The smell of the meat hitting the charcoal grill takes me back to my early-morning commutes across the border to our new school in San Diego: It’s the smell from the hundreds of food vendors starting their days.
If you’re familiar with char siu pork, the bright red, sweet-and-savory, honey-lacquered Chinese barbecued pork that hangs in the windows of butcher shops around Chinatown, this is the Mexicali version of it.