Tacos de Bistec con Todo

This is Ciudad de Mexico. Not Mexico. The capital. The taco de bistec con todo is the everyday taco of the chilango, the one you eat at a sidewalk puesto on Avenida Cuauhtemoc at one in the morning, the one the office worker eats standing at a stainless steel counter on Calle Bucareli at two in the afternoon. It is not a celebration dish. It is a daily dish. That is why it matters.

The meat is thin. Very thin. Sliced almost to translucence, seared fast on a hot comal in lard or beef fat, then chopped fine on a wooden block with a heavy knife. The chopping is the entire point. A whole strip of steak in a tortilla is not a taco de bistec. The chop is what lets the meat marry the onion, the cilantro, and the salsa in every bite. Watch any taquero working the corner and you will hear that chop before you smell the beef.

Con todo means with everything: cebolla, cilantro, salsa, limon. That is the chilango formula. No lettuce. No tomato. No yellow cheese. Anyone who puts those things on a taco de bistec has never stood in line at El Califa or at the Tacos Hola Llanero stand in Roma at midnight. The tortillas are doubled because one tortilla cannot hold the juice and the salsa. Una sola tortilla no aguanta. The second tortilla is structural. It is also tradition.

My mother was from Jalisco but she lived in Colonia Roma for 40 years and she ate these tacos the way every chilango eats them, leaning over a paper plate at a counter, eyes closed for the first bite. She used to say the test of a taquero was the chopping sound. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and in Mexico City it also means knowing where to stand at midnight.