But the restaurant that gets the closest to my mom’s cooking is La Fonda El Taquito, a 40-year-old Kansas City restaurant run by the Medina family.
Especially when I eat their carnitas, I’m transported back to my childhood: cleaning the pinto beans so my mom could cook them, the smell of pork cooking on the stove. I would walk in and tell my mom, “It smells like a Mexican house.” Only those of us who grew up in a Latino household can understand.