cincuenta taquerías

2011.09 Cemitas Poblanas Elvirita

November 13, 2011

3010 E 1st St, Los Angeles, CA 90063

Boyle Heights

On a mission to experience more fine Pueblan tacos árabes, Carmen and I journeyed again to the Eastside for a tasty treat. I liked Elviritas a lot – the small Boyle Heights restaurant has a breezy, tropical feel to its casual interior.

The tacos árabes were not quite as good as those at La China Poblana, but they were still very good. Chunks of meat wrapped in a tortilla like a burrito. I am someone long accustomed to ordering foods “plain” and an enthusiast of the “all meat” burritos at old-school California Mex restaurants. I cannot go wrong with tacos árabes. The tortillas were beautifully turning golden-brown around their edges.

2011.08 Cemitas La China Poblana

October 30, 2011

3568 Whittier Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90023

Boyle Heights

I have been moderately obsessed with Pueblan tacos árabes since I first heard about them late last year – cousins of the al pastor taco, the arab taco is also made from marinated pork with grilled onions and spices, and ideally roasted on a vertical spit. The chopped meat is served on a big and preferably handmade tortilla. Unlike conventional tacos, the tortilla is flour, and raw onions, cilantro and salsa are not part of the plan, but there is a heavy provision of a smoky, barbecue-like chipotle sauce.

The tacos árabes at La China Poblana are the best I have tried yet. Oh man, the pork was tender and flavorful and the smoky chipotle sauce made my head swim. I was self-conscious of my own human pleasure as I ate them.

The environs contribute to the pleasure, as the entire dining area is an indoor-outdoor hybrid space. The place has a distinctly informal character. Don’t be creeped out by the chef in the photo – it’s just a statue.

2011.07 Guisados

Saturday, September 10, 2011

2100 E Cesar Chavez Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90033

Boyle Heights

The Eastside feels accessibly hip at Guisados, the pleasantly bustling dining room crowded with diverse customers, the high-ceilinged volume activated by wall art and big chalkboards.

Spanish for “stews,” Guisados specializes in these wet and flavorful concoctions, stylistically similar to the guisado tacos Westsiders will know from Lotería Grill. The tortillas are handmade. I ordered the sampler for $6.99, which as you can see gets you a heavy plate with plenty of variety. I don’t remember which ones were good, but then they were all good. I recommend this sampler.

I was pleased by the colorful and variegated appearance of these goop tacos. They were very tasty.

2011.06 Carnitas Los Gordos aka Erika’s Tacos

Saturday, August 20, 2011

3818 E Cesar Chavez Ave, East Los Angeles, CA 90063

East Los Angeles

Kyle and I were on a bike ride through East Los Angeles on a Saturday morning and Kyle suggested we eat breakfast. I knew that we would encounter something good if we headed down Cesar Chavez, and of course we did – in fact, pulled a quick u-turn after seeing and smelling wonderful smoking chickens on a home-made halved-drum grill. Smoky goodness.

We both ordered one each of the carnitas (one must go with the namesake), chorizo (in honor of breakfast – it wasn’t yet 10:00 AM) and carne asada tacos. They were large, and probably were $1.25 each (the total was $10 for six tacos including two juice drinks). Well prepared, with leathered tortillas; after she handed me my plate, the taquera asked if I wanted grilled onions too. What a lovely question. Later the other taquera came by and brought us each a grilled jalapeño, delivered with a warning. The salsas were rich and spicy.

The carnitas was the champ but the others were great too – befitting a place called “Carnitas Los Gordos,” it was prepared with rigor and care, cooked slow to bring out the natural porkiness. Eating these righteous tacos, this was a fantastic meal, the sort that puts you in a happy place mindful of how good life can be, and life in Los Angeles in particular. The environmental aspects contribute.

Los Gordos has that tiny building, but the action is outside. One sits in a parking lot in front of a house, next to two easy-ups, the space bounded on three sides by small buildings and on the fourth by a wall of chicken smoke. It would be tough to sit down at one’s drafting table and come up with a design for a more pleasant informal space.

2011.05 Taquería el Repollito

Sunday, August 7, 2011

102 5th Street, Coalinga, CA 93210

Coalinga

Just a few miles off Interstate 5, somewhere between Los Angeles and Sacramento, you can find the town of Coalinga. Fortunately or unfortunately bypassed by the big freeway, charming Coalinga maintains a humble and historical character, its economy largely driven by agribusiness and prisons.

Taquería el Repollito, in the middle of town, makes a fine place to stop for some road trip tacos. Carmen and I stopped off in the midst of taking the scenic route home from San Jose.

