Tortas Don Vicente

During the mid-week, Bert made good on a promise to stop by Tortas Don Vicente...

They've been open since late last summer and I'd been wanting to try their food for quite awhile...

Tortas Don Vicente is on the northwest corner of 28th St. and Highland, right next to Sweetwater High School. This corner used to be a juice shop years ago, then it changed hands and names and more recently last summer, was the Speakeasy Food Co. I was surprised to see this here and had a feeling it wouldn't last, although I was curious to try their stuff. This local sausage company was sometimes found at the San Diego Public Market hawking their wares.

Not soon after I took the photo above, the building was painted orange and signs went up  saying, "Coming Soon - Tortas by Don Vicente"...

(photos from my "Motley assortment of pix" post from 8/2013)

If you're from the South Bay, Don Vicente in National City is known for their menudo, and according to my good friend, La Ley, for their flautas, which she says are "muy delgaditas" (very thin).  The original Don Vicente eater is a menuderia, located just across and down the street.

La Ley tells me that the owner (forgot his name) is a local South Bay guy who became very successful when he was in his 20's. He had his own business detailing cars and with his earnings, invested in properties years ago. He recently started up the menuderia before opening the tortas place last summer.

This first batch of photos is from my dutiful husband Bert, who was kind enough to snap a few shots for the blog.

When he went, no one was there asides from the friendly lady working the counter.

Below, words that describe the food:

I recognize "deliciousa" and "sabrosa"...

Along with tortas, their speciality, they also serve green and red pozole, quesadillas, flautas, sopes, and bowls. All of their tortas come with fried potatoes, which La Ley really loves. If you look at the chalkboard, you will also see that they also have lunch specials (dine in only) which include half of a torta, fried potatoes and a drink for $4.99. Not bad especially since one torta is pretty big already.

Bert chose the Torta Don Vicente because we had to try their namesake specialty torta.

Raspados are also offered with chamoy or condensed milk.

Bert made sure to get a little of everything from the salsa bar, which included pickled carrots and jalapenos, red onions, fresh chopped white onions, and four types of sauces (creamy cilantro, chipotle, aceite, and a hot orange one--sorry I don't remember the name)

This is what it looked like fresh...

with cheese oozing out and the fried potatoes still crisp.

The filling was a braded milenesa AND a chile relleno along with tomato, onion, chipotle sauce, avocado and grilled panela cheese.

The girl recommended the white bread over the wheat because it was "bigger". Good call Bert!

Here is the torta at home with all all of the accoutrements:

It was so delicious.We each had a half of a half.  The portion was pretty big.

The potatoes had already started to soften during the drive home, but they were still pretty tasty.

We liked the combination of the chile relleno with the milanesa. There were contrasting textures in here as well as strong flavors from the sauce, peppers, and cheese.

The bread was grilled too, which was nice.

The bread soaked up all the flavors...mmmm.

Yesterday, I was with Bert for the "return" visit.  After dropping off TC and going to Sunny Donuts, we took National Ave (aka as "The Mile of Cars") back to Highland (because one of the stoplights was out).

Parking is pretty tight here. There are only three parking spaced plus one handicapable spot; 28th St is also blocked if you're coming in from Highland. Since it was early evening, there was no problem finding a spot but good luck in the day time. You would have to park across the street and just walk it.

We were glad to get in out of the rain and try a fresh torta in  house.

Still remembering the flautas I had several years ago at Menuderia Don Vicente (post linked at the end), we got an order of that along with the Michoacana Torta.

I didn't expect the potato flautas to be placed on top of red sauce, which made it messy to eat, but man, were they good!

The Michoacana had pulled pork AND ham, avocado, onions, lettuce, and a grilled pepper. This was almost as good as the Don Vicente torta we had just a few days ago.

The potatoes were not as crisp as we'd hoped them to be, but they paired up really well by folding them in half and scooping up the sauce with them!

I liked the flautas more than Bert did. He didn't think the toppings provided additional flavor to the flauta but I liked the contrast of the lettuce, pickled onions, and the crispy flauta.

The red sauce wasn't spicy in case you're wondering. It was more on the watery side and I wished it came separate so the flautas wouldn't get too soggy.

Carbs, carbs, and more carbs...

Bert and I both had 1/4 of the sandwich yet again. TC ended up finishing most of the leftovers earlier today for brunch.

Service here is friendly. The food is brought out to you. We like the variety of items that they offer and definitely plan to come back many more times to try their other tortas and their pozoles.

The tortas' shop's predecessor was Menuderia Don Vicente, which Dennis and I visited during our Epic South Bay Food Crawl in 2011.

Tortas Don Vicente
2708 Highland Ave
National City, CA 91950
(619) 336-1555

There is no webiste but here are the Y*** reviews

If you ever decide to go here, don't go after school gets out in the afternoon. Parking will be a "not so fun" experience and you will have to navigate through throngs of kids getting out of class. I would recommend going when school is in session or on a weekend.  There are so many eateries along Highland Ave and I'm glad we tried this one one. Hopefully Bert and I will have a chance to try the menudo place in the near future as well.