Cemitas Poblanas Mi Magdalena

🇲🇽 MÉXICO (Puebla)
📍 401 S. Indiana Street, Boyle Heights, Eastside
🅿️ Small parking lot next to restaurant
🥤 No Alcohol

If Indiana Street is ever renamed, it would probably have to reference something about the cemitas poblanas which surround it like no other place in Los Angeles, and therefore anywhere outside of Puebla. The street acts as the imperceptible border between Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles along its entire length, but both sides have a high density of Pueblan restaurants and food trucks offering this usually gigantic sandwich.

The busy intersection that includes a westbound exit from the 60 has been home to Cemitas Poblanas Mi Magdalena for as long as most remember. It is a business that has that sweet spot of many 1-star Yelp reviews from demanding online folks and constant business for decades. They must be doing something right to attract so many regulars, including new families with parents that probably came with their parents. As life swirls around the intersection, Cemitas Poblanas remains a rock.

Like much of the restaurant industry has been forced to do, prices have recently been raised steeply including those of the namesake cemitas. This has also not gone unnoticed by angry people online, but the cemita de milanesa con quesillo ($11.99, above) is still worthy of the price. It is definitely a two-handed affair, and probably two meals for most. Not many mouths are going to be able to wrap themselves around this one to get some of everything contained within the sesame-encrusted cemita.

You are offered the choice between jalapeños and chipotle, but the latter makes the experience better and combines perfectly with the onions, pápalo leaves, slices of avocado, and strings of quesillo. Of course all of this is bound to be raining down on the regular-sized paper plate it comes on that can barely hold the monstrosity. If there were a 2022 calendar of cemitas, this one would be July.

Puebla was of course the origin point of one of the most famous and popular tacos in Los Angeles, with al pastor trompos dotting the entire city, especially at night. But the cousins of this taco are called tacos árabes ($3.99 each, above and below) and were also first dreamed up in Puebla, a mash-up of Lebanese immigrant's usual preparation of meat on a spit and Mexican ingredients and love for pork. These are less common here, but do find homes in quite a few spots especially in these nearby communities.

The versions here are big and quite good, and tucked into a nicely charred fresh flour tortilla. A scoop or squirt of the sauce inside might be clumped in one area and need spread out, so open it up to do that and squeeze in some lime juice. Hunks of pork are tender from slow cooking and fragrant with a healthy dose of oregano.

For many, a trip to a Pueblan restaurant is never complete without an order of mole poblano ($17.99, below), big pieces of white and dark chicken smothered in dark mole. Sure, there might be chocolate in the recipe, but it is the ancho and pasilla chiles that are most pronounced, along with aniseed and cloves. The mole is thickened with sesame and pepitas, has over half your spice cabinet thrown in for good measure, and like anything that nearby rice starts sucking up, there is never enough.

The chicken comes with enormous portions of yellow rice and black beans, three strips of cheese, and a foiled bundle of steaming hot corn tortillas to load if desired. It is another dish that two normal-volume eaters could share and both go home stuffed.

If you look over the menu enough times and see the option for cecina enough on tacos and quesadillas to start craving it, instead order the picadita ($4.50, above), the perfect antojito to hold a nice slab of the salted beef. A thick cake is made out of masa and its edges are upturned to create a bowl of sorts. The whole thing is fried and salsa is put down under the meat of choice.

Shredded cheese is the last item placed on top, but does not get in the way of layers underneath. The cecina they use here is of very good quality and it is easy to see why it is featured in so many of their offerings. The only antojito that can claim its heritage in Puebla that does not hit its mark is unfortunately the chalupas ($6 for 5, below).

Chalupas are meant to be simple affairs, upturned tortillas fried to a crisp holding salsa and cheese. If you seem indecisive about red or green salsa, they give you both on the side to apply as desired. The red salsa here is very tasty and also very spicy, but the tortillas and drifts of cheese are just not that delicious as a whole.

But forget about the bad ending and focus instead on all the beautiful dishes that were enjoyed before those chalupas. Cemitas Poblanas Mi Magdalena is a place you would continually return to if you lived nearby, and is worth a visit even from afar.

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