The Ultimate Quesadilla

Indulgence for Cinco de

Mayo
Everyone deserves to put one of these in their stomachs

BY LYDIA WOOLEVER
MAY 4, 2014

KEY_GRAM/<A HREF="HTTP://ICONOSQUARE.COM/P/666397650324879185_3194412" TARGET="_BLANK">INSTAGRAM</A>

Forget warm Coronas, stale Tostitos, and questionable queso dip.

This Cinco de Mayo, you want some Mexican comida that's got
some machismo, some balls. You want something the size of a
burrito, stuffed with meat and cheese that's then scolded on a grill
like it did something bad, but not just any old burrito. No, you
want a quesadilla—a super quesadilla suiza, to be exact.

It's not even fair to call it that—a "quesadilla." This is not your
nuked college tortilla filled with a sad amount of shredded cheddar
cheese. This is not what your mom made you at snack time
growing up. This is like no quesadilla you've ever seen before. It's
the size of a burrito, sans the rice and beans, straight to the good
stuff, and it gets grilled down flat, letting all the ingredients melt
together into one delicious mess. It's like two bank envelopes
stuffed with cash. It's like a meat-and-cheese suitcase. It's like what
the fk even is that.

We'd recommend finding some dingy, divey NorCal taqueria in

your neighborhood—wherever you are—but you can try to tackle it
yourself, too. The heart of the Suiza, or rather the gut, is really
rather simple: your choice of meat (carnitas pork, or al
pastor steak, or both), cheese, salsa, sour cream, and a fair fan of
bright-ripe avocado slices, stuffed to the brim inside a big flour
tortilla. Stuff it to the point you think it actually might burst, then
press it to the grill like it's a cow's ass on a branding iron. Get it
warm, get it gooey, get it crisp.

If you happen to be in San Francisco, though, make your way to El

Farolito, a sunburnt little spot in the Mission. We've mentioned
it before: burritos the size of your arm, burritos that can stand up
on their own. For six bucks, their Suiza will make you think this
might actually be it—the end, the last cena, adios, muerto. About
halfway through, you might even think you were right,
their carnitas having riled up an animalistic hunger-rage inside of
you that defies the human body itself. And food-coma full or not,
you'll still seriously consider the second half.

The hell with Monday, the hell with work, you'll say. Right now,
you're just rearing to go, to get out, to move. Right now, it's just a
hot, beautiful, Sunday in Mex–er, California, or wherever the hell
you are. You feel alive. You feel machismo. You feel a little loco,
too. You can do anything. You might even come back later.
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Photo: Lydia Woolever

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