Cafe Society: KCRW's 'Masa Madness' tortilla tournament shines light on Oxnard restaurants

Could a tortilla from Ventura County be crowned the best in Southern California? That became a distinct possibility this week, as two Oxnard restaurants advanced to the "Suave 16" in the sports brackets-themed competition known as KCRW & Gustavo's Great Tortilla Tournament.

KCRW 89.9FM is the public radio station based in Santa Monica. "Gustavo" is Gustavo Arellano, journalist, "Taco USA" author and instigator of the "Masa Madness" tournament, which in 2018 focused its inaugural efforts on restaurants and tortillerias in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

"We went with the most iconic brands from those areas, thinking the tournament wouldn't return for a second year. When it did, we decided to expand it. We went all the way to Santa Barbara and Indio and San Juan Capistrano," said Arellano, the former editor of the OC Weekly who is now a features writer for the Los Angeles Times.

No stranger to the 805, Arellano was moderator last fall for a Museum of Ventura County panel discussion that explored the influence of immigrant communities on local food culture. (Yours truly was among the speakers.)

MORE:Ventura hits ground running with new craft-beer festival

"Ventura County, and Oxnard specifically, has a long Chicano history that the rest of Southern California tends to forget about. It says a lot that two Oxnard places are in the Suave 16," Arellano said.

The tournament started with tortillas from 64 sources, evenly divided between corn and flour and then divided again into four brackets and seeded so the lowest-ranked tortillas went up against the highest in early rounds. The process allowed the best tortillas to push forward while leaving room for upsets, Arellano said. 

He's not kidding: Last year's winner, Sonoratown of downtown Los Angeles, is still in the competition, and in the Netflix series "Taco Chronicles," after taking first place overall with its paper-thin Sonora-style flour tortillas. But only three of last year's Suave 16 corn finalists are still in the running.

This year, the Final Four – two corn, two flour – will go head-to-head during a Sept. 8 gathering at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes near Union Station that will include music, food, tortilla-making demonstrations and tortilla art by Joe Bravo. Admission is free, but reservations are requested via Eventbrite.

Until then, Arellano is sharing weekly results and judges' comments in posts to the tournament website.

Evan Kleiman, host of the KCRW show "Good Food," and Nick Liao, the show's managing producer, are judging the corn category. Arellano and Connie Alvarez, KCRW's communications director, are in charge of flour.

For the first two rounds, judges used packs of tortillas that were purchased by an incognito Arellano or by a friend and then frozen for as-needed thawing. Fresh tortillas will be used for the remainder of the tournament.

Both Oxnard restaurants – Carnitas el Rey (124 E. Fifth St.) and La Tapatia No. 5 (2606 S. Ventura Road, located between Sea Rounder bar and a cellphone store facing Naval Base Ventura County) – are in the corn category, although their tortillas have the size, pillowy feel and blistered look of flour.

Ranked No. 75 on Yelp's Top 100 Places to Eat list in 2017, sixth-seeded Carnitas el Rey emerged victorious from its initial bouts with Arriola's Tortilleria of Indio (11th seed) and La Princesita of Los Angeles (third seed).

"(It) had these brown bubbly spots that reminded me of a flour tortilla. I could eat this by itself," Liao said of the tortillas, now also available at the newly opened Carnitas el Rey No. 2 (3021 Saviers Road). A foil-wrapped pack of a dozen of the still-warm 6½-inch tortillas is $4.

Carnitas el Rey's competitor next week is second-seeded Guisados, the Los Angeles-based chain made famous by the "best of" lists of the late Jonathan Gold. No pressure there.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:Oxnard restaurant makes Yelp's Top 100 list (2017)

In the first round, fifth-seeded La Tapatia bested Taco Mesa Tortilleria Organica of Orange County (12th) with its nearly 8-inch tortillas gorditas ($8 per dozen), praised by Kleiman for being "buttery, with great texture." La Tapatia won again this week in a matchup with 13th-seeded Taqueria Tortilla Factory of Cathedral City. 

Up next: first-seed Taco María, the Michelin-starred Costa Mesa restaurant known for making its blue corn tortillas from heirloom corn. Again, no pressure.

Other locals that fared less well included La Rancherita, an Oxnard tortilleria felled by a first-round matchup with San Fernando restaurant Tortilleria La Talpense that Kleiman described as "unfair ... Team Talpense is a beefy large tortilla while La Rancherita is a small delicate thin disc. Both were good. No off-flavors at all. But Talpense wins due to its super corny taste." 

Oxnard's La Gloria Market likewise stalled against Lenchita's of Pacoima, while Santa Barbara's La Tolteca Tortilla Factory – in business since 1946 – bowed out after a corn-tortilla matchup with Sabor a Mexico of Panorama City.

Wait till next year, Arellano said.

"My dream of dreams is turn this into a nationwide tournament. But next year the plan is to go as far north as Santa Maria. It's a whole other corn galaxy up there." 

Carnitas el Rey at 124 E. Fifth St. is open 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays (805-290-8794).

La Tapatia No. 5 at 2606 S. Ventura Road (just past Channel Islands Boulevard as you head toward Hueneme Beach Park) is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily (805-486-5396).

For information about the Tortilla Tournament, go to https://www.kcrw.com. 

JULIA CHILD REMEMBERED

Several remarkable things happened during Julia Child's 107th birthday party last week at the Montecito Club:

Makers of the Oscar-nominated documentary "RBG" lead the crowd in singing "Happy Birthday."

