El Chisme’s fresh angel
hair in marinara with carnitas.
El Chisme, 2920 Merle Hay
Road, 255-5756
Tues. - Fri. 11 a.m. - 10
p.m., Sat. 9 a.m. - 10 p.m.,
Sun. 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. |
El Chisme — Jesus’ Inspirational
Story
Jesus Ojeda started in the restaurant
business by designing and building
his own pushcart, in hopes it
would comply with Los Angeles
health and safety regulations.
His cart was so well designed
to maintain both hot and cold
temperatures that health inspectors
used it as a model when they rewrote
pushcart codes. After serving
in the U.S. Marine Corps, Ojeda
graduated from culinary academy
and moved to the Chicago area
where he worked on Don Yamaguchi’s
line at Le Francais, a legendary
French restaurant in Wheeling.
He saved money, bought a state-of-art
mobile taqueria and moved to Des
Moines. He built a customer base
catering events like ArtFest and
Latino festivals while working
as George Formaro’s sous chef
at Centro. Last fall, he opened
his first sit down restaurant
— El Chisme (Gossip) — on Merle
Hay Road.
Ojeda built El Chisme’s Mexican
menu around scratch, home made
tortillas. Double tortilla tacos,
burritos, quesadillas and enchiladas
all use fresh homemade tortillas.
His tortas employ fresh bollilos
from a Mexican bakery. I’ve tried
some of each with asada (steak),
pollo (baked chicken), cabeza
(cow’s head), chicharron (pig
skin), pastor (roast pork), tripas
(tripe) and tongue. From his dinner
menu, I found some excellent carnitas
(twice cooked pork), plus fajitas
and a ribeye steak dinner that
cost less than $20. I’ve always
found staff willing to make exceptional
accommodations. For instance,
Ojeda usually prepares chicharron
(pork skin) in salsa verde (green
sauce) “a la Durango,” which means
that pork skins are marinated
in the same sauce in which they’re
cooked. That causes them to re-hydrate
to the texture of tofu. If you
prefer, he will fry the skins
into crispy cracklings and throw
them in the salsa at the last
minute. He will even simmer them
in red salsa if you prefer.
Ojeda leaves the kitchen whenever
he can to engage his customers
personally. That’s how I learned
that: he picks the meat off the
entire cow’s head for his “cabeza”
and that customers can specify
if they prefer cheeks, sockets
or forehead meat; his chicken
soup is made with a scratch stock
of roasted hind quarters — one
of the best pure broths I tasted
all winter and he makes his own
chorizo, but he buys his Italian
sausage from Graziano’s.
What is a Mexican chef doing with
Italian sausage? Because he built
his clientele around catering,
Ojeda said he’s used to accommodating
special requests. While making
taco deliveries, he kept hearing
people say, “If you only delivered
pizza as good as your tacos.”
So, he tinkered with his tortilla
machinery until he figured out
how to make pizza pies and calzones
with it. And because he loves
working with dough, he expanded
into home made pasta — not just
fettuccini and ravioli either.
All El Chisme’s pasta is now fresh
from scratch — even the traditional
pasta seca such as penne, spaghetti
and angel hair. That latter pasta
is a taste epiphany from another
time or place. The fresh flavor
of the tiny noodles triggers Proustian
memories of 50 years ago. Their
thin, orange colored marinara
of reduced plum tomatoes is more
what one expects in Mexico than
Iowa. By contrast, an Alfredo
sauce was thick and cheesy.
In a unique service, one can add
Mexican meats and chilies to any
pasta, calzone or pizza. The multiple
textures of carnitas perfectly
complemented my angel hair. Chorizo-stuffed
ravioli allowed one to taste more
fresh pasta than spicier Italian
sausage does. Mexican peppers
spiced a medium thick pizza that
included at least three different
cheeses. Bottom line — El Chisme
uses no templates, just creative
thinking and fresh ingredients.
Side Dishes
Some veteran owner-chefs are opening
new cafés. Tim Flanagan
(Flanagan’s) and Lauri Jaynes
(Kathy’s) opened Timothy’s Steakhouse
& Pub in the building that
recently housed both Tedesco’s
and Silvestrini’s… Jeremy Morrow
(43, Star Bar, Azalea, Zen) plans
an early March opening for Town
Hall Tavern in the West Des Moines
venue where Garcia’s thrived for
years and Bordo’s was the most
recent tenant. CV
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