I had one each of the carne asada, al pastor, and carnitas tacos. The tacos ordinarily come with cabbage, which I asked them to hold, but now that I know that “el repollito” means “little cabbage,” I wonder if I made the wrong decision asking them to hold their namesake component.

They were all very good, and big in size.

I appreciate the vaguely informal style of the building – it reads as a rectangle with a ramada-like canopy erected as an afterthought. The canopy’s structure is rather crude, but in an appropriately agricultural way, meeting one’s expectations of what to encounter on the Open Road in the American West.

2011.04 Beto’s Tacos

March 26, 2011

Jefferson at Redondo, Los Angeles, CA 90016

West Adams

The other day Pierre made a visit to Beto’s Tacos, a truck that stations itself on Jefferson at Redondo a few blocks west of La Brea – pretty close to where I live – and gave it a strong recommendation. Carmen and I went there tonight for dinner, and found it to be super good.

This stretch of Jefferson next to the Expo Line tracks is industrial in nature and totally quiet at night, but near to a dense residential neighborhood to the north. We were there at about 8:00 on a Saturday night. The industrial nature of the environment contributes to a Blade Runner Urbanism sensibility – here referring to the fact that Blade Runner is supposed to depict a terrible post-apocalyptic version of the city; but to the viewer, the dense, multi-ethnic, urban downtown in which Deckard enjoys his street-vendor noodles is a pretty appealing vision of Los Angeles.

Beto’s establishes a little outpost of urbanity here in the wasteland. The truck is parked on the street, and a tarp is tied from the truck’s canopy to the steel fence of the adjacent empty parking lot, creating a low roof over the sidewalk and transforming it into a quite cozy dining room, trapping warm air and creating an intimate acoustic environment. Unlike most trucks, Beto’s is configured so that you can really see the action inside, and watch your tacos being made. The staff was friendly and quite obviously conscientious about making tacos righteously.

I ordered one each of the carne asada, al pastor, suadero, and carnitas tacos, reasonably sized and very inexpensive at $1.00 each. They were photographed before I applied cilantro, onion and salsa from the condiment bar on the counter.

The asada was finely diced and surprisingly gamey, reminding me a bit of lengua. It is boiled in a big wok-looking thing with a brownish water and some big onions. I enjoyed it. The suadero and carnitas both had a similar texture of friedness, finely diced and oily-crispy. But the big winner was definitely the al pastor. Beto’s runs a trompo inside the truck, topped with an onion. When my order came up, the taquero sliced a bit of blackened-orange exterior off the trompo into a big scoop and then did a final prep on the griddle. The al pastor purists often state that the most righteous al pastor is that cut directly off the spit and into the tortilla in which it is served, but I can’t claim definitively that the plancha finish might not add something valuable. The al pastor here was delicious, savory, with great texture and richness. It’s not as good as Tacos Leo, because you don’t get any big slices of pineapple on top, but it was better than any non-trompo pastor I’ve had.

I am made happy again to find even more awesome tacos, right here in the Blade Runner-scape, near my home, in my belly.

2011.03 Tacos Guadalajara in L.A.

March 1, 2011

In front of “R” Ranch Markets Bodega on Adams at Redondo, Los Angeles, CA 90016

West Adams

I was out this evening doing reconnaissance for the LoMos blog and couldn’t resist stopping at this truck for a snack when I passed it along the way. This used to be a stopping point for a Tortas Ahogadas truck, although I didn’t have the presence of mind tonight to ask if they belonged to the same operators. As I mentioned to Bandini (who reviewed this truck during his “30 Trucks in 30 Days” challenge in which he demonstrated the principle of Working Hard to Stay Awesome), I have seen a sidewalk trompo out front of this truck on weekend evenings, but never had the good sense to stop and try it out. Tonight, no such trompo luck (trompo luck is the best kind of luck), only the routine good luck of great tacos for $1 each.

I rolled up and would not have been sure they were open for business, except for the man standing on the sidewalk enjoying a plate of tacos. There is no menu board. I asked the young assistant what was available and she recited the list. I asked for one each of the carne asada and the al pastor. Later the young assistant flattered me by asking about my cargo bike.

