Little White Boy Peppers

A few weeks ago I had been gorging myself on fine dining, and quite frankly, I was getting burnt out. One can only take so many starched waiters and white linen. After a very generous invitation to a posh private club in La Quinta, California, I was grateful when my host suggested we follow-up the fancy wine tasting with dinner at a very local, very divey Mexican restaurant. Just the thought of gorging myself on chili and lard laden burritos and tacos brought me to a happy place.

Little did I know that this happy place was no ordinary hole-in-the wall Mexican ranchito, for certainly the Southern California desert is full of such establishments. The real draw of El Mexicali Café in Indio, California is an appetizer dish they lovingly call Chilies Gueritos Rellenos de Cameron. Roughly translated by some of my Spanish speaking friends, this means “little white boy fried chilies with shrimp”. “Little white boy chilies” turn out to be mild yellow banana peppers that have been sliced open down the middle and removed of their seed pod but left otherwise intact, including the stem. At that point they are stuffed with a fairly basic mixture of seasoned chopped shrimp and fried, no breading. The real magic happens when the plate is brought to the table: the server sets the plate down, reaches across the table to the usual suspect condiments of Tapito salt and pepper where she grabs, I kid you not, soy sauce. She douses those freshly fried white boy peppers bursting at the seam, literally, with white Mexican ship, in a very healthy smattering of dark, rich soy sauce. At that point we are encouraged to eat the peppers but not before we dip them into a ramekin of (again I kid you not) mayonnaise.

When you are not expecting this dish, which I would never expect until now at any restaurant let alone a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, it is a thing to behold, and to eat. Now how did this dish come to be? Quite simply, the owner of a small Mexican restaurant in the United States takes a vacation to Mexico where she falls in love with a restaurant dish of shrimp-stuffed banana peppers and vows to bring it back to her restaurant and add it to the menu. Growing up in the American melting pot she has also had a lifetime love of soy sauce. So she decided to combine some of her favorites things and serve it all with a side of mayo because, why not? Everyone loves mayo.

Bizarre, yes, but the flavors are all recognizable. I have had fried peppers without breading at the finest restaurants served alongside aioli, essentially fancy mayonnaise. And peppers, shrimp and soy certainly find their way into any number of Asian dishes. Put them altogether and eat them as a starter to a meal of chili verde, rice and beans, and what could really go wrong?

I have always felt that if you look hard enough there has to be something interesting going on in the food world no matter where you find yourself, even if it is in the middle of the California desert. Today El Mexicali has become so successful that there are now two locations. If you don’t mind having to walk outside to use the bathroom a bit like at a gas station, go to the original. You’ll avoid the gringo crowds at El Mexcali II and you might even get the story of the gueritos rellenos de camaron from the family owners themselves. If you find yourself out that way, or are just getting burnt out on the same old sit-down restaurants, there are apparently nothing quite like shrimp stuffed little white boy peppers doused in soy with side of mayo to get even this jaded fine-diner out of an eating rut.