Jose's! Ole!

I'd been hearing about this mexican place on buttonwood for awhile now. Let's go to buttonwood, let's go to buttonwood! What the hell is buttonwood? Buttonwood is a street off of 10th street, just south of spring garden. There, you will find this little hidden gem - Jose's. The sign says Jose's Groceries, Spanish & American Food. That's very weird because when you go inside, there's no groceries, and they serve Mexican food. And f'ing good mexican food to boot!

We started off with chips and salsa. The chips were super crunchy and not greasy at all. The pico was fresh. We also had some genuine mexican soda. Z had coke and I had a sidral mundet. Ah, how I love apple soda! It's one of my favorite things about mexico. I wish the american soda conglomerates would wake up and start marketing apple soda in the US. They have no idea how well it would do. Seriously, it would go gangbusters!

Z got the steak tostadas. They were supposed to come with some refried beans on it, but I guess they forgot. So he asked for a dish of beans and they happily obliged. My word, these beans were so good. Some of the best beans I've had in any mexican place in Philly. Yum. He also asked for some green salsa and they gave us some excellent and spicy salsa verde.

I went with a spicy chicken torta. A torta, for those of you not familiar, is a mexican sandwich. It can come with whatever filling, but comes in a rather large and flatter roll. There's also beans, veggies, cheese, and some sauce. I love these things. I was first introduced to tortas on my last trip to Mexico. I was in Mexico City for work, visiting Coca-Cola of all places, and on one of the days we went to have tortas for lunch. I remember this clearly as when we were walking to the torta place, from literally across the street, I got super tired. Whew! This was when the whole altitude thing hit me. I would walk for 10 yards and be winded. It was crazy. In any case, they love them some tortas over ther. My tortas in mexico were much more plain, with just meat and a sauce. They were also dirt cheap. I can certainly see why they love em over there. I'll take a torta over a hamburger or turkey sandwich any day!

Jose's

469 North 10th St

215-765-2369