Bonnie: Here at BOTB (Bite of the Best), we’re constantly being solicited by food companies wanting us to tout the worth of their products. They call, they e-mail, they just send food. So as you can imagine, my testing closet — my go-to spot when ready to test or in need of a food item — overflows with samples. In fact, that’s how BOTB ended up selecting Papalote Roasted Tomato Salsa as this week’s FeaturedBite.
Let me back up a tad…
Jodi Hernandez from Papalote Mexican Grill in the San Francisco Bay Area had contacted BOTB to tell us about her Roasted Tomato Salsa made famous last year after winning a Throwdown! with Bobby Flay.
“We’ve had big success in the Bay Area, where we are now at every Whole Foods Market in the region,” Jodi e-mailed. “In fact, USA Today recently proclaimed that Papalote Salsa “may be the best salsa the world has ever known.” I’d love to send you a sample so you can taste for yourself what the buzz is all about.”
Being a salsa lover, I said “sure,” asked for samples for our team and stored them in my testing closet.
One day recently, as I was sampling Amy’s Light & Lean Bean & Cheese Burrito for another writing outlet (my syndicated column about new foods on the grocer’s shelves), I looked for some salsa to go with it.
I reached for the jar of Papalote Roasted Tomato Salsa that Jodi sent, opened it and topped the burrito with Papalote’s flavorful tomatoes. It was love at first bite, as the flavor of the fire-roasted tomatoes had just enough heat from the chili peppers to give it a kick, yet not overpower. (I also liked Amy’s nutritious bean, rice and cheese-filled whole wheat tortilla that I sampled with it.)
Papalote Roasted Tomato Salsa is currently available online (papalotesalsa.com and papalote-sf.com), at the San Francisco restaurant and at some California Whole Foods Markets. But I predict Whole Foods will soon make it more widely available.
Bryan: “New York City?!” That’s the line from a famous old salsa TV commercial, the line that seemed to single-handedly undermine the supposed quality of a competing salsa brand. The implication was that no real salsa could possibly come from a city-slicker company, one based in New York City. Salsa was from the cactus states, and only could be!
Salsa has certainly come a long way since the days those ads were launched. Though it was just 15 years ago, the condiment has grown so rapidly in popularity over the last few years that there is no longer any real “regionality” to the dish. Salsa is everywhere. Though it might’ve been true at one time that good salsa only came from the American Southwest, nowadays there can be salsa experts anywhere and everywhere, even (shock) in the cities!
So who knows good salsa? Well, who could know more than the owners of an award-winning Mexican restaurant? Papalote Mexican Grill is a couple of burrito joints in San Francisco (a city!). The SF favorite is known for its mouth-watering burritos, but even more for its one-of-a-kind sauce, its house salsa. One restaurant writer even was quoted as saying, “It may be the greatest salsa the world has ever known.” Strong words, though somewhat backed up. The salsa did help the restaurant to defeat celebrity chef Bobby Flay in a Food Network burrito Throwdown. Though the jury might still be out over “world’s best,” that is definitely a fine feather to have in its cap.
Papalote Mexican Grill has won the “Best Burrito” category of SFWeekly five years running, but thankfully, you don’t have to be a Bay Area local to enjoy this masterpiece salsa. The store’s signature sauce, Papalote Roasted Tomato Salsa, is also central to the restaurant’s core philosophy; that every restaurant should have a salsa–ONE salsa–that embodies the essence of the restaurant. Done and done. Get ready for some city salsa! Papalote’s distinctive sauce has only been available in-store for the past 10 years. Though the restaurant did sell jars, it was not until 2010 that the Papalote Salsa Trading Co. was formed, bringing Papalote Roasted Tomato Salsa to nearby grocery stores or even directly to your home via online shopping. It’s not just another salsa. It’s another salsa.
Eric: With so many choices, it’s amazing to me that in our eyes, there are only a handful of products that stand out as the “best.” I always feel that there should be myriad options for great tasting, flavor-fulfilling deliciousness but the unfortunate reality with products mass produced for the general public is that quality is usually sacrificed for quantity. Luckily for flavor-deprived individuals, though, there are restaurants like Papalote that focus on small-batch production of their award-winning creations.
The Papalote Roasted Tomato Salsa may seem to be a standard salsa, but its essence is far from ordinary. How do you capture authentic, imaginative, unique flavor in a bottle? Easy. Pour everything you are into a recipe that embodies your passion for food. The result is one of the best tasting salsas of the year; a tribute to authentic Mexican cuisine.
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