Santa Barbara Mayor Cathy Murillo, who was a fellow Ventura County Star reporter in the late '90s, officially proclaimed Aug. 15 "Julia Child Day."

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:Santa Barbara says 'bon appetit!' to new event honoring Julia Child

And Billy Harris – a traveling master of ceremonies for charitable culinary events who described himself to partygoers as chef Nancy Silverton's best friend – announced that Silverton would make dessert for a Feb. 29 dinner honoring Founders Circle-level donors ($10,000 and up per family) to the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, a new event inspired by Child.

Only a few seats are left for the dinner, which will also feature dishes by visiting chefs Suzanne Goin and Michael Cimarusti and host chef Jason Paluska of The Lark in Santa Barbara's Funk Zone.

Other Founders Circle opportunities are planned in advance of the first SBCE, which will be presented in collaboration with the Santa Barbara-based Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts from March 13-15, 2020.

By then, there may be an answer to the oft-asked question about the cocktail napkins printed with Julia Child quotes and offered for use during the party:

"Where can I buy these?"

"We created those napkins and are considering making them for commercial sale," said Julia Child Foundation Chairman Eric Spivey, responding to a post-party email. The foundation holds the copyright to the quotes, each of which was "signed" in a font that mimicked Child's handwriting. 

For updates, go to https://sbce.events and https://juliachildfoundation.org.

SUCH A DEAL

Urban Plates, the San Diego-based chain that offers cafeteria line-style service of "made-from-scratch meals" in Thousand Oaks (and 17 locations nationwide), has a new menu of dishes that are $10 each.

Available through Sept. 30, the seven plates in question include chicken or ahi tuna banh mi sandwiches with house-made green sriracha sauce, braised beef and mushrooms in red wine sauce, and grilled chicken with roasted tomato pesto, sesame broccolini, and white beans and collards with turkey bacon. Another selection is organic tofu slow-cooked with carrots, apples, zucchini and a green curry-coconut sauce spiked with ginger and garlic.

Urban Plates opened in 2016 at The Oaks shopping center, where its neighbors include PizzaRev, Chipotle Mexican Grill and the Muvico Thousand Oaks 14 movie theater. It currently is the chain's only location within the 805 area code. 

FROM THE ARCHIVES:Urban Plates spins into Thousand Oaks (2016)

The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays (162 W. Hillcrest Drive, Suite 100, 805-946-1920, https://urbanplates.com).

TOM HILTON HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

After nearly a decade highlighting local breweries, wineries, restaurants, farmers, musicians and others through the Saturday-morning radio show "Live 805," Tom Hilton is dropping the mic and picking up the moving boxes.

"I'm retiring but I don't know that I'm going to fully retire," said Hilton, who with wife Carole Ascione-Hilton plans to move from Moorpark to Sparks, Nevada next month to be closer to their daughter, son-in-law and 2½-year-old grandson.

Hilton was a radio newbie when he and then on-air partner Sandy Seekins launched "Tom & Sandy 805" on KVTA 1590AM in 2011. The one-hour show briefly expanded to four hours, which they filled with appearances by guests representing events, businesses and nonprofits from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. (As a semi-regular guest, I shared information about restaurant openings and closings in a segment that Hilton liked to call "Stick a Fork in It.")

Many of those guests were from the food world, which Hilton and Seekins joined in 2013 when they introduced the rock 'n' roll-themed BlendZ wine label with help from friends at Four Brix Winery. A year later, they dipped a toe in culinary-events organizing by presenting the Best of the 805 festival at the Camarillo Ranch House as a fundraiser for the venue's foundation.

When Seekins left to focus on her work as a realtor, Hilton called on other female friends to join him in the studio.

"I was the leader of the show, but without that counterbalance I would have been really bad," he said with a laugh. "When I was out of line, which was a lot, they would lasso me back in."

Jennifer Caldwell was Hilton's cohost for the past two years. 

"Through lots of laughs and even more eye rolls, my Saturday mornings were always entertaining," said Caldwell, the marketing director for FOOD Share of Ventura County.  

In a personal Facebook post, she called Hilton "my partner in crime and fellow craft beer lover."

The show's final broadcast with Hilton at the helm took place on Aug. 17. It can be viewed via a Facebook Live post on the Live 805 Facebook page.

The Hiltons previously were co-owners of Great Rooms Home Furnishings, which closed in Camarillo in 2016 after a 15-year run. Ascione-Hilton continues to work as a travel consultant through her business, Concierge Italia.

And Hilton? After stints as vice president of Project Understanding and as corporate development director for FOOD Share, he is already considering volunteering at nonprofits in his new town. Or he might just go fishing.

"I'm extremely grateful to the people of the 805 for allowing me into their homes all these years. Without them, I'd just be a babbling vocal chord," Hilton said.

OPEN, SHUT AND IN BETWEEN

In case you missed it, the Open and Shut column in the Aug. 17 Business section of The Star included information about the renaming of one of Oxnard's two Ameci Pizza & Pasta restaurants as Freddy's Pizza.

MORE:In Oxnard, Freddy's Pizza honors memory of late Ameci franchisee

It also featured the soft opening of Singing Sun Coffee in Ventura, the return on Mediterraneo at the Westlake Village Inn, updates on the Dunkin' Donuts project in Camarillo, Historia Bakery in Thousand Oaks and The Mad Rose in Ventura, and more. To read it, click on https://bit.ly/31GAmVe.

Lisa McKinnon is a staff writer for The Star. To contact her, send email to lisa.mckinnon@vcstar.com.