Huevos Rancheros: As Good as it Looks
Catherine Bergen is a hugger. When I met her at 7:30AM at C Casa, her “innovative taqueria” in the Oxbow Public Market, I went to shake her hand, but instead was enveloped in a warm embrace. She has a perpetual smile, an optimistic outlook, and the calm demeanor of someone who takes her hardships in stride, and shares the love as much as possible - especially in her food.
I’ve eaten her huevos rancheros every day possible for the past year. It’s a compulsion, a craving. There is something about the combination of ingredients, all served up on a tortilla that is cooked on the griddle, right there in front of you, that makes it taste so good.
In fact, I have the ingredients memorized: on top of two tortillas are black beans and a fried egg. Then on top of that are sweet corn relish and pico de gallo. There is a sprinkling of cotija cheese and a drizzle of slightly spicy chipotle aioli, topped off by three slices of avocado and a stem of cilantro. Its fresh, nutritious and gives me enough energy, even at 7:30 in the morning, for the entire day.
The huevos rancheros is the most expensive thing on the breakfast menu, at $14, and with the $3 Mexican coffee - delicious drip coffee flavored with sugar and cinnamon, with your choice of almond or whole milk - with tax, my daily breakfast comes to $18.32. You may think that’s expensive, but I will always pay for quality.
There are less expensive items for breakfast. A pork carnitas breakfast tostada, consisting of an egg over medium, white beans, corn relish, poblano chiles, greens, lime crema and cotija cheese is only $8.25. An over medium egg and chorizo taco, with chorizo, black beans, garlic aioli, pico de gallo, avocado and cilantro is $6. Fresh squeezed orange juice is a bit pricey at $4 for a 9 ounce and $7 for a 16 ounce, but it was most likely just pressed that morning.
When I interviewed Bergen, we sat at a table in her “taco lounge,” against the railing of the exterior seating area at the Oxbow. The autumnal sun was just coming up and the air was still moist with dew. She had graciously gotten up to the window to and brought me my favorite dish.
Bergen has been in the food business for quite some time. In the late 1990’s she started Tulocay & Company, that marketed the “Made in Napa Valley” brand of spices, flavored olive oils, vinegars and tapenades. She sold the business in 2008 and decided to travel in Mexico where she developed a love for Mexican food. She wanted to return to the US to open a taqueria.
She got that chance in the Spring of 2010 when the owner of Roli Roti, a roasted chicken restaurant that had been in the Oxbow from its inception, decided that that space wasn’t for him. She leased the space, and bought his rotisserie from him. You can still see it there, just to the right of the cash register.
Since then a whole, moist, tender, perfectly roasted chicken can be purchased for $16.50. You can either eat it at the Oxbow with a salad, or, do what I do, and take it home for dinner when you don’t have time or energy to roast a chicken yourself. This summer, for example, when the tarragon came in from my garden, I bought a chicken, pulled all the meat, chopped it up, mixed it with mayonnaise and the tarragon, and served it on a bed of butter lettuce with a Model Bakery baguette. It was delicious.
As we were talking, and I was devouring my huevos rancheros, Andrea, an employee of Bergen’s, walked out of the restaurant. Bergen greeted her cheerfully, and Andrea got in her car and drove off. Bergen told me she lets her take her lunch at 8:00AM so she can take her kids to school. The kitchen staff gets there at 5:00AM to prepare for the 7:30AM opening.
Bergen then told me that everyone working in the kitchen at the Oxbow has been with her from the beginning. I’ve noticed the order takers come and go in the last year since I’ve cultivated my huevos rancheros addiction, but the kitchen staff - the tortilla presser, the grill and expediter - haven’t changed. The logical flexibility Bergen gives to her employees, allowing them to do something as tender as take their kids to school, endears them to her, and only makes them, devotedly, work harder. Any restaurateur in the Napa Valley looking to retain their employees should take note.
Besides the challenge of retaining staff, another challenge is balancing customer expectations with providing quality food. People think that because it’s a taqueria, that it should be fast. But sometimes, she says, when it gets really busy and there is a line to the door, people can wait 30 minutes for their order, and they get upset. While she is apologetic, she just explains that she is not going to sacrifice quality for expedience. She would rather you wait a little bit, and eat something delicious, than get something sloppy right away. Good food takes time.
Another secret to her success, besides consistency - my huevos rancheros is exactly the same every time - is an incredible attention to detail. The next time you’re there, notice the branding. Her logo, the “C” within a medallion, is everywhere - on the menu, on the coffee and water cups, on the paper tissue and the sign on the stainless steel hood. Even the lights are bulbs enframed in the medallion shape. You can see her van that transports food from the commissary next to the old JV Wine & Spirits building to the Oxbow, and her outlets in the Emeryville Public Market, and at Bishop Ranch in San Ramon, is white like everything else, with the C logo, and same font as on all her other collateral.
Tulocay & Company, her first foray into the food world, doesn’t seem to exist anymore. The website www.tulocayandco.com is forwarded to a Chinese site. There is a brief description on Linkedin, but has no posts or people related. There is only one Yelp review from 2010 that is obviously a paid advertisement from a social media influencer. And www.madeinnapavalley.com sends you to a burner site, anonymously forwarding you to random culinary sites like the Culinary Institute of America and an Amazon aggregator for bulk spices.
This is what so often happens. An entrepreneur will start a business, put her heart and soul into it and build it into something special. Then, she sells it to someone who doesn’t have the same sensitivity, creativity or substance that made the business thrive in the first place. Usually, they run it into the ground.
On the morning after our interview, I was back at the Oxbow, in my usual spot, eating my huevos rancheros. I was about half way done and when a woman walked by me and leered at my plate of food, seemingly hypnotized. I caught her eye, and she apologized as if she was invading my privacy. I smiled, obviously forgiving her because she is clearly susceptible to the kind of huevos rancheros love that I am. “It just looks so good!” she said.
“I know!” I said, “and it tastes as good as it looks!” That’s what passion tastes like.
C Casa is open Monday to Saturday 7:30AM to 8:30PM and Sunday closes at 8:00PM in the Oxbow Public Market. Other outlets are in the Emeryville Public Market and City Center at Bishop Ranch in San Ramon. Tacos range from $6 to $9, but there are nachos, salads, quesadillas, and even a whole rotisserie duck.
If you want to experience huevos rancheros love with John Henry Martin sometime, email him at jhm@johnhenrymartin.com.
