"Mexico has some awesome breadmakers, but hardly anyone knows that," Tovar tells me. He is the owner of the hole-in-the-wall coffee shop in Boyle Heights, and creator of the elusive sandwich that is only available for one week out of the month, since he has to drive to Tijuana to pick up the bread whenever he wants to serve it.

Primera Taza 's lonche de lomo might make you feel some strange things—Like Water for Chocolate_-style, and it all has to do with the bread, a sourdough _birote salado that Chuy Tovar imports himself from a panaderia in Guadalajara, Mexico, once a month.

I am sitting down across from him and trying to find out everything there is to know about this Mexican sandwich. It inspired a cult following in Los Angeles from the moment he put it as a special on the menu almost two years ago. Its fans include some of the most popular chefs cooking Mexican food in LA, like Wesley Avila , Ray Garcia , and Eddie Ruiz .

It is a seemingly simple thing: that bread, Mexican crema, roasted pork loin (with the fatcap left on), jalapeños, tomato, onion, and avocado—all showered in a thin red salsa, the recipe of which he picked up from his wife's father. He also does a vegetarian version where the tender pork is swapped out with milky panela cheese, whenever he can source it fresh from a local cheesemaker. As soon as you take your first bite, you will be taken aback by the sour flavor of the bread, tender crumb, and wonderfully jagged, charred crust. It is not quite a torta ahogada and it is not quite a torta. It is its own precious thing.

'I tried 20 different birotes salados around LA from everywhere you can imagine to try to find the right bread, even people making it in their backyards. But nothing came close to the stuff you can get in Guadalajara, so I just started bringing them directly from there myself.'

"I once served it to one of our regular customers who was also from Talpa, my hometown in Jalisco, and he just started bawling as he ate it because it reminded him of being a little kid in Guadalajara," Tovar says. "It started to get a little awkward, so I had to step away from the guy as he ate it and give him space to enjoy it." That very same customer had canceled two of his appointments that day to be among the first to enjoy the lonches. Tovar had got the birotes saladas in from Guadalajara at 2 AM the night before, so the rolls were still springy and soft from the bakery in Mexico.