What is carne asada, really?
Carne asada is a classic component of traditional Mexican cuisine. Much in the way that a typical American family will gather on a sunny Sunday afternoon and chat over Grandpa’s famous hamburgers, a traditional Mexican get-together centers around the grilling of carne asada. Carne asada is ideally made from marinated, thinly sliced skirt steak. In the absence of skirt steak, flank, top round, or trimmed Brisket is substituted. Tough, less-tender meat and a hot, direct flame are the perfect combination for good carne asada. Because carne asada is so central to Mexican cooking, it makes an excellent reference point for determining the quality of a restaurant (unless, of course, you are vegan/vegi – but that’s a later article). Mexican restaurants in San Diego will generally use one of three kinds of carne asada. The lowest quality, and most common, is pebble meat or “picada.” Pebble meat is that rubbery stuff loaded with oil and little bits of uber-chewy fat which most people secretly sp
