Octavio Peña

Freelance writer with KQED, Eater, Serious Eats, Food & Wine, and more

Serious Eats •

Can You Tell Your Chipotles From Your Adobos? A Guide to Mexican Chiles

The wall of dried chiles at the Mexican grocery store is always mesmering to me—a mural with colors ranging from bright red to black that exudes the aroma of fruit, chocolate, raisins, and nuts—but it can also be daunting. With at least a dozen varieties on the shelf, it can be difficult to know which type of chile is best for which dishes. Even for those familiar with dried chiles, like me, things get a bit complicated when the same name is used to identify different chiles (pasillas, for examp...
KQED •

A South Bay Pop-Up Is Reinventing the Doughnut

The contents of a pink doughnut box are usually pretty predictable — chocolate- or sprinkle-covered rings that offer a bit of sweetness and chewiness to get you through your morning. But at Eizel’s Bakery, a pop-up in the South Bay, some of the doughnuts are glazed with crackly caramelized sugar while others are filled with saucy crustaceans. Another Korean-inspired, doughnut-adjacent treat erupts with garlicky custard when you bite in.
Of course, Eizel’s isn’t the first bakery to try to reinven...
Eater SF •

Head to This Late-Night San Jose Taco Cart for Steamy Cabeza

At their finest, tacos de cabeza (cow head) are soft, intensely beefy shredded meat encased in a pillowy steamed tortilla. One of the best places to get head in San Jose is in a gas station parking lot. Tacos Al Vapor Blanquita, a little food cart off of San Jose’s Story & King, is more than meets the eye. You don’t need to rack your brain to decide what to order here — the only item on the menu is tacos al vapor de cabeza. While cabeza is a common offering at taquerias, most places offer a mixt...
Serious Eats •

This Tiny Thermometer Can Track Two Temperatures at Once, Making It Great for Multitaskers

When I first moved into my apartment, my oven was churning out pale chicken skin, limp broccolini, and underbaked cookies. It wasn’t until I invested in a probe thermometer that I realized my oven’s display was off and that preheating took twice as long as it claimed. I also often cook for family and friends in their homes, so whenever I pack my cooking bag for a dinner party, I tuck my ThermoWorks Square DOT into my apron’s pocket. This tiny thermometer has made an outsized impact on my life....
Serious Eats •

My Family's Comforting Pozole Rojo Relies on This 1 Game-Changing Ingredient

Pozole in its many iterations has been a beloved part of celebrations and family gatherings in Mexico for centuries. I grew up eating pozole rojo, a hearty pork version of the soup infused with a blend of fruity chiles and warm spices. The soup—which is studded with tender morsels of pork and hominy and finished with a rainbow of toppings like tostadas, lime wedges, thin slices of cabbage, onion, avocado, and more—was a mainstay at family birthdays and other celebrations. My aunts would (and sti...
Eater SF •

This Impressive San Jose Vietnamese Restaurant Is a One-Man Show

In a sleepy corner of San Jose’s Eastside foothills, AK Kitchen dishes out Vietnamese street food, South Asian ice cream flavors made in-house, and furikake Chex Mix. The menu also features popular dishes from Japanese, Korean, and Indian cuisine. The most impressive part? The restaurant is run by a team of one.
Lam Ngo moved from Vietnam to San Jose with hopes of attending culinary school but was discouraged due to the cost. Instead, he attended De Anza College where he studied accounting and e...
Eater SF •

Moonwake Coffee

Moonwake Coffee Roasters brings a serene coffee experience to West San Jose. Owners Ming Wood and Mabel Yeung started by selling coffee and roasted coffee beans at pop-ups and farmers markets (notably serving drinks out of the trunk of a Tesla Cybertruck). Now, as of Friday, September 27th, the couple opened a cafe highlighting coffee, grassy, silky matcha lattes, and zippy elderflower tonics with sweet, tropical flavors. Wood and Yeung built much of the space themselves, even planting coffee tr...
KQED •

San Jose Gets a Guatemalan Food Truck | KQED

Food trucks tend to focus on meals that can be enjoyed on the go, so when I came across Shaddai, a new Guatemalan food truck in San Jose, I was shocked to see cooks walking steaming-hot bowls of pepián de gallina and caldo de res over to eager diners. More than that, the menu is huge — literally a banner as tall as the truck — and features hard-to-find specialties like chow mein tostadas and Guatemalan enchiladas.
Located in a bustling food truck park on the outskirts of downtown, Shaddai is the...
Eater SF •

