Ever have a papusa? Last one I had was with Nathan, up in Washington Heights, back in about 1998, but today I was at a taqueria, right next door to a papuseria. And papusa is a kind of south american tortilla. This is all in the Mission, which was the spanish part of town, but has been gentrified beyond belief. So now there are little pocket of some spanish speaking people, encroached by hipster white kids in new glass box condos with high ceilings.

Normally I don't go there too much, not becuse I hate it, but there isn't much reason for me to get there, aside from the occasional burrito. It's not a very popular view to have, but I don't think the burritos there are all that great. I think the ones you get in New York at Burritoville are better, plus they are made with no lard, no canned anything, brown rice, and seitan, whereas here any authentic place reeks of grease, they slop on the grease or lard on the grill and heath standards seem quite low.

But today was special, a carnival, where you pronounce the second syllable as knee, like they do in Brazil. Only it was the kind of place where not many Brazilians were, mostly Mexicans, and they were selling t shirts that said NOT LATIO NOT HISPANIC MEXICAN, which is a point of view not well understood outside the Mexican community. There were also chiropracters, beads, cheap sunglasses, bbq stations, beer on tap and blaring music, indiginous to every street fair ever held. Only the music was mexican and there were parades of mexicans. Kind of fun, if you like sabor.