The ringing so often heard in the Seaside streets—announcing the roving ice cream cart and bringing joy to so many little hearts—only makes me sad.It’s not that I don’t like a little rompope egg noggy treat as much as the next nene (or maybe a little barcillo de fresa)—shoot, I just like saying rompope and barcillo—it’s that I’d trade 1 million of the south-of-the-border style ice cream items for one well-layered Mexican elote.
Elote, for the unitiated (and unlucky), is the name for the huge roasted corn on the cob squirted with lemon juice, swabbed with mayo, rolled in mild white queso and finished with chili powder and, often, more lime. Um, sí.
Alas, unlike a number of the roving wheelbarrow ops in my old barrio in Los Angeles or my favorite haunts in Baja or most colonias in Mexico City, these wagons do not carry the elote I seek. And hence depression descends.
There is hope, though, found in a Seaside parking lot. Outside La Preciosa Market (392-0463) on Broadway at San Lucas (before Noche Buena) in Seaside—though apparently only on weekends, and without a regular schedule that I can discern from the staff inside—are a man and woman selling authentic elote for $2 (and some roasted papas for $5).
Weekly Seaside beat writer-assistant editor-new elote lover Kera Abraham hit me with the tip. Girl’s got good instincts.
“First bite was like, wha?” she writes, “Then the rest was gone within 60 secs.”
