As far as L.A. strip malls go, the northeast corner of Soto and Bandini may be one of L.A.’s more cloistered. The L.A. River bounds its interior, while the dusty open plains of quarries, plants, and truck stops flank its faceless front.
This Southeast L.A. strip mall serves as the domain of Carla Galvez-Toso, a Lima-born entrepreneur who owns Dolphin Trucking School inside of this small triangle of businesses, as well as Carlita’s Antojitos next door, a source for Peruvian sandwiches, desserts, and home cooking.
Galvez-Toso is a retired truck driver, and so is her husband. Many other members of her family continue to drive long hauls to this day. Carla opened Carlitas in the thick of 2020’s bad times, starting by selling Peruvian sandwiches and empanadas.
You’ll still find those sandwiches served here today. $10 and under, on bubbly, light Italian rolls sourced from Queens Baking Company in Upland, where the family lives. Stuffed with butifarra and salsa criolla, beef milanesa, lechon, lomito al jugo, chicharrón, and other such stuff as meaty dreams are made.
Not long after opening, truckers from all backgrounds began pulling in here, ending their journeys from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and beyond along the network of L.A. freeways that cluster nearby. Satisfied in finding a late-night destination for Peruvian food after days on the road, these customers pressed Carla to start providing lomo saltado and other staple recipes of Peruvian cuisine. She makes her lomo with tender filet mignon.
“My mom has always cooked really, really good,” says Giancarlo Galvez, Carla’s 24-year-old son, in between running the register, preparing orders, and bringing them to the table. “I mean, she watches all those videos on Peruvian channels, but she just knows how to cook.”
Carlita’s is a small space decorated with traditional Incan touches and graced by a large photograph of tapas Limeñas, historical women with one eye peering out from their veils, stretching back to 16th-century Lima. An image of one is used as Carlita’s logo, as well.
You can imagine how restorative this food might feel after concluding a long, seated cross-continental journey. Giant chalices of leche de tigre set before you, a tangy ambrosia soaking up smooth swai and plump, cooked shrimp beneath a pale yellow surface bobbing with dried and fresh kernels of giant corn.
There’s creamy, spiced ají de gallina with all the comforts of a home-cooked meal, also served inside braided-edged, crescent-shaped empanadas and hulking plates of salchipapas, a jumble of reddish-pink, fried hot dog slices over crisp French fries. This street food favorite could crush any hunger.
Threads of fried pork spill out of the chicharrón sandwich, its heavenly Italian roll splintering audibly along with thinly sliced red onion salsa criollo, a dab of sweet potato, and the wonders of a simple mayonnaise spread. Paired with one of the restaurant’s herby, housemade chicha moradas, it’s lunch fit for a king or queen of the road.
The menu has other lesser-known Peruvian dishes that demonstrate the cuisine’s breadth and multiculturalism, like seco de pollo, the Afro-Creole tripe stew called cau cau, sopa a la minuta, sopa wonton (wonton soup) and the fried rice dish, arroz con chaufa, which will sometimes be made with duck, as a special.
The menu has a significant selection of pastas based on different tallarines (noodles), which bear Italian influences in the pesto-like tallarines verdes and Chinese influences in the stir-fried tallarín saltado, splitting the middle with a spicy tallarín a la Huancaina, from the Andean city of Huancayo.
“Peru is filled with different cultures,” Giancarlo, whose dad is Honduran and has grandparents from Italy, tells L.A. TACO. “Lomo saltado, the most famous plate in Peru, uses soy sauce and oyster sauce. Peru just makes a mix of all different influences.”
Carla and her family also hope to make their strip mall a weekend destination for L.A.’s Peruvian community, providing a one-stop address for Peruvian goods and foods at their Inka Market so Peruvian families don’t have to travel too far to get what they’re looking for.
The market is a day-long affair on Sundays, in which various suites of the building neighboring Dolphin feature Peruvian imports such as fútbol jerseys, high-end alpaca jackets for fashionistas, handmade wallets and jewelry, toys, toritos de Pucarás, Peruvian pantry items, choclo and rocoto, sacks of mote pelado and harina morada, and aji sauces. Oh, and custom clothes for dogs made in Peru, another of Carla’s side hustles.
The market started in Downey with a few more food vendors. During our visit to the new location, a vendor from Cuzco, Luz del Sol, was frying the sweet Peruvian fritters known as picarones in the parking lot beside her two sons, who told us she was a singer back home.
Forged from camote and calabaza (sweet potato and squash), each bright orange ring gets lifted from the scalding oil and pierced on the end of a long stick, before they’re drizzled in a thick syrup of unrefined sugar and boxed for the customer. Crispy on the outside and light with restrained sweetness on the inside, these picaroneras' wares are worth the trip alone, a sensational snack before or after a bite next door at Carlita’s.
Ultimately, it could be a battle between your sweet tooth, your stomach, and your hypothalamus, though.
Carlita’s itself has excellent desserts and pastries made by Alejandra Galvez, one of Carla’s daughters. There’s an indulgent tres leches, its maelstrom of strawberries, cream, and cake bringing a certain sexy poem instantly to mind. And chocolate cake by the slice that is to die for, with notes of darker chocolate obliterating any traces of cloy.
For Giancarlo, it may not matter which you choose. His experiences with seeing so many people from all over embrace and extol Peruvian food in the U.S. have been a thrill. The same goes for the Peruvian restaurants he sees opening up from Hollywood to Upland.
“Growing up [in West Covina], I was the only Peruvian kid in school,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Where are you from?’ And I was like ‘Peru.’ And they were like, ‘Peru?!’ and would make a face, like, ‘Where’s Peru?’ But the older I get, the more people have heard of it and seem to love it.”
Carlita’s Antojitos ~ 3634 S. Soto St. Vernon, CA 90058
