New Mexican restaurant in Fresno specializes in beef head stew, rib-eye tacos
A new Fresno restaurant wants to recreate the feel of a Sinaloan-style eatery with its menu offering an assortment of dishes centered on the tender, slow-coked meat from a cow’s head.
Cabeza de Res El Sinaloense (Beef Head the Sinaloan), opened on March 1 near the intersection of First Street and McKinley Avenue, offers caldo de cabeza, a beef head stew made of the cheeks, tongue and lips of the cow with a generous serving of handmade corn tortillas.
The stew simmers overnight for 16 hours until the meat is tender and has the texture of shredded beef, said owner Aaron Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, 30, a restaurateur who has been cooking since the age of 15, wanted to bring to life the type of neighborhood restaurant he grew up frequenting on his annual holiday trips to his family’s hometown of Guamúchil, Sinaloa. He also co-owns Myla Mexican Bistro in the southern California city of Colton.
The coastal Mexican state is well-known for its seafood, but Rodriguez wants to share another side of Sinaloan cuisine.
“I wanted to make it easier for people from Sinaloa to experience the flavors from back home here in town,” he said. “Fresno needed something like this.”
And for those who aren’t accustomed to eating all parts of the cow, not to worry, said Rodriguez. The restaurant also serves rib-eye tacos, quesadillas, quesabirria tacos, menudo blanco — a tripe-stew in a white broth common in northern Mexico — guacamole with chicharrón, or fried pork rinds, and more.
The dishes are served on Mexican terracotta clay plates, creating a homey feel. Each table has a wooden spice grinder and a jar of chiltepines, a spicy red chile the size of a pea that is common in the cooking of northern Mexican states like Sonora and Sinaloa.
On Saturdays and Sundays, Rodriguez said 300 people pack El Sinaloanse to enjoy its stew, from large families to people who want a warm broth after a night of drinking.
“We have our regulars now,” he said. ”People come here every week.”
With beef at record-high prices in recent months, and Rodriguez’s emphasis on quality, such as handmade tortillas, customers can expect prices to be slightly higher than a taquería that might serve $2.50 tacos.
“We try and make an honest price for tacos,” he said. “We don’t mind holding our value for the people that really enjoy our food.”
El Sinaloense also sells regional favorites like guava pie and coricos — a Sinaloan cookie made from corn masa — as well as salsa, and machaca — a northern Mexico style of dried beef made in-house. They also specialize in tortillas de asiento, a thin, sope-like fried masa disk topped with asientos, — the bits of fatty, fried pork rind leftover after making chicharrones — and topped with cheese (the dish is similar to what are known as chorreadas o peillzcadas).
‘Magic’ of Sinaloan food in Fresno
One of those regular customers is Rev. Raul Sanchez, a priest at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church near Shields and West avenues.
Sanchez walked into El Sinaloanse on Thursday morning in his Tomateros jersey, the professional baseball team from Culiacán, the state capital Sinaloa. Sanchez, who’s originally from Navolato, Sinaloa, said he was glad to find El Sinaloense because he doesn’t have many opportunities to visit his home state and in Fresno he couldn’t find the type of food he grew up with.
Until now.
“Coming here is like traveling to my state,” he said.
He typically orders a bowl of caldo de cabeza, tortillas de asiento and an agua de cebada, a Sinaloan drink made from barley and cinammon, similar to horchata.
“It’s about returning to the flavors we grew up with,” Sanchez said. “Food has the magic of taking us back to who we are — our identity.”
Cabeza de Res El Sinaloanse Hours: 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.; closed Tuesdays Location: 3298 E McKinley Ave, Fresno CA 93703 Online orders available at toasttab.com
