A trip to the Bay Area swap meet food stall the NYT is obsessed with

The Richmond Flea Market is tucked into the northern tip of the city, where smoke from the nearby Chevron refinery looms overhead and middle-class homes lining West Gertrude Avenue suddenly give way to an industrial zone dotted with run-down trailers and fruit stands. 

A bit farther down, past the parking lot, is the market, or La Pulga, a maze of tents and shipping containers hawking everything from old auto parts and imitation Lululemon to lamps, sneakers, toys and paletas. Barbacoa Mejía, which was recently heralded by the New York Times, is in the middle of this open-air mall, a large eatery held together by tarp and aluminum. 

It’s noon on Sunday, and the colorful, serape-covered tables are almost full. People flock here to taste Omar Mejía’s lamb barbacoa, which is cooked overnight in a hole in the earth as his relatives in the Mexican state of Hidalgo have been doing for nearly 95 years. Mejía’s immediate family, including his two adult children, help bring the restaurant to life every weekend.

Barbacoa Mejía isn’t the only stall serving slow-cooked lamb — La Pulga is known for the Hidalguense tradition — but it’s the only one that the Times called one of the greatest Mexican restaurants in the country right now. The only other Bay Area restaurant to make the list was three-Michelin-starred Californios in San Francisco.

“My grandfather, father, brothers, cousins and nephews, we all make barbacoa,” Mejía, a former construction worker, told SFGATE in an interview. “This is the food of our culture, and we want to share it.”

Together with his son, Omar Yosef, Mejía starts by digging a hole in the ground, he explained, and lining it with bricks and wood to create an oven. The lamb, which is wrapped in agave leaves, is placed inside and steamed. Once covered, runoff broth from the meat is later mixed with rice, onions, garlic and garbanzo beans and served alongside the meat as a savory consomé. 

The entire process, which takes 10 to 12 hours, according to Mejía, yields lamb so tender that it not only falls off the bone but tastes almost otherworldly topped with the family’s salsa verde, which they make with tomatillos and prickly pear. It’s all tucked inside traditional blue corn tortillas that are pressed in the kitchen to order. 

Two other specialties Mejía is known for: a rare version of pollo barbacoa in which he adds to the pit a whole spatchcocked chicken that’s covered in adobo marinade, pork rinds and strips of nopales and wrapped in maguey leaves; and pancita roja, or offal-stuff lamb stuffed with ruddy adobo to punch up its subtle flavors and textures. Also not to miss: Mejía’s vegetarian quesadilla, made with tender squash blossoms, mozzarella and queso fresco.

That day, Mejía pulled his slow-cooked meats from a hot carrier and unwrapped the lamb and chicken from their leaves as steam and intoxicating umami aromas filled the air. Then his butcher knife went to work, dicing the meats into glistening morsels and stuffing them into just-blistered blue tortillas. 

While father and son start prepping a week in advance, Alondra, Mejía’s wife, a school cafeteria worker, manages the restaurant’s bustling front of the house with daughter Viviane, who takes orders and buses tables when she’s not working as a professional dance teacher. You might even spot their youngest, Ariana, stationed by the host stand with her mother, according to her big brother.

“This has always been our thing,” said Viviane, who remembers helping her dad when she was no more than 7 or 8. “I really applaud my dad for doing it and growing it into something. When you really want something, you make it work.”

Mejía, of American Canyon, spent the better part of his career in construction and carpentry, and before that, he was washing dishes in restaurants and working harvest for wineries in the Napa Valley. In the past, he made barbacoa mostly by request, pit-roasting for parties and other catering gigs, and for a brief time, he even sold to restaurants. But most have gone out of business, he said.

Then, six years ago, Mejia hung up his hammer and opened the flea market stall, carrying on a tradition that his ancestors started in 1932 in the city of Tulancingo. That stand is still there today. As the stand caught on, drawing Hidalguenses with its homey flavors, the family added Sundays and the tables started to fill up. A 2021 LA Eater story in which writer Bill Esparza traversed California in search of Mexican-style pit-roasted meat introduced Barbacoa Mejía to a broader audience.

Omar Yosef said they were surprised by the New York Times shouting them out as one of the best Mexican restaurants in the country. When the newspaper first reached out, they assumed it was for another story on the art of barbacoa. “We’re proud of what we’ve done and how far we’ve come,” Omar Yosef said. “And we’re happy that people who aren’t from Mexico are coming to try our food.”  

His father concurred, saying that the national attention has increased the number of non-Hispanic diners coming to the restaurant. But overall, La Pulga is struggling. Four years ago, the flea market would attract about 4,000 people; now it’s closer to 1,800, Mejía said, adding that he has since cut his staff in half. 

“A lot of the Hispanic community gets scared to come out because of ICE, so they stopped,” he said. 

The outing is very much worth the $2 Sunday admission (free on Saturdays) for a taste of nearly a century of pit-roasting tradition right here in the Bay Area.

Barbacoa Mejía, Richmond Flea Market, 716 W. Gertrude Ave., Richmond. Open Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.