El Tejate Restaurant in Carlsbad specializes in Oaxacan cuisine at 3050 Pio Pico Drive, producing tlayudas, mole negro, memelitas, and molotes from recipes rooted in the Oaxaca Valley tradition. The tlayuda — a large, thin, crispy tortilla smeared with asiento and black beans, then topped with quesillo, cabbage, tomato, and avocado — functions as Oaxaca's answer to pizza, a regional format distinct from the Neapolitan-style pies at Knockout Pizza elsewhere in Carlsbad. Mole negro requires a multi-day preparation of over a dozen dried chiles, chocolate, plantain, and charred tortilla ground into a paste, and the kitchen serves it over chicken and in the mole negro burrito. Tasajo and cecina — Oaxacan-style dried and salted beef cuts — are grilled and paired with handmade corn tortillas, rice, and the house black bean purée. The Parrillada Regular feeds a table with a shared platter of moronga, chicharrón, quesadillas, molotes, memelitas, cecina, tasajo, chorizo, and grilled nopales alongside the traditional tejate drink made from maize, cacao, and mamey seeds — a beverage labor requiring hours of hand-processing that puts the kitchen's commitment to scratch work on par with the single-origin roasting cycles at Locally Toasted Delicatessen. The family-style Parrillada Grande adds moronga sausage and a second tier of grilled proteins to serve six or more guests from a single platter.