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In between tamale tastings, drinks and live entertainment at Indio International Tamale Festival 30th anniversary, we took a moment to talk with Casa De Silvia who took home the first place trophy in the “gourmet tamale” category.
Q: Introduce yourself and tell us about your restaurant in downtown Indio.
A: My name is Isamar. I’m the co-owner of Casa De Silvia. We have been in Old Town Indio for five years. We did get started with tamales. We got our start here at the Indio Tamale Festival. And we have been participating now for eight years. We bring our usual ones that we serve at the restaurant. But we also make special ones just for the Tamale Festival, because people are looking for something a little bit different to try.
Q: What can you tell us about the recipes. Do they come from your mom or have they been passed down from generation to generation?
A: They have been passed down through her family and she preserves all of them. So she can keep continuing to cook.
Q: And these are gourmet tamales. How are these different than the traditional tamales?
A: I feel the word “gourmet” is a little bit tricky, because even though these are — some of them are what are considered “traditional.” We keep most of the traditional ways of doing things. So I feel that’s what makes them special. And we do come up with different concepts for the restaurant — I guess that’s what would be considered gourmet.
Q: Will your tamales be available at the restaurant after the festival is over?
A: I wanna say no. It looks like we’re gonna be selling out of the ones that we made for the festival. But we are gonna keep our traditional, which are the ones that people know us for: The pork, the chicken, and the cheese. Those so are best sellers. Those are the ones that people look for. And then we make the chile relleno, strawberry and pineapple for the festival.
Q: Which award did you guys win?
A: We actually won first place for gourmet — that’s what they gave us for this year.
Q: How are you guys going to celebrate?
A: We’re probably gonna take a big nap <laughs>. I know, it doesn’t sound like fun. But we’ve been working like every day. We started at six in the morning, and it’s been every day at six. And we leave here like at 11pm.
Q: This is a family owned restaurant?
A: Yes, it’s family owned. So it’s me, Sylvia and my brother.
Q: You guys all worked together preparing for the festival?
A: We all had our hands on it and we’ve all done different parts of the restaurant. And each of us brings something different.
Q: What’s something that makes your tamales unique from others?
A: Honestly, that we keep our recipes as homemade as we can. We don’t industrialize, or commercialize our recipes. Because to cook at home is one thing, and then to cook for a restaurant is a very different process. We bring in everything fresh. We don’t use anything from cans. We actually buy our produce almost daily. So we’re not getting everything delivered in masses. Nothing is kept in four weeks. Everything is made fresh, almost daily.
Q: Anything else that you would like to add?
A: I just want to say “thank you” to everybody that came to support us. We saw a lot of people that go to the restaurant visit us here. That’s really, really amazing that people take the time to come and still come to support us over here, even though that they already eat at the restaurant all the time. We’re very thankful for the community that has supported us at the restaurant because we’re in Old Town Indio.
Social Media: @casadesilvia