Those juicy-looking letters glinting with airbrushed highlights, all cozied up together, used to make my mouth water in anticipation of biting through crackling skin to moist, tender bird flesh injected with spices, smothered in syrup, and perched atop a piping-hot waffle. I nearly crashed my bike every time I rode past, craning my neck to glimpse a spark of life inside the seemingly eternally closed monument. No, I never cracked the code that revealed the hours of operation at Sugar Babies, although I did read the note announcing its sudden departure, and watched the months pass with sinking heart and rumbling tummy until a new restaurant whitewashed over Sugar Babies' public art.
As with many other restaurants' doomed and original eye-catching signage, I observed with mounting dread the six-month closure of one of my all-time favorite local taquerias. The exact date of Muy Macho's sign removal escapes me, but I can recall having to sit down, bow my head between my knees, and take deep breaths, assuming a position of both faint-prevention and supplication. I stared into the widening abyss that now threatened to gobble up not only most provocative dining signage that has ever existed in this city, but also the delicious pork this sign stood for. La puerca feminista! Who could pass by the screen door of a joint that announced itself via a painting of a mustachioed Mexican man on all fours with a beautiful amiga astride him, her luscious breasts embraced by two holsters loaded with bullets? La revolutionaria linda! She smiled serenely above her grinning pony, illustrating all the possibilities of a restaurant called Muy Macho.
Despite the grim implications of sign removal, Muy Macho recently reopened, albeit under a bland vinyl banner. While my special fixation on its sign was apparently not humored by the fates, the resurrected restaurant boasts shiny new kitchen equipment that is put to exceedingly good use. Beer-marinated whole chickens brown in the giant rotisserie. Better than any essential oil aromatherapy, this pollo borracho made me feel better just smelling it, and comes in dinner format ($6.95), complete with generous wedges of fresh avocado, pico de gallo, and beans and rice sprinkled with queso fresco rather than Azteca-esque cheese glue. The addition of a charcoal grill imbues the succulent carne asada (burrito, $4) with a smoky depth I adore. Their specialty, pozole ($7), is like Mexican pho in that you add garnishes and salsas at your discretion, customizing a warming bowl of pork broth thick with chewy hominy and tender pork.
Post-sign, my main fascination with this place is the giant pork-on-a-stick, layered with onions and topped with pineapple, slowly roasting on a souvlaki-style spit (al pastor), twirling prettier than any ballerina in a little girl's jewelry box. The proprietor, so (rightfully) proud of his spit, carved hunks off the tremendous rotating club of puerco and handed out free pork tacos one afternoon, compelling me to re-dedicate my life to pork.
Tacos al pastor ($1.50) are pork poetry--discriminating chunks of pork served on tiny corn tortillas with grilled onions, shredded iceberg, and limes to sweeten and offset the heat. I see no reason to ever order anything else. Two months after Muy Macho's reopening, I pressed every available employee on the whereabouts of the perplexing former sign. My queries were answered with silence. My attempts at Spanish aroused giggles and consternation. In the face of this mystery, I offer a haiku eulogy:
Goodbye, Hot Lady.
I will miss your bullets--
Still, I eat your pork.
Muy Macho
8515 14th S (South Park), 763-7109. Sun-Thurs 10 am-10 pm; Fri-Sat 10 am-11 pm.
