A restaurant industry veteran and son of Los Angeles is giving our city its own version of Chicago’s Italian Beef, the hulking sandwich given the spotlight through season one on FX’s show The Bear.
Manny Gonzales, owner and chef of Quemada Tacos, recently unleashed El Oso on The City of Angeles at his pop-up restaurant. A take on Italian Beef using Mexican-inspired ingredients, El Oso takes the form of a soft, hot, Pico Rivera-sourced bolillo packed with beef cheek barbacoa dipped into a demi glaze made by reducing the meat’s braising liquid and accented with pickled escabeche.
Gonzales, who was born and raised in Norwalk before his family moved to Pico Rivera in 1991, isn’t afraid of the frenzied demands a hot beef sandwich might forebode, nor the heat of cooking professionally alongside loved ones, as depicted in the show.
After graduating high school in 2003, it was his dad who reached out to an acquaintance to help secure Manny a job at Disneyland, where he started out washing dishes and serving drinks.
“It was just a summer job,” he recalls. “A summer job that blossomed into 14 years.”