This truck is unusual, as Bandini described, insomuch as it is not occupied from within, but rather opened up and operated from the sidewalk. More than meets the eye, this truck is a friendly Autobot. A stainless steel diamond plate apron folds down from the truck to create a secure standing platform. The taquera is standing in front of the plancha, and next to the young assistant below the bags of Cheetos and Taki is a fully stocked salsa bar with lidded, built-in compartments. If like me you also harbor secret dreams of throwing off that conventional, suburban lifestyle in favor of urban loft living in a vast, disused warehouse space (like in the classic movie Quicksilver), where a gutted conversion van rolled into the space can serve as your bedroom and your kitchen is a taco truck, then this would be a good style of taco truck to consider for that purpose.

The taquera prepared the al pastor on the griddle upon my ordering it, abundant with caramelized onions (sorry about the blurry photo). It is sweet and rather saucy, and not unlike an Asian stir-fry dish. I garnished both tacos with the rojo, medium in spiciness and unusually tart. The carne asada was fairly average, and I preferred the pork. The tortillas were bilaminated and excellently leathery. These were solid tacos to enjoy on the sidewalk at the righteous taco corner of Adams and Redondo.

2011.02 Tacos Tamix

February 5, 2011

Parked at the front of the car wash at 2400 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90006

Pico-Union

Bandini at The Great Taco Hunt shared with us the fact that the great Tacos Leo had some competition for best al pastor here in the middle part of the city. Carmen and I finally went to Tacos Tamix last night, eager to find out for ourselves. It was Friday night just after 9:00 PM, prime time for eating tacos fresh from the trompo. We had both recalibrated our al pastor meters with a trip to Leo two weeks earlier.

Tamix has a great spot, in a car wash (that was actually seeing some use despite the chilly evening) but right next to the sidewalk. There was a cozy, collegial atmosphere among the taco eaters gathered there, as if Pico Boulevard were somebody’s backyard.

I ordered four tacos al pastor, good-sized at $1.00 each. The trompo-master showed us his moves, deftly manipulating the spit and artfully cutting slices of pineapple to be caught mid-air by the taco-mitt. I applied the very spicy red salsa from the condiment table. The meat was sliced thin, more like shavings than chunks of filet. The pineapple chunks were substantial.

These tacos were super delicious, as good as Tacos Leo on a normal day, and better than Leo on a bad day (we have found Tacos Leo to be always good, but not consistently at its best). The pork was tender and flavorful, and the sweet toasted pineapple slices completely subdue one’s internal thought conversation with a sense of happy worshipful respect. Tacos Tamix is most worthy.

2011.01 Lomo Arigato

January 31, 2011

10601 W Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232

Culver City

The blog has been so silent. I took the month of January off, and though I ate tacos plenty and burritos manifold, revisiting some dear old taco shop acquaintances, I visited no new taco shops. The cincuenta taquerías project has concluded. I visited 60 different Los Angeles-area taco shops in the year 2010. It was a worthwhile and rewarding project and I conclude by recommending such projects. The taco project made my 2010 memorable. It is good to define a project, no matter how trivial or irrelevant, and then set out to do it, and then do it. Furthermore, it is good to visit taco shops and eat tacos whether you are self-reflective about it or not.

I will keep the blog active and post to it occasionally when I have something to say about tacos or taco shops, but the updates may be more like monthly than weekly. I recommend The Great Taco Hunt for your regular taco news fix.

Furthermore, I intend to collate my photos and writings from the past year and design a book, which I will make to be published. I expect that only one copy will be sold, and to myself. I will take good care of it, and then donate it late in life to an important research library. My hope is that it finds its way into the hands of a taco archaeologist 100 years from now, when society has plunged deep into the Mad Max-Max Headroom days but there will still be some weird Brazil scene where a nerdy guy with thick glasses is conducting obscure research in a grey jumpsuit in a grey room with a typewriter hooked up to a computer who needs to know about the world of tacos in the year 2010. This book is dedicated to you, future nerd version of myself. I will announce the book’s publication to my blog’s half-dozen readers when it is ready.

Last week I learned that the underused parking lot at the former bank building at the corner of Washington and Overland in Culver City has been rechristened “Westside Food Truck Central,” and several days a week plays host to a revolving set of gourmet food trucks. Five minutes from my office! Ambivalent feelings of the twitter-driven gourmet food truck “scene” must be set aside when it actually is convenient and appealing to eat from gourmet food trucks. I cheerfully try to convince myself that life must be awesome, that has such gourmet food trucks in it! Amidst fine weather I visited today and found three food trucks circled around a collection of folding tables and chairs. I was compelled and excited to visit the Lomo Arigato truck and order a Lomo Saltado.

