A Mexican Foodie Paradise Opens In Costa Mesa

Mercado González, the newest store from Mexican grocery chain Northgate Market, isn't really a grocery store. It's part hipster food hall, part traditional Mexican mercado, part watering hole, part cultural center, and yes, part grocery store.

Here you can grab a margarita from bar Entre Nos and then stroll through the produce section. You can eat fresh ceviche, menudo, tacos, birria or chilaquiles at one of the many food stalls, or puestos. You can pick up housemade mole or, if you prefer, the ingredients to make it at home.

Birría is one of the many regional dishes you can pick up at the market's food stalls or "puestos."

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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But there's more! You can buy a piñata, snack on churros from Mexico City favorite El Moro — the churrería chain's first U.S. franchise — or sit down for an elegant, modern Mexican meal at Maizano (I'm eyeing the pulpo encacahuatado (fresh octopus with peanut mole).

All of this and more under the same roof — a former Albertsons store seemingly magically transformed into a spacious foodie paradise.

And it's in Costa Mesa. Take THAT, L.A. friends!

I spent several hours exploring — and eating at — Mercado Gonzalez during its grand opening just before Thanksgiving and a few more hours earlier this week. Here's what you can find, and what makes it unique.

El mercado

Joshua González, one of the third generation members of the González family who owns and operates the Northgate chain, told me the new market is inspired by the great mercados of Mexico, like Coyoacán in Mexico City and 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca.

"We wanted to bring that to the United States," he said.

Mercado González is the upscale, American strip mall version of these markets. But hey, you gotta work with what you have.

Giant clay pots of dry beans at Mercado González.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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The first thing shoppers see when stepping through the doors is a massive, open tortilleria. On one of my visits, I counted 14 people working behind the tortilla counter — one stirring corn in giant vats, others working the machines that grind up the cooked corn into masa, flatten it, cut it into perfect discs, and then bake the tortillas.

The tortilla operation, like much of the food prep at Mercado Gonzalez, is on public display for shoppers. Behind the window at the carnitas stand, pork butts boil vigorously in a trio of huge copper pots.

A variety of freshly made salsas

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Murals commissioned from local and Mexico-based artists brighten the inside and outside of the store. All around, colorful signage explains to newbies — in English and Spanish — how traditional foods like tortillas are made and the origins of regional dishes. If your Spanish is rusty, or non-existent, it's a great place to learn, and to practice using Spanish — the vast majority of Northgate's employees are bilingual.

Atole, tamales y tortas

For breakfast, I headed to the stand offering tamales and atole, a hot, comforting corn-based drink. I was hoping for one of the tamales wrapped in banana leaves, which are much less common in Southern California than their usually drier, corn husk-wrapped cousins, but they were out.

Still, the pork tamales were flavorful and moist. The atole de nuez, which was new to me, was perfectly sweet and nutty. I've been craving it every day since.

Banana fans, go wild

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Most of the market stalls are part of Northgate, but a few are run by outside restaurateurs. These include Chiva Torta, which has a popular food truck that specializes in tortas ahogadas, sandwiches drenched in hot salsa, and other specialties from Guadalajara.

Chiva Torta used to set up its truck outside of the now-shuttered Northgate supermarket in downtown Santa Ana. "We finally convinced them to come in here," Northgate's Teresa Blanco told me as she gave me a tour of the store.

I had my heart set on a torta ahogada for lunch, but the line on opening day was too long so my husband and I headed to the shortest line we could find. He ended up with pozole, which was good, but missing the crushed oregano that's typically offered as a topping. My chicken flautas were OK.

The grocery section of Mercado González includes sometimes hard-to-find ingredients for Latin American dishes.

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Jill Replogle

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It would take a year to sample everything Mercado González has to offer so I'll reserve further judgment on the food (plus, I'm no food critic).

Chiles, salsas y ambiente

With so many food stalls (did I mention the sushi? The carne asada? The aguas frescas?) I kept forgetting I was in a grocery store. But I did need to pick up some things for home.

The aisles of packaged food that dominate a typical American grocery store are relegated to a back corner at Mercado González. There are only a few of them. Everything else is fresh.

Chile lovers heaven

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To my delight, I found fresh Salvadoran cream, Guatemalan beer and wine from Baja's Valle de Guadalupe. Also, fresh hojas de mashan for my family's holiday tamales (we usually have to get them frozen from a Central American specialty store).

The meat counter is extensive. It includes chorizo made in-house and marinated meats that you can throw right on the grill for tacos.

The bulk section includes giant towers of cinnamon sticks, barrels of dried chiles, and different types of beans spilling out of giant clay pots.

Whole cinnamon sticks at Mercado González.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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There's a stall for Mexican cheeses and creams and another for red and green salsas and several types of mole. Reportedly, they'll mix up guacamole however you like it (hold the tomatoes?), but when I asked, they were out of avocados. Instead, I picked up a freshly packaged batch, and it was delicious.

Sitting at a table in the store's pleasant back patio, I heard one woman call the market "like a Mexican Whole Foods" — not the first time I've heard this description of Northgate.

Lisa Sandoval, as we were chatting in line for churros, said the store had the feel of a plaza, a place for people to gather, eat, shop, and listen to music (there's a stage in the food court area). "I feel like I'm in Mexico," Sandoval said. "And the first grocery store with a bar, so that made it fun."

Veronica Tomasina Flores could hardly contain her enthusiasm as she exited the store with bags full of tamales, nopales, chorizo and a candle emblazoned with the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. "I wanted to cry," she said in Spanish. "The atmosphere, the people, the food, the smell, the energy … se pasaron de lanza" — they outdid themselves, she said.