SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2011
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Beantown burrito bust-up!
Three Boston taquerias are stuffed inside one family feud
BY AMOS BARSHAD
When Felipe’s Taqueria opened in Harvard Square in the spring of 2004, a new phase in Boston’s burrito war began. For years, the main battle involved two combatants from the same family. Boca Grande Taqueria was opened in 1986 by Mariko Kamio, a Japanese-American woman originally from San Francisco. Later, Anna’s Taqueria was opened in 1995 by Michael Kamio, Mariko’s little brother. Michael worked under his sister at Boca Grande until — after a dispute vague in particulars but explicitly rancorous — he split off to launch Anna’s. His business has been a massive success, garnering a fevered, cult-like appreciation while branching out into six locations and spinning off its own imitator, Felipe’s. (The restaurant is named after its co-owner Felipe Herrera, a former top manager at both Anna’s and Boca.) This deeply incestuous burrito lineage has been good to Boston: The three taquerias offer both delicious Mission-style quick-serve fare for the masses, as well as a unique low-simmering beef that entertains the city’s burrito diehards.
“I don’t want to get into a negative something,” Herrera — who was Michael’s top lieutenant at Anna’s for nine years, serving as the lead man on the opening of new Anna’s outlets — said of the original mid-’90s disjuncture. “They had family problems, they split up, and I went with Mike.” The otherwise extremely genial Michael is equally tight-lipped: “I had a falling-out with my sister, but that doesn’t need to be talked about.” Mariko opened up a bit more. When I asked about a Boston Magazine article that reported the siblings hadn’t spoken since their father’s funeral in 1996, Mariko explained they now talk occasionally, although Michael “tends to be very temperamental. Maybe it’s because he’s a boy and I’m a girl. But we belong to the same family, so it’s kind of hard to not see each other.”
As for the professional competition with Anna’s, she was even chattier. “Mike took all the basic recipes when he left, but he doesn’t change. Mike is not a cook, and they don’t have anybody over there that’s creative.” Mariko boasts of Boca’s “proprietary” sauces (“they’ve been trying to figure out for a long time what’s in our Colorado sauce”) and wide swath of options, positioning her taqueria as the more refined option. “Young people go there because it’s close to their schools and it’s cheaper,” she said. “But as they get older and start making their own money, they come back to us. Mike, he does good business, and he’s popular with the kids. But he doesn’t change his menu frequently enough, and people get tired. That’s what I tell him.”
Michael, for his part, declares that Anna’s antecedent is not Boca’s, but Gordo’s, a San Francisco taqueria operated by his cousin (Mariko pays tribute to Gordo’s as well). “Boca Grande has all kinds of roasted chicken and enchiladas and soups and tamales, but everybody wanted burritos and tacos to go. From the beginning, that’s been our focus. We branched out into quesadillas and Mexican plates, and that’s as far as I want to go. We’re not trying to do everything under the sun.” It’s a fair distinction, and it’s hard to quibble with the results: While Boca’s has flourished as well, with five locations spread throughout the greater Boston area, Anna’s has developed a certain uber-loyal local fandom that sets it apart. It’s the kind of following that manifests itself in things like the annual Anna’s Tacqueria Half Marathon, a walking-and-eating, 13-mile trek to all six Anna’s locations, or the independent development of off-menu items, passed along in hushed tones like secret-society passwords (the latest: the Cudio, a mega-burrito made up of three 12-inch super burritos rolled together). For more proof: Ask your Boston friends about Anna’s, and wait for the twinkle in their eyes.
It’s not surprising, then, that Felipe’s has succeeded by mimicking Anna’s model. Thomas Brush, Herrera’s partner in the business, readily admits their debt to Anna’s while modestly pointing to the innovations Felipe’s has brought to the scene: chips made in-house; an extensive salsa bar; and al pastor-style pork (later introduced by Anna’s as well). He said Herrera brought no former Anna’s employees with him when opening Felipe’s, although that might not have been enough to placate Michael: “He values loyalty. When somebody leaves, it’s hard for him to say, ‘Hey, good luck, wish you the best.’” (Michael’s take on his manager’s exit: “It’s all right. Well, the only thing — if you go back to the Harvard Crimson’s report on when they first opened, [Herrera would portray himself] as the owner of Anna’s. That’s nonsense.”)
At one point, Brush offered the subtlest of digs: “We strive to be the best, and it certainly helps having only one location; it’s a lot easier to manage one than having five or six. There’s not a restaurant in the world that gets better as they open more places.” (Felipe’s does have two additional locations in New Orleans.) He said of the sibling stand-off: “They’re fiercely independent and fairly private. It’s funny. Entering the same market with the same model? Some of the locations, opening right next to each other? It’s an interesting rivalry.”
Michael ultimately welcomes Felipe’s: “Competition is good. Competition makes you stronger. The people that try to emulate us — well, you see the difference between Anna’s and a copy.” Mariko shrugs them off: “I don’t know too much about Felipe’s food. I don’t go in there and check it out. I’m not curious enough to do that.” Both Kamios, though, should stay vigilant — Felipe’s might yet have their eyes on the throne. “We strive every day to be better,” Brush said. “I just want to be the best.”
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Mother’s little doll
Lifelike ‘reborns’ become baby-boom phenomenon
BY KATIE DRUMMOND
PHOTO: Rosie Hallam / Barcroft Media
Cuddly craft, or maternal mania?
To the naked eye, Adam and Rachelle might look like cherubic infants: wispy hair, rosy cheeks, wee little fingers.
