REGALITO ROSTICERIA
Historia: After years in finance, most recently as the business manager at PC World, chef and owner Thomas Peña finally took advantage of his culinary training and opened the Mission’s Regalito Rosticeria in 2006. The food is inspired by both the Duranguense cooking of his mother and grandmother, which he ate as a child in San Jose, and his trips to Mexico to study comida mexicana at its source. The grilled ears of elote on Regalito’s menu are a direct homage to a version of the street-food standby he had during an Easter festividad in the capital city, Guanajuato. Peña swears his rendition— slathered with mayo, dusted with cotija cheese and powdered chile de árbol, and served with a slice of lime—is no better than what you can find on any corner in the Mission or Fruitvale. To us, that’s precisely the point. 3481 18th St., S.F., 415-503-0650

TACUBAYA
Historia: Much of the inspiration for the food at Thomas Schnetz and Dona Savitsky’s taquería offshoot of their Temescal restaurant Doña Tomás comes from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Take the breakfast staple chilaquiles. In the kitchen, headed by chef Matthew Ridgeway, a Oaxacan fixture, dried guajillo chilies, are toasted, hydrated, stripped of their seeds and stems, and blended with chicken stock, cumin, garlic, and oregano. House­made tortilla chips are then sautéed in the deep-flavored salsa, and gratings of Oaxacan cheese are melted in. The lot is topped with gently scrambled eggs, thin slices of white onion, cilantro, a sprinkling of queso fresco, and a squiggle of made-from-scratch crème fraîche. Paired with a bowl of piloncillo-sweetened and canela-spiced café de olla, these chilaquiles kick-start the day far better than any bowl of Grape-Nuts ever could. 1788 4th St., Berkeley, 510-525-5160

TAMARINDO
Historia: Though chef-owner Gloria Dominguez was born in Jalisco, the menu at her restaurant, Tamarindo, celebrates the cuisine of quite a few Mexican states. Her tribute to the Pacific-facing region of Sinaloa is a pair of tacos de camarón. In Sinaloa’s sun-and-surf tourist destination, Mazatlán, these crispy snacks stuffed with shrimp are called the Governor’s Tacos. As legend has it, while on a trip from the state capital, Culiacán, the governor of Sinaloa asked a restaurant to prepare crispy shrimp tacos with Monterey Jack cheese. Dominguez’s version includes chopped shrimp sautéed in olive oil and butter with red chili and garlic. She then puts the shrimp in a tortilla, along with Monterey Jack, and deep-fries the tacos. A garnish of romaine and guacamole, plus a drizzle of chipotle aioli, finish the dish. Eat them with a cerveza in one hand, and just like that, you’re instantly transported to a balmy beach. 468 8th St., Oakland, 510-444-1944