Even on weekdays, the parking lot of La Morenita Market remains a bustling hub of activity, perhaps the one place in Napa that could easily pass for East Los Angeles. Late-model trucks and SUVs crowd the lot, right alongside plenty of Reagan Era hoopties. Typically, the parking lot’s soundtrack is a clash of norteño music and Spanish talk radio, with pockets of folks congregated next to their vehicles, half-listening and half-socializing.
Although stores like Target and Wal-Mart are definitely cross-cultural here in California, La Morenita Market fills in the gaps for Latinos, providing the place where most of Napa’s seasonal workers wire money back to Mexico. From the street, it is easy to dismiss La Morenita as a simple Mexican discount store, since the market itself dominates the property. However, a small restaurant space — called La Morenita Taqueria — resides next to the main building, tucked away into the back of the parking lot.
In terms of its layout, La Morenita Taqueria defies the usual restaurant proportions: there are just three tables, yet the kitchen space behind the counter is cavernous, providing workspace for the entire market. Most likely, any rudimentary Spanish that you learned in high school will pay real-world dividends at this taqueria. To spare some potential misunderstanding, one should at least know how to count en español: the plates at La Morenita are pictured with numbers, and your order, once ready, will probably not be announced in English.
I like to order the #12 plate, which consists of three tacos a la plancha. These tacos — named for their preparation on a flat-top grill — are a welcome departure from the typical two-ply, three-bite tacos offered here in Napa. The tortillas themselves are thick and sturdy, dense with corn flavor, and spotted with char-marks the size of coins. The interior of each taco is almost reminiscent of a quesadilla: a morass of meat, melted jack cheese, salsa roja, chopped onions and cilantro, and a thin avocado wedge. The cheese that oozes onto the griddle during cooking makes for a deliciously crispy first bite.
