Yup, its still about the Ground Beef & Pickle Tacos @ Mas Malo

Mas Malo, the "badder" DTLA sequel to the popular cantina in Silver Lake has a prime location, on the ground floor of the building that houses Seven Grand on 7th Street.  The space is a former jewelry store and has double height ceilings and is landmarked.  I was recently invited to check it out and was able to sample several of the dishes and cocktails.

Overall the dish I recommend most is the signature dish of the establishment, the ground beef and pickle taco.  It is filling, and at only $4 is a value.  The ground beef, pickles and shredded cheese is a homage to the classic cheeseburger.  Stuffed into the fried shell and dipped into the Serrano salsa it is surprisingly delicious and a crowd pleaser.

To share, the Chicken in Mole Poblano ($16) is also quite good.  The mole sauce is rich and complex and not overly sweet.  While it may not be at the level of Guelaguetza, this is a dish I can heartily recommend and would order again.  It is hard to not dip your chips into the mole; always the sign of a successful sauce.

The Medicina Latina with a chili salt rim was a highlight of the beverage menu.  I thought the other cocktails I sampled were just ok.  As they have 200 tequilas and mezcals on the list, exploring the deep list may be the optimal way to go.  Unfortunately Mas Malo doesn't have sangrita to accompany the great tequilas.

You can reserve their tequila vault for tastings or private dinners.  This room was literally one of the vaults used by the jewelry store decades ago.  The huge glass and steel door is impressive and leads to a small room with walls lined with bottle after bottle of tequila and mezcal.  The selection inside could inspire one to dig a tunnel underground and come up inside the vault, just to get to try them all.

Mas Malo carries the full Del Maguey line of mezcals, including the Pechuga, made with chicken breast.  The photograph below is but part of one wall of the tequila vault.  Reserving the vault for a tasting may be the best way to enjoy Mas Malo; it will certainly impress your friends.

Whether you are looking to sober up before or after a Seven Grand visit or are planning on having dinner and sampling the full menu, Mas Malo is a beautiful comfortable space with reasonable prices and a nice vibe.  The ground beef and pickle taco has some ineluctable quality that just draws me in.  Some things just can't be explained; they need to be experienced.

Mas Malo: 515 West 7th Street, DTLA | 213.985.4332 | http://masmalorestaurant.com

Dia de los Muertos: Tonight & Tomorrow Night at Las Perlas

Celebrate Dia de los Muertos tonight and tomorrow night at mescal specialist Las Perlas, in downtown Los Angeles. They will have $7 Diablo Palomas, $6 Margaritas, and $3 Tecates. The bar is outfitted in "Day of the Dead" decorations and skeletons are welcome to sip on the succulent libations.

Note that El Carmen in Mid City is also celebrating Dia de los Muertos tomorrow night November 2nd.

Las Perlas: 107 East 6th Street, Downtown Los Angeles. Phone: (213) 988-8355.  Website: lasperlas.la

Ilegal Mezcal Los Angeles Launch

Ilegal Mezcal recently became available in California and to celebrate and spread the word, the brand which launched in 2007 sent Stephen Myers, their Global Brand Ambassador, on tour to talk about mezcal and about the Ilegal brand in particular.

Last week a crowd of mezcal lovers filled Las Perlas, the mezcal focused bar on East 6th Street in downtown LA, to hear a presentation by Myers (pictured at left). The attendees included Bricia Lopez, the legendary mezcal enthusiast who has cocktails named after her at three different bars, as well as local bloggers such as ThirstyinLA, MicroLiquor, StreetGourmetLA, FoodGPS, and Glutster among others. Myers, a charming Australian bartender, gave a talk about how he and John Rexer founded Ilegal Mezcal when they were operating a bar in Guatemela and their customers were enthusiastic about the mezcal that they were smuggling across the border from Mexico. You may be wondering why an Aussie was lecturing a bunch of Americans about mezcal. Myers was traveling across Latin America and took a bartending job at Cafe No Se in Antigua, Guatamela working for Rexer, to make money. After several years in Guatemala serving a growing demand for mezcal among the international visitors to their bar, Myers and Rexer decided to create their own brand of mezcal.

Ilegal Mezcal is an artisinal mezcal, made in small quantities, in the village of Tlacolula, outside of Oaxaca. Myers said that almost all mezcals are single village and small production products, in contrast to the mass produced tequila which dominates the export market for agave liquor. Mezcal like tequila is made from the agave plant (although unlike tequila is not necessarily from the blue agave). The heart of the plant is baked in earthen pit ovens and then distilled and mezcals are 100% agave and fermented in oak vats. As a small batch product, there is significantly greater variation in the end product than in the more mass produced tequilas.

Ilegal Mezcal is distilled twice and filtered once. The line includes 3 variations that I got to sample: Joven (unaged), Reposado (aged five months), and Anejo (aged for three years). The Joven has chocolate and grapefruit notes in the flavor. The Reposado was smokier and had more heft than the Joven with a medium smoke and pear flavor. The Anejo is aged three years in American and French oak. It is smooth but smoky with some caramel. My preference, and that of several other attendees was for the Reposado, which had a great balance without being overwhelmed by smokiness.

Due to its name, Ilegal Mezcal went through a struggle with the US government in order to use the Ilegal brand name and its preferred packaging. Despite the fact that the government of Mexico had already approved it for export, the TTB, the US government agency which must approve liquor labels in the US refused to allow them to use their name because it might confuse consumers who would think the product was illegal. After much research the partners were able to show that other brands with similar names were permitted and the agency relented. Fortunately for US mezcal aficionados, Ilegal Mezcal is now legal and available on the West Coast as well as its initial launch market of New York.

Here in Los Angeles, Las Perlas and the Tar Pit Bar both carry the range of Ilegal products. Although Las Perlas has a variety of mezcal cocktails, I recommend drinking the Ilegal Mezcal neat, particularly the Reposado. The only thing criminal about this product is that we had to wait so long to get it.