Patty

This week's recommendations include Jamaican patties from L.A.'s Simply Wholesome, cochinita pibil at an O.C. lucha libre-themed restaurant and Filipino ...

Each one is crowded with shredded pork and slivers of onion saturated in the earthy, rust-colored juice. Llera makes the daing or dried fish marinade with soy, garlic and calamansi and lets the fish collar sit in the sauce for a week. Multiple televisions play lucha libre wrestling and a series of masks sit atop the drinks cooler near the register. The jerk chicken gets an extra helping of a hot Jamaican pepper, which the Keelings import from the Caribbean. The flavors are focused, vibrant and distinct, with a slap of heat in the jerk and a thread of turmeric, coriander and ginger in the curry. He air dries it again then cooks it in the oven until the fat capitulates and seeps into the meat and the vegetable stuffing. It’s also a glorious display of Llera’s culinary prowess, showcasing a technique that renders the pork tender and supple, with a brittle, crisp skin. He serves it with his version of chile oil, a sandy paste full of chiles and fried garlic. “This dish is really special for me because you see my origin and who I am, but also using the techniques that I know now,” he says. I eat them straight out of the slim paper sleeves they’re served in, with the filling scalding hot and the pastry breaking away into fragments of crisp crust. The patties were filled with what’s listed on the box as ground beef, but the filling more resembled a smooth meat paste with no discernible flavor and a mild heat. The patties are made using a recipe from co-owner Ayanna Keeling’s mother’s family in Trinidad. A taste-off between the social-media-hyped Trader Joe’s Jamaican patties vs.