and white masa not unlike La Palma's, but a really sweet treat is in store if you purchase the white-husked dessert tamale, a blissfully simple dish of puddinglike sweet-corn masa ribboned with corn kernels reminiscent of a soft, dense, moist butter cake. The cashier recommended it with a glass of cold milk: "You'll love it," she said. She was right. ¡Viva la tamale!