El Tepeyac Cafe

In a city of thousands of humble taco stands and family-run Mexican restaurants, El Tepeyac Cafe in Boyle Heights gained legendary status for the gargantuan, chili-spiked pork burritos created by owner Manuel Rojas. In the kitchen at 3 a.m., seven days a week to prepare for the 6 a.m. opening, Rojas spent a half-century serving up his famous Hollenbeck burrito and the hulking "Manuel's Special" - five pounds of roast pork, rice, beans, guacamole, cheese and chile verde stuffed into a plate-sized tortilla.

Re "Creator of 5-pound burrito," Obituary, Feb. 14 I am saddened by the death of Manuel Rojas, operator of a "joint" that exemplified the best of Los Angeles. Multi-generational families, gang types, dating couples and cops mixed easily when charmed by Manuel and those heavenly burritos. I once saw four Japanese businessmen in suits eating lunch there. Shocked at how inexpensive the food was compared to Japan, they each ordered four of the "Manuel's Special" burritos - at 5 pounds each.

Whereas swanky Los Angeles restaurants have done relatively well with their spin-offs, the quality of the expansion teams of joints such as Fatburger, Tommy's and Burrito King has rarely approached the original. The exemplary Mid-Wilshire hamburger stand Cassell's sold franchises a few years ago, and the clones were uniformly miserable copies of the original. The mid-'60s clones of the tiki palace Kelbo's--anyone remember Kelbo's Jr.?

In a city of thousands of humble taco stands and family-run Mexican restaurants, El Tepeyac Cafe in Boyle Heights gained legendary status for the gargantuan, chili-spiked pork burritos created by owner Manuel Rojas. In the kitchen at 3 a.m., seven days a week to prepare for the 6 a.m. opening, Rojas spent a half-century serving up his famous Hollenbeck burrito and the hulking "Manuel's Special" - five pounds of roast pork, rice, beans, guacamole, cheese and chile verde stuffed into a plate-sized tortilla.

Re "Creator of 5-pound burrito," Obituary, Feb. 14 I am saddened by the death of Manuel Rojas, operator of a "joint" that exemplified the best of Los Angeles. Multi-generational families, gang types, dating couples and cops mixed easily when charmed by Manuel and those heavenly burritos. I once saw four Japanese businessmen in suits eating lunch there. Shocked at how inexpensive the food was compared to Japan, they each ordered four of the "Manuel's Special" burritos - at 5 pounds each.

A Denver woman wanted to give her boyfriend, a connoisseur of Mexican food, a treat for his birthday last year. She flew the two of them to Los Angeles for a burrito. But it wasn't for just any burrito. It had to be the machaca burrito served at the El Tepeyac Cafe in Boyle Heights on the city's Eastside. The boyfriend, pronouncing the burrito a culinary treasure, talked his benefactor into another birthday gift: Ten burritos to go.

Angelenos take their burritos so seriously that discussions about where to get the best tortilla-wrapped creation can devolve into fistfights. Always up for a challenge, The Guide is throwing down the gauntlet in defense of the following five. The "Papa's" burrito at this Atwater Village hole-in-the-wall will forever change your thoughts on potatoes. The name is a delicious double-entendre: the burro is named in honor of the owner's father and filled with papas -- Spanish for spuds.

Even if you live in the hills way above Hollywood, you've still got to have pizza. And Michael Eisenberg is the one who is going to bring it to you. Eisenberg, who co-owns Thunder Roadhouse on Sunset with former bad boy celebs Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Dwight Yoakum, has turned the motorcycle showroom next to his restaurant into a pizzeria, which is scheduled to open today. Of course, there is a deeper motive behind Eisenberg's delivery service.

There was a time, not so long ago in Oscar De La Hoya's memory, when the "Golden Boy" from East L.A. was treated not to hometown worship, but to boos. On Saturday, he fights Steve Forbes, and for De La Hoya it is in a sense a homecoming because he hasn't boxed here in eight years.

It was a cool night east of the Los Angeles River as the poet mounted the stage and grabbed the microphone.

Whereas swanky Los Angeles restaurants have done relatively well with their spin-offs, the quality of the expansion teams of joints such as Fatburger, Tommy's and Burrito King has rarely approached the original. The exemplary Mid-Wilshire hamburger stand Cassell's sold franchises a few years ago, and the clones were uniformly miserable copies of the original. The mid-'60s clones of the tiki palace Kelbo's--anyone remember Kelbo's Jr.?

A Denver woman wanted to give her boyfriend, a connoisseur of Mexican food, a treat for his birthday last year. She flew the two of them to Los Angeles for a burrito. But it wasn't for just any burrito. It had to be the machaca burrito served at the El Tepeyac Cafe in Boyle Heights on the city's Eastside. The boyfriend, pronouncing the burrito a culinary treasure, talked his benefactor into another birthday gift: Ten burritos to go.

Armchair authorities on Mexican cuisine are fond of saying that burritos aren't really Mexican. It means "little donkey," they argue. It's not little, it's not a donkey -- so it couldn't possibly be autentico. As if we care. Like pizza, which supposedly comes from Naples, or that all-American phenomenon, the hamburger, invented, so they say, by some fancy-pants in Germany, burritos have transcended their roots, real or supposed.