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When he dreamed of opening a loncheria in 2018, David Lizaola imagined serving classic Jaliscan lonches on lime and beer-enriched birote. The sour, dark-crusted, spongy capsule would be the vessel for soupy beans and stewed meats.
But Lizaola couldn’t find birote in Portland. He even traveled to his parents’ hometown in Jalisco to apprentice at a bakery, planning to bake the bread himself, but he soon realized that alone would be a full-time job.
“It was the hardest part of this cart,” Lizaola says.
Vietnamese banh mi baguettes were too crumbly and Puerto Rican flauta de agua just didn’t hold up. In May 2020, with 10 days left until his new cart’s opening day, he made his final pivot: Portland French Bakery’s ciabatta loaf would bookend his lonches, the stars of his new food cart, ¡Chayo!
He admits he’s taken a departure from tradition by using ciabatta, but he’s not seeking to mimic the loncherias of his childhood. He’s fulfilling a generations-old dream, harbored by his mother.
“Her biggest regret was not following her passion,” Lizaola says. “I want to carry that torch for my mom.”
Chayo, short for Rosario, is what everyone called her. The house was abuzz with calls for “¡Chayo!,” and no more fervently than in the kitchen. With ¡Chayo!, Lizaola nods to his mother’s cooking and puts a spin on his own memories. In the process, he’s graced Portland with some of its best handheld food.
¡Chayo!’s menu includes the cult-favorite Sonoran hot dog—a bacon-wrapped dog stuck to its steamed bun, topped with crema, pickled jalapeños and caramelized onions, “which not everyone adds for some reason,” says Lizaola. He’s kept the nostalgic dog traditional, but that’s about it.
“Lomo is common [in lonches] but in many loncherias it would just be boiled,” Lizaola says. “They wouldn’t do any marinades on it.”
In the Hot Oli—named after a generous Kickstarter donor—Lizaola gives his pork loin an adobado treatment by massaging the cuts with a blend of guajillo pepper, herbs, alliums, and warming spices. Within the lonche, the pork carries the marinade, provides some good chew, and weighs down a layer of caramelized onions. A slice of ham and melted pepper jack trap chunks of grilled pineapple atop the loin. Mama Lil’s peppers adhere to the cheese so they don’t fall out, and none of this is an accident. Lizaola has engineered the sandwich to straddle the line between messy and reasonable—he cuts his ham to match the bread’s floor plan and strategically melts his cheese to cocoon slippery ingredients. Similar attention is given to the balance of flavor and texture. It’s a perfect sandwich.
The cart is an homage to Chayo in more ways than its namesake. The pork in the Hot Oli is similar to what Chayo cooked, though she never put it in a sandwich. Lizaola’s main kitchen role as a child was to marinate and grill the carne asada, which he now packs into a sleeping bag of crisped cheese in his Gringa taco.
Though he’s always loved to cook, and even did ad hoc professional catering for friends’ weddings and the occasional staff meeting at schools where he used to work, Lizaola feels like he’s taken a leap with ¡Chayo!
“It’s a hard decision to quit what you’ve been doing for 10 to 15 years,” Lizaola says of leaving his job in education, “but I felt like it was time to pursue my childhood dream.”
EAT: Chayo, 3601 SE Division St. 11:30 am-2 pm lunch, 4:30-8 pm dinner Thursday-Saturday, 11:30 am-6 pm Sunday.