Yayo Knows Tacos

Some people swear you can tell the quality of a Mexican restaurant by the Jimmy trucks parked out front, or by the old ranchera stuff nailed to the wall, or by some formula that involves dividing the number of ceramic toucans by the number of black-velvet bullfight paintings, then multiplying the result by the number of out-of-date Los Caballos Clydesdale calendars on the wall. Some people claim that an old soccer trophy or two is the most reliable indicator. Some people look first to the juke.

Me, I go for the salsa. If the salsa is good, everything else sort of naturally falls into place.

The nicest restaurant salsa in the county of Los Angeles may be found at Dos Arbolitos, a tiny, converted hamburger stand in a supermarket parking lot on the San Fernando Valley’s northern plain. The only problem is figuring out which salsa is the best. Is it the tart, mildly hot salsa made with tomatillos and green chiles--a thick, textbook salsa verde ? Perhaps the juicy, luscious, stinging, chopped salsa is best, made with chiles and roasted tomatoes, or maybe the brick-red, fiery-hot salsa made from vinegar and smoked chiles that throws the house’s monochrome beef barbacoa into Technicolor vividness.

“Ah, the salsa picante ,” says Dos Arbolitos chef Yayo when you ask for seconds. “I eat that with everything: steaks, eggs, even in peanut-butter sandwiches.” You can imagine how good it might taste on a taco.

The decor is pretty wild in here, a couple of newspaper clippings on the wall, a glassed poster whose subject is “Menudo: Breakfast of Champions,” a photograph of the owner’s young son, but mostly the baroquely lettered rogues’ gallery of menu suggestions taped up around the order window.

“Have a bowl of purely vegetarian black beans,” says one, the script curled around a drawing of the beans themselves. “It’s healthy, has roughage, tastes terrific, and is good for you.” It may be.

“Chile Verde is a classical dish,” another says. “We have it, and it has great flavor.” It does, tart and hot, garlicky, with the round vegetable sweetness of freshly roasted chile.

“Have you tried a torta? Is big, is good, is delicious.” It is.

Dos Arbolitos might be a good restaurant for a gathering of semioticians, for all around you are both signifiers and signs.

At lunchtime, the restaurant’s clientele seems split between locals and shirt-sleeved middle managers from the nearby cookie and beer plants; later in the afternoon, the crowd thins out, and the customers lean toward the bean-burrito-scarfing neighborhood rock-dude and the guy who’s getting his car detailed at the hand carwash next door. The place does a big takeout business; half the nursing staff at the nearby hospitals must live on Dos Arbolitos’ tasty hominy stew posole .

The antojitos , cornmeal-based snacky things, are better than you might expect in a serious Mexican restaurant: fat, chicken-filled cigars called flautas ; good taquitos with great guacamole; Swiss enchiladas bursting with sauteed chicken and cheese; crisply fried, lettuce-heavy tacos dorados that taste like a feverish Taco Bell dream. Tamales are just OK.

But the big dish here is pollo alcaparrado , chicken stewed in a spicy variation of the Veracruz style, with tomatoes and onions and many, many capers. The puckery, vinegary flavor penetrates clear to the bone; the juices from the chicken flavor the already well-spiced Mexican rice in which the bird nestles. The beans, which have that creamy lightness and clarity of flavor that comes only with non-Heart Assn.-approved cooking fats, are better than fine. It’s a delicious plate of food.

Campestre , a Yayo invention, involves long-braised pork steaks, tender enough to cut with a plastic fork, that have been rubbed with a smoked-chile paste and topped with fried green pepper and a swirl of blackened strands of onion, sort of a cross between machaca and the best pork adobado in the state of California, especially effective with an extra dab of the hot salsa. Costillitas are little pork ribs blanketed with a grainy, terrific chile- tomatillo sauce the color of a Malibu sunset. Carne con chile is soft-fried pork chunks, tasty though possibly a little overcooked, in another ruddy chile sauce. You can’t go wrong with the pork.

“After a meal,” says the wall, “complement that nice feeling with a subtle flavor of a fine dessert. Try a flan.” Ummmm . . . try the capirotada , a boozy bread pudding, instead, even if it is covered with salty melted cheese.

Dos Arbolitos

16208 Parthenia Blvd., Sepulveda, (818) 891-6661. Open Monday-Saturday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cash only. Takeout. No alcohol. Lot parking. Dinner for two, food only, $8-$13.