Intergalactic and Planetary Paletas Splash Down in San Jose

Birthday cake. Ube brownie. Pistachio cheesecake. These sound more like treats you would stroll upon in a bakery rather than flavors in a popsicle shop. Paleta Planeta built its reputation in San Jose as a Mexican popsicle business with stellar flavors. Brothers Mauricio and Luis Salazar started selling paletas from their parents’ garage in 2021. As their business expanded, they moved production to a ghost kitchen inside of Zuñiga’s Restaurant and invested in a paleta cart to cater events. Thei...
Serious Eats •

This Mexican Pork Ribs Recipe Has Been a Family Favorite for Generations

As a kid, I hated saucy food. Chills went up my spine whenever my foods touched one another on the plate; so, I actually dreaded when my family made morisqueta, the dish of white rice smothered with saucy pork ribs, beans, crema, and queso. I missed out on years of enjoying this hard-to-find specialty from the state of Michoacán in Mexico.

My dad, who was born in Michoacán, loves morisqueta so much that he playfully calls my mom Norisqueta—her name is Nora. About three years ago, after years o...
Kitchn •

My Impossibly Light and Fluffy Cake I Make Everyone for Their Birthday (It's Classic!)

Tres leches is a sponge cake that’s soaked in a combination of three milks — typically whole milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk. Growing up, tres leches was my cousin Damean’s birthday cake of choice; I unfortunately couldn’t handle it due to my lactose intolerance. After many years of resisting temptation, I finally got myself lactase pills. Now I look forward to taking home as many leftover slices as I can.

Tres leches is a sponge cake that’s soaked in a combination of three milks — ty...
KQED •

This San Jose Restaurant Has Been Feeding Portuguese Immigrants for Nearly 80 Years

In the heart of San Jose’s Little Portugal, a grocery store the size of a 7-Eleven features a wall of Ports and Vinho Verdes, stacks of garlicky linguiça and cases of imported cheese. But Bacalhau Grill isn’t just a specialty food market. If you peek over the shelves, you’ll see a full-fledged restaurant dining room with tables covered with checkered tablecloths. On a recent Friday afternoon, one diner was making quick work of a plate of picanha and fries while a couple split a pizza over a bott...
Food & Wine •

If You Love Piña Coladas, You'll Want to Want to Make This Easier Riff

It’s a hot summer day, and you’ve been assigned to grill duty. You need a refreshing drink to power through searing several pounds of carne asada and hot dogs. Do you opt for limeade, horchata, or a piña colada?  What if you could choose a drink that combines elements from all three? 

Coconut lime horchata gives a horchata base the piña colada treatment by blending it with ice and cream of coconut. The flavor of the rice and coconut harmonize to produce a mellow, slightly nutty drink. A spritz...
Food & Wine •

How to Take Your Morning Iced Coffee From Good to Great

In many Mexican households, a cafecito and a pan dulce serve as a pre-breakfast or post-dinner snack. Traditionally made in a clay pot, Café de Olla is made with a blend of warm spices that often includes cinnamon, clove, and star anise. It’s often served black with the piloncillo (unrefined whole cane sugar) as a sweetener.

This recipe draws inspiration from the Mexican mocha, a coffee made by combining cocoa powder and chiles. The recipe calls for chiles de arbol because they pack a punch de...
Eater SF •

Bouncy, Hand-Pulled Noodles Star at This New Uyghur Restaurant in Santa Clara

Located in a small plaza in Santa Clara, Tarim Garden specializes in the cuisine of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Northwest China, a rarity in the Bay Area. More specifically, the menu is reflective of the dinner tables of Ili — a region in the Tian Shan mountain range valley that separates the North (Dzungarian Basin, also known as Junggar Basin) and South (Tarim Basin) of Xinjiang. Five years ago, owner Lei Han moved to the U.S. from Ili to study for a master’s degree in business ad...
Serious Eats •

Salsa Macha

The marriage of chiles and nuts is well celebrated in Mexican cuisine— in moles, chocolate bars, and drinks, to name a few applications. The smoky, nutty, savory pairing keeps people coming back for more. My favorite way to enjoy this combination of flavors is in salsa macha. I drizzle this fruity, spicy chile oil over almost everything, including eggs, grilled meats, and almost all my tacos. 

