That’s It’s World’s Largest Torta Cubana

That's It
2699 Mission Street(between 22nd St & 23rd St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 285-9833

Watch the first 1:40 of this video:



Here I am in Washington, D.C. and memories of where I was less than a week ago are making me smile. As 30 inches of snow come down right now and blanket the area, I’m reviewing pictures of sunny California. One of the places I visited when I was in San Francisco is by recommendation of my hero, Anthony Bourdain: That’s It. I wasn’t going to go there, but Yelp had a lot of good reviews on this monstrous torta. (A torta is a Mexican sandwich where the bread is actually called a torta, but they make sandwiches from it, so the whole sandwich is called a torta. If that makes sense.) I thought the size of the torta would be just a novelty. That’s It is a liquor store/convenient store/deli counter. This place is part Middle Eastern and part Mexican. Located in The Mission, the Latino part of San Francisco, this establishment is located on the corner where one side is painted with a mural, taquerias surround it, lowrider oldies drive by, and an ambience in the neighborhood that wouldn’t attract tourists but some place that locals would enjoy.

When I walked in, immediately the sounds of Arabic language in a high-pitched transistor radio-type speaker emits from the TV above the entrance where the person that runs the store is watching. The very small counter on the right with an even smaller grill is ready to cook this behemoth. There was an Asian man at the counter already devouring the famed Cubana. He was so into it that he didn’t realize he had a bunch of it stuck to his face. I order my sandwich and watch as Isabela throws ingredient after ingredient on the grill. “Is ALL of this going into my sandwich, or did someone place a carry-out order?” As she builds my sandwich, oh yeah, she makes everything fit. What’s in That’s It’s Cubana torta? We’re talking:

bistek milanesa (breaded steak)
ham
chorizo
2 eggs
hot dog
bacon
Mexican cheese
avocado
jalapeño
tomato
sour cream
mayonnaise

She sets it on a plate and sets it on front of me with a smile. The counter has hot sauce and some napkins with a sign, in San Franciscan style that reads, “Remember, napkins come from trees.” The torta is already cut in half, and I dig in. What I thought was just a novelty actually works. With the hot dog and everything else in here, it’s easy to imagine how it could just be okay. When you bite into it, it all makes sense. I take another bite, and another, and soon I realize that I have a bunch of it on my face as well. I didn’t care. I was on a mission on The Mission. This was too good. Sorry trees, I used up a lot of napkins. After a while, the plate was clean. Done. Gone. Nothing else. I was even thinking of ordering another, but I knew there was a day of eating ahead of me. This was just breakfast – and what a breakfast it was. Especially for $10.

If interested, watch more of Anthony Bourdain at That’s It here, but forward to 7:45:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p6b6NDJS8A