mangoneidas y diablitos

This afternoon, my friend Rachel and I took a walk around the Mission district -- a gritty neighborhood I loved when I was here last year.

We stopped in the Cut Loose clothing factory outlet and (either sadly or fortunately) nothing looked good on either of us.  But it was great stuff.  After that, we had pupusas at the indoor food market -- totally enjoyable.  Pupusas are a Salvadoran food  made of cornmeal,stuffed with cheese and your choice of whatever else: pumpkin, greens, pork, etc. and served with spicy cabbage slaw and hot sauce.  Yummy.  I think I need to find a recipe and make these when I get home.

As we walked, we passed a restaurant with what looked like thousands or people standing on line (or  in line if you are not from New York) and the line stretched around the corner.  I stopped and asked some guy what they were giving away and he said "nothing. This place has the best burritos in the world." 

 A few doors down,  we passed a sign congratulating La taqueria for being selected by Nate Silver as the world's best burrito.  We were not about to go back and join the line.  I stopped to take a picture of this sign because it tickled me. And Rachel and I continued on our way.

We saw a lot of teenagers eating what looked like frozen gazpacho and in another block we discovered what it was.  A guy with a stand on the next corner was pouring stuff into a cup, adding a biig scoop of snow cone ice, adding more stuff, and people were standing in line for that, too.

We recognized it as the frozen gazpacho -- good guess, but not quite.  It was mangoneidas y diablitos -- a concoction of mango, ice, mango syrup, tomato-y hot sauce, cayenne pepper, more mango, more hot sauce.

 People were also skipping the hot sauce and having the mango and ice with other stuff, like coconut syrup, frozen strawberries, and who knows what else. Too sweet to contemplate.  We opted to try

y diabliitos because the combination of sweet and spicy appealed to us.  Not knowing whether we would like it, we decided to buy one and share it. It was fabulous!  Here is Rachel with it.

And yrs truly, checking it out before I dug into it with my fork.  Yes - you eat it with a fork, not a spoon. Can't figure out why, unless he had run out of spoons before we got there.  And that thing that looks like a straw is a plastic thing covered with what Rachel said tasted like guava paste and cayenne.

You have to know I am going to try this one at home.  Seems to me it would make a great drink with some gin added:-).  I'll let you know.