Lomo saltado, a stir fry of beef loin, onion, tomato, and french fries in a soy sauce-based sauce, served with rice, is a Chinese-influenced staple of Peruvian cuisine, and truly one of the finest creations known to the international community of humankind. The Lomo Arigato version is not the best lomo saltado in town, but is quite good, and large and filling; it’s cheaper than going to a Peruvian restaurant at $8; and it comes from a truck. It was most pleasing, actually. Its thinly-sliced meat and long-cooked onions reflect Lomo Arigato’s Japanese influence – the dish recalls a version of Gyu Don (which is to say, what you get when you order a Yoshinoya Beef Bowl) with tomatoes and french fries thrown into the mix.

Speaking of Lomo, I am pleased to announce that I have more or less launched my new blog project. It is entitled The Lower Modernisms and is hosted at http://lomo.architectureburger.com/ . Its subject is architecture and design, specifically those forms of design that are Modernist in style and intent, but fall just short of meeting the minimum standards of actual Modernism. (You must be this Modernist to ride the Modernism ride). Whereas I knew nothing and had no opinions about tacos prior to 2010, I have been stockpiling opinions on crappy Los Angeles Modernizing architecture for years, so I intend to post more frequently than I did post here to my fondly thought-of, but now historical, taco blog project. Thank you, dear half-dozen readers, for your kind support.

60 Arturo’s Puffy Taco

December 18, 2010

15693 Leffingwell Rd, Whittier, CA 90604

Whittier

Sad to say, the Cincuenta Taquerías project is running short on time. This rainy day was my last taco-eating Saturday of the year, which helped justify the lengthy road trip out to Whittier upon which Carmen and I embarked to track down another of the great idiosyncratic tacos of the Los Angeles area, the San Antonio-style “puffy taco” served at Arturo’s. They were pretty great. I can’t write anything more insightful than Jonathan Gold did in his typically persuasive review.

Arturo’s timeless American taco stand is to architecture what junk food is to real food – bringing short-term pleasure and lacking nutritional value. The tiled mansard is interrupted, asymmetrically of course, by a glowing lightbox sign. Arturo’s supergraphics reinforce the theme of general Puffiness that characterizes the food. One orders while standing outside – the defining attribute of a taco stand – but a cozy dining room with vintage built-in tables and booths is there for you too.

I ordered three puffy tacos, one each of the picadillo (ground beef), carne asada, and carne guisada (beef stew). The tacos were $2.00 to $2.50 each.

I started with the picadillo, the default choice and my favorite of the three. The picadillo is a sludge-format of very finely ground beef and seasoning, similar in concept to Taco Bell’s ground beef, but tastier. If you had a large-diameter straw, you could probably drink it like a thick and wonderful milkshake. This type of filling is the ideal complement to the yellow cheddar, lettuce, and red tomato-based salsa that rounds out the puffy taco. The flavorful cheese reminded us both of the cheese that is an essential add-on to the tacos at Tito’s.

I am pleased to report that the puffy taco shell was fantastic. If you accept the tenet that deep-fried dough is delicious, then you must therefore love the puffy taco shell. “Masa” cornmeal flour dough in a thick slab is deep fried; the result is light and airy, oily, crispy and chewy in various parts. Only one of my three tacos suffered a catastrophic failure, but I can’t hold that against the puffy taco because it seems inevitable that a beef stew taco should suffer a failure. The puffy taco shell is delicious with our without contents, which cannot be said for many tortillas or crunchy taco shells.

The beef stew guisada was tasty. It consisted of big cuboid chunks of cheap stew meat slow-cooked to bring out the maximum beefiness. It is not really the right thing to put in a taco, though – my puffy failed and pooped out multiple chunks which I later ate with the help of a fork.

The carne asada is good too. Sparely seasoned, it’s tough in a rewarding way, smoky and charry to the taste, and surprisingly gamy. It works quite well as a puffy taco.

Carmen ate a chile relleno, thickly blanketed with a light and airy eggy batter. We both considered it delicious. We wish that Arturo’s weren’t so far away. It’s 2010 – why hasn’t Google or Apple come out with a desktop 3-D printer/teleporter that can output tacos? The pace of technological development in these times leaves me frustratingly hungry. My computer brings me information about tacos – for example, I first read about puffy tacos at the taco-datascape’s ground floor, Wikipedia’s “Taco” entry. That only makes me hungry! To actually eat puffy tacos, like a sucker you need to put on pants and go do an infinitely long drive.

On the way back, we spotted a bad-ass matte red Hummer with the custom vanity license plate “TAQUERO”. Good to know, in case you need some tacos made somewhere beyond a 22”-high obstacle, a 60% grade, or up to 30” of water.