But look a little closer and it becomes apparent that the two are, in fact, dolls. Known as “reborns” or “living dolls,” they’re members of a bogus-baby boom that’s sweeping the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.
“The first thing I do when I get home from work is go see the dolls to change them and brush their hair,” Carol Laing, the 53-year-old U.K. “mom” to the two dolls, told The Sun. “It means I will always have a baby to cuddle.”
Laing has two real-life teens who spend less and less time at home. In anticipation of an empty nest, she paid several hundred dollars for lifelike dolls to replace them. In fact, Adam and Rachelle are named after her flesh-and-blood children.
“One of the happiest times of my life was when my kids were little,” she said. “This is a way for me to recreate that.”
The dolls are sold online by members of a community overseen by the International Reborn Doll Artists professional association. Sites like “Angels in Waiting Nursery” and “Nana’s Li’l Blossoms” offer ready-made dolls for “adoption” along with custom doll creation — buyers often provide photos of real-life babies to be replicated.
Much like other reborns, Adam and Rachelle are created with painstaking precision. Using a vinyl baby doll, like those sold commercially, an artist will paint them to mimic human skin and then carefully add nails, veins and hair.
Electronic gadgets can be implanted to simulate breathing and a heartbeat. Some even come with an umbilical cord or, in the case of “preemies,” are delivered with respiration tubes and IVs inside an incubator.
Laing is hardly alone in her desire to use reborns as proxies for children either grown or lost: Many of the women who buy living dolls have suffered miscarriages, lost a child from illness or struggled with empty-nest syndrome.
For some experts, those seeking to fill a spiritual hole with a living doll might be better suited for therapy.
“If people naturally want to care for something, and if they have a lot of love to give and no baby to give it to, there are lots of living souls who do need that love and attention,” psychologist Ingrid Collins told the AFP, adding that a living doll “could create more problems than it solves.”
And while living dolls don’t age, they can break the bank. A single doll can cost upward of $4,000, and owners — who convene to buy, sell and trade dolls and related paraphernalia at annual conferences — often acquire wardrobes of clothing, along with custom-made stroller, cribs and other accessories.
For their devoted caretakers, at least, all that money — not to mention second glances from passers-by — are well worth it.
“Some people might think it’s weird but I don’t care,” Laing said. “They bring me happiness and aren’t doing any harm, so what’s the problem?”
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Obama must switch teams
Showing leadership on gay marriage isn't just politically smart — it's right
BY JESSICA VALENTI
Late last night, lawmakers in Albany voted to make New York the largest state in America to allow same-sex marriage. This is in line with a broader trend. A new Gallup poll shows that a stunning two-thirds of Americans would support a gay presidential candidate. The tides are turning, and yet President Obama remains skittish on the issue.
It’s time, President Obama. We all know you support same-sex marriage; now is the time for you to come out and say it.
This week, at a New York fundraiser with LGBT donors, the president stopped just short of endorsing same-sex marriage, saying that he believes “gay couples deserve the same rights as every other couple in this country.” He also referenced New York's same-sex marriage debate, saying the state’s lawmakers are “doing exactly what democracies are supposed to be doing.” But he wouldn’t outright say that he supports gay marriage.
In the past, I’ve understood President Obama’s political calculations around this issue (though that doesn’t mean I was happy about it). We all knew that the president supported same-sex marriage; in a 1996 questionnaire, Obama wrote that he “favor[ed] legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” I’m willing to concede that perhaps his posturing during the presidential election made sense at the time — I’d certainly take that over McCain winning the presidency. But the times — and opinions — have changed, and Obama needs to to take a strong stand now.
Some say the political strategy of the past still exists, and the president’s unequivocal support for same-sex marriage could mean a President Romney — or worse, a President Palin. (I shudder at the thought.) But the polls show a very clear forward movement on this issue.
A May Gallup poll showed, for the first time, that the majority of Americans support same-sex marriage. The percentage moved up 9 points in a year, now with 53 percent of Americans in favor of the institution. Nate Silver at the New York Times has written, “If support for gay marriage were to continue accelerating as fast as it has in the past two years, supporters would outnumber opponents roughly 56-40 in the general population by November 2012.”
Besides, does the president really think that the people who would be upset if he came out in support of same-sex marriage were really folks that were going to vote for him anyway?
If the 2012 election is dominated by the economy and three wars — as it should be — then the soonest that gay marriage will be back in force in the public debate, as it was in 2004, would be 2014 or 2016. And if the polls keep moving the way they have been, it would mean a significant jump in the percentage of Americans who support same-sex marriage — a trend that would only be accelerated by the president coming out in favor of the issue.
And that’s why it’s time for Obama to go beyond saying his views are “evolving” — a clearly disingenuous statement. It’s time for him to tell the truth about his beliefs on same-sex marriage. After all, even Dick Cheney is more publicly progressive on the issue than the president. In 2009, he said that he believes marriage should be regulated at the state level and that “freedom means freedom for everyone.”
The political risks are minimal, and if the president provides strong and steady leadership on the issue, he could solidify the future of same-sex marriage and human rights for LGBT Americans.
This is where the future is. While I don’t blame politicians from making political calculations — it’s a reality of electoral politics — this is an issue for the history books. One that President Obama needs to come out on the right side of.
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John DeLucie tours NYC's Union Square Food Market
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Remembering Peter Falk
Peter Falk, the actor best known for his TV role as Columbo, is dead at 83. Falk won four Emmys during his 22-year run as an unassuming police lieutenant. He also was nominated for two Academy Awards.
Credit: The Daily (www.thedaily.com)
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