Carnitas Uruapan Offers Rollicking Sunday Special

Carnitas Uruapan offers rollicking Sunday special Express-News Copyright 2013 Express-News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Published 10:17 pm, Sunday, January 13, 2013 For the last year or so, legendary conjunto accordionist Santiago Jimenez Jr., a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship recipient and brother to accordionist extraordinaire Flaco Jimenez, has been performing under-the-radar on Sunday mornings with bajo sexto musician Margarito Guajardo at Carnitas Uruapan on the West Side. The live music - a veritable lesson in conjunto with Santiago Jimenez paying homage to his father Don Santiago Jimenez's greatest songs — “Viva Seguin,” “La Inundacion de Piedras Negras,” “La Piedrera” and “La Tragedia de Felipe Blanco.” With the help of his wife, Marta, and two of his sons, Almanza cooks up pork ribs and other meat the same way his great-great grandfather, Luis Almanza, did in the 1920s in Michoacán, Mexico. [...] Jimenez relishes telling stories about how his dad, who worked as a custodian, sometimes composed songs while mopping floors listening to a Philco radio or how, in the 1940s, his father incorporated a singing cat into his act. Like the best down-home barbeque joints, Almanza keeps it simple for Michoacán-style BBQ, serving what he calls “just pure meat.”