My Favorite Restaurants – JV’s, San Diego

San Diego is extraordinarily fortunate to possess so many fine Mexican taco shops and restaurants. I could eat Mexican food at least once every day for the rest of my life. So, I feel like I am in heaven living here. I do think, though, that the Mexican restaurant I would want to see in Heaven, in JV’s.

I believe the best restaurants often are family run where the family members love to make food all hours of the day. I am well aware that making food and running is truly hard, tiring work. But the workers at the great dining restaurants are so, so dedicated and really seem to have the attitude of, “Wow! I get to make food all day long. What else in life is as worthy?”

The family running JV’s has this attitude. I marvel at their stamina and speed. JV workers, I tip my hat to you.

And I haven’t even gotten to their food. Their Mexican food is the best in the county and I have been to many Mexican restaurants. My family wants to go there whenever we’re near. One of my sons works in St. Paul. The other son goes to school in Chicago. Whenever I pick them up at the airport, we have to get food from JV’s on the way home. This is always a line to order food at JV’s.

All of the dishes on their menu are authentic and taste great. (Okay, you can get hamburgers, but please, please try their Mexican dishes.) They have such a selection. I have sometimes found that a huge menu means that the food is not fresh or prepared in a hurry. JV’s avoids this trap by making their dishes so quickly. As I said above, their chefs amaze me.

My favorite food from anywhere in the world is the taco that has a crispy corn tortilla and shredded beef. They prepare this taco so well. I also order their combo shredded beef/bean burrito. All their other dishes are wonderful, including the steak Milanesa. However, their crispy, shredded-beef taco tastes so wonderful that I almost feel like I’m having an affair when I order something else.

The decor at JV’s is somewhat between the usual taco shop and a pure sit-down restaurant. They adorn their walls with Mexican art and pictures of the local sports team they ‘ve sponsored . Their TVs show sports of interest to their clientele, such as Mexican soccer games.

Oh, and their prices are so reasonable. They rival or are below those of other taco restaurants. All in all, the value of their Mexican food is clearly the best in San Diego county.

Now I’m hungry for their food. It’s been two whole days since I’ve had their tacos and burritos.

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.