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<\/p>\n20 Cemitas Originales Angelica\u2019s<\/p>\n
April 13, 2010<\/p>\n
Venice Blvd between Jasmine Ave and Vinton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90034<\/p>\n
Palms<\/p>\n
Twenty taco shops deep into 2010, I revisit my taco roots. I luncheoned today at Angelica\u2019s, or as my friends call it, \u201cCemitas Poblanas\u201d or simply \u201cTaco Truck\u201d. This truck specializes in the Puebla-style sandwich known as the cemita, which seems to be their biggest seller, but the tacos are still taken seriously. Angelica\u2019s was the first ever taco truck from which I ate, and the first place I discovered the magic of Al Pastor, way back in 2004. Their al pastor is not the best in the city, but it\u2019s still dang delicious, and it remains the benchmark by which I judge all others.<\/p>\n
Angelica\u2019s parks in front of the Smart & Final on Venice Boulevard in Palms, one of the only trucks regularly parked in this diverse, dingbat-filled neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Today I ordered three tacos, the carne asada, al pastor, and carnitas. They were $1.25 each, slightly larger than average, and served after just a couple of minutes\u2019 wait. I proceeded logically from left to right, first eating carne asada. This taco was such a normal carne asada taco (and keep in mind that normal=delicious in the case of tacos) that I struggle to comment on it \u2013 by the time it had cooled down enough to pick up in the hand, it went by in a flash of light, heat and taste that seems to have wiped my memory clean of all thought and anxiety. Tortillas were the normal type, bilaminated. I did suffer a partial tortilla failure on this first taco, but the others withstood. The salsa is thick, pretty spicy and quite strong. The steak was chopped finely and was very beefy, with good texture and the good kind of buttery fatty flavor.<\/p>\n
I moved on next to the taco al pastor. It was my favorite. The meat is cut into small pieces, and it\u2019s orange except where it\u2019s been charred to near black, with more textural variation than is typical of al pastor. It\u2019s saucy but also seems a little dry-rubby somehow. The intensity of flavor \u2013 a chorizo-like garlic-chile-onion, with salt and citrus pouncing on it \u2013 is truly overwhelming, and would be so even without the addition of red salsa on the top. There are plenty of chunks of fat in the meat. Sometimes I find some gristly bits, but not today. It really was a wonderful taco.<\/p>\n
Al pastor is a funny thing. I know what it\u2019s hypothetically supposed to be \u2013 sliced from a revolving spit with a slice of pineapple sitting on top \u2013 but most of the time, I don\u2019t know where it comes from or how they have made it. It\u2019s different every time. I don\u2019t have the vocabulary or the power of discernment to analyze the competing flavors, and I can\u2019t define it in such a way that all examples would be covered. I will not be the author of the Unified Field Theory of Al Pastor. All I can do is taste it and humbly appreciate its stage presence, its tall, dark and brooding good looks and winning charisma.<\/p>\n
A lesson: \u201cal pastor\u201d is Spanish for \u201cshepherd-style\u201d. Jesus was a shepherd. By the transitive property, the Taco al Pastor is the taco that answers the question, WWJD? Carmen and I are making a small effort to popularize the phrase \u201cal pastor\u201d as a universal term for praise: as in, \u201cCheck out that hot-rodded Honda Ruckus! That shit is al pastor!\u201d or, \u201cThe new Herzog & de Meuron project has a really al pastor fa\u00e7ade.\u201d<\/p>\n
The carnitas taco was third in the lineup. I enjoyed it, but the meat is not remarkable \u2013 it\u2019s the grey carnitas of uniform texture and moist stringy tenderness that you find when carnitas is not a specialty. The green salsa was more extraordinary, being a very potent salsa verde, spicy and intensely cilantro-centered. It reminded me of the aji verde I enjoy at Peruvian restaurants.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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20 Cemitas Originales Angelica\u2019s April 13, 2010 Venice Blvd between Jasmine Ave and Vinton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90034 Palms Twenty taco shops deep into 2010, I revisit my taco roots. I luncheoned today at Angelica\u2019s, or as my friends call it, \u201cCemitas Poblanas\u201d or simply \u201cTaco Truck\u201d. This truck specializes in the Puebla-style sandwich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13,12,14,21,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}