Salsa macha originated in Orizaba, Veracruz, but has since spread to dining tables across Mexico. In...
KQED •

This San Jose Tortilleria Makes the Best Sonoran Flour Tortillas in the South Bay

In the United States, many Mexican food enthusiasts don’t consider flour tortillas to be as “authentic” as corn tortillas, arguing that they’re not a real part of the cuisine. And it’s true that the mass-produced flour tortillas you find in a Crunchwrap Supreme or packaged at the grocery store tend to compromise everything in favor of shelf stability. They have the same texture and flavor profile as a sheet of paper.
But in the state of Sonora, in northern Mexico, flour tortillas are a centuries...
Eater SF •

This New San Jose Bánh Mì Shop Puts a Creative Spin on the Traditional Sandwich

At Mommy’s Bánh Mì, a new counter-service restaurant in San Jose, the popular Vietnamese sandwiches come loaded with unexpected fillings like tender slices of porchetta, strips of fried chicken, and housemade cilantro aioli. The restaurant, which is located at 86 North Market Street, just had its soft opening in April, but the concept has been in the oven for years.
The restaurant’s name is a tribute to owner Curtis Lai’s mother whose obsession with making bánh mì at home ignited his idea t...
Serious Eats •

Breakfast Sopes With Refried Beans, Queso Fundido, Poached Eggs, and Salsa

A sope is a thin, shallow shell of masa that's fried until it's just crisp before the hot and tender interior is piled high with any number of fillings (beans, lettuce, salsa, crumbled queso, and shredded meat are common). They're often served as antojitos, or appetizers, but my favorite way to enjoy sopes is for breakfast or brunch. This recipe combines my love of sopes with elements from my favorite breakfast dishes. 

It features crispy sopes loaded with hearty refried beans that are smother...
Serious Eats •

Everything You Need to Know About Making Mexican Tamales

Every year in the darkest days leading up to Christmas, my family gathers together to assemble hundreds of tamales for the winter holiday season. The Mexican tamales I know and love require a lot of time to make, so we save them for celebrations when all hands are on deck to help in the preparation, and we can fully appreciate them together. 

There can never be “too many” tamales. They should be eaten in abundance and celebrated for the savory individually wrapped gifts that they are. There’s...
KQED •

San Jose’s Most Creative Paleta Cart Is Leveling Up the Mexican Ice Pop

On a hot summer day, the sound of a paleta cart’s bells usually signals the arrival of bright red paletas de fresa, ice cream sandwiches and gumball-eyed Spider-Man popsicles.
But the ice pops inside Paleta Planeta’s galaxy-wrapped cart in San Jose are different. While the cart does sell some traditional Mexican fruit paletas, it also offers an ever-rotating selection of hybrid flavors like taro Oreo and avocado chocolate. Other flavors aren’t particularly Mexican, or what you’d think to put in...
Serious Eats •

My Family's Chicken and Salsa Verde Tamales Recipe

For holidays and celebrations, it’s routine for my family to gather together to make various types of tamal, including tamales de pollo con salsa verde. The version of tamales with a chicken and green salsa filling that I grew up eating was made with shredded chicken tossed in a refreshing green salsa loaded with tomatillos, garlic, and fresh cilantro. My recipe here is inspired by my family’s version, but I’ve added a few of my own twists—crisped chicken skin is finely chopped and folded into t...
Serious Eats •

Smoky, Spicy Red Pork Tamales Recipe

Puerco rojo is one of the most popular tamale fillings throughout Mexico, and it’s easy to see why: The saucy pork and red chile mixture has a bold, fruity, smoky, and spicy flavor that you’ll appreciate at first bite. The red chile filling is so concentrated in flavor that it might at first taste too strong if scooped up and devoured by the spoonful; but when it’s spread into a thin layer and cradled snugly in a rich and pillowy masa (corn dough) to form a tamal, its intense flavor is balanced...
Metro Silicon Valley | Silicon Valley’s Leading We •

Finding Umami at Kokoro Ramen in Milpitas

The small Milpitas restaurant Kokoro Ramen is big on flavor. With only a handful of tables, the menu offers more than eight types of ramen, dry noodles and a large collection of appetizers.
The ramen, made using a pork broth that simmers for more than 20 hours, has a rich, concentrated base that is loaded with savory umami flavors. The ramen falls mostly under three categories: shio (salt), shoyu or miso.
These ingredients are mixed into the broth base to produce different variations of ramen. E...
Load More