I’ve eaten many great tamales and many more crappy ones, but hands down the very best are found at Nana Dora’s Drive-In in Brawley CA.

I like tamales. I'm not crazy about them... just... meh. They're ayite.

What about chilli rellenos?

What about chilli rellenos?

Had to look up where Brawley is. Gonna remember that and if I'm ever near the Salton Sea, I'll try them out.

Two great places come to mind for me:
- Street Cravings food truck, Sacramento. Efram doesn't make them often, but they are phenomenal when he does.
- Lucy's Tamale Factory, Watsonville. Always fresh, always excellent.

We have a guy that drives his food truck around on Fridays and knocks on the door. Low filling to masa ratio but they are never dry, only downfall is no sauce.

Not a big fan of Hot Tamales. I prefer Mike & Ike.

Yep middle of nowhere. They are excellent. Well balanced filling to masa ratio. Very moist and each one had a black olive. Very good salsa as well.

Haven't had a really good tamale since I left Phoenix, had three food trucks I frequented depending on the day of the week.

You'd think that getting the ratio right and the moisture would be easy, seems they aren't. Any road I travel out of town I can hit at least 1-2 farm fruit & produce stands within minutes, every one of them sells tamales. Most are a bit on the soggy side. One place even keeps them prepacked in ziploc bags (wtf).

One pass I'll give on the ratio is that there is a churro vendor at the farmers market and some of our brewery big events here who sometimes has tamales, when they do, I'll buy the heck out of them. Usually I'll just ask them if they can make up a tray and I'll come back in a few hours to pick it up. Their ratio is never consistent, but they have a small army of Abuelas on standby to restock on demand. So, ratio be dammed, these are right out of the steamer.

I remember I used to live in the North Side of Denver when I was a young kid for a minute... there was this tamale shop up the street.

Oh sh*t, those were some bomb azz tamales... they were the tamales that all other tamales have been judged in my life.

My.mescan buddies mom makes them this time of year,$10 a dozen.She always sends a couple -3 dozen for Christmas every year...........always a dozen "hot" just for me.Best franking tamales evah

Pastellis