{"id":258,"date":"2010-09-07T21:30:21","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T04:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2010-09-07T21:30:21","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T04:30:21","slug":"45-tacos-el-primo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/45-tacos-el-primo\/","title":{"rendered":"45 Tacos El Primo"},"content":{"rendered":"

45 Tacos \u201cEl Primo\u201d<\/p>\n

September 7, 2010<\/p>\n

Alley just north of Adams Blvd at Redondo Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016<\/p>\n

West Adams<\/p>\n

Carmen and I ventured out for Tuesday evening tacos, seeking trompo. On Saturday night we had seen a giant sidewalk trompo right on the sidewalk in front of a Tacos Guadalajara truck, now occupying the spot on Adams in front of the R-Ranch Bodega, where the Tortas Ahogadas truck used to park. We drove by and espied no trompo, so we figured to head up to Venice and La Brea, my new favorite taco intersection<\/a>, and not because that\u2019s where the combination Taco Bell and Pizza Hut is either. We didn\u2019t get past the corner of Adams and Redondo before we spotted another truck, however, and lo and behold, they had a trompo in the window. Trompo fortune.<\/p>\n

Tacos \u201cEl Primo\u201d is a small taco trailer pulled by an awesome two-tone tan-and-brown F350 \u201cDually\u201d pickup truck. It is parked in a potholed alley parallel to and north of Adams Boulevard, next to an empty corner lot and in between a humble four-unit apartment building and the back of A&C Appliances \u2013 a spontaneous taco community appears regularly in this gritty interstitial space. I found Bandini\u2019s review of Tacos \u201cEl Primo\u201d<\/a> from September 2006, where the photographic evidence reveals the same truck and the same trailer parked in the same place four years ago to the day. Tacos \u201cEl Primo\u201d might look to the observer like an exemplification of the ephemeral nature of taco supply and demand in Los Angeles, but it is a surprisingly permanent fixture. Eating here is a veritable flashback in time to four years ago, when the economy boomed and it seemed like the party would never stop. Everything turned to shit, but Tacos \u201cEl Primo\u201d remained.<\/p>\n

I ordered two tacos al pastor and one carne asada, cheap at $1.00 each. Horchatas are also $1.00 each. It\u2019s like 2006 all over again! Tacos are served plain, and there are large bins containing salsa and a premixed mixture of onion and cilantro. I applied the red to the steak and one al pastor taco, and the green to the other. The tortillas are nicely oiled and griddled to effective leatheriness.<\/p>\n

Carmen loved these tacos. Carmen raved about the steak, which I found very juicy and moist \u2013 Carmen glimpsed the steak being boiled briefly in a dark liquid filled with grilled onions before being griddled. But the red salsa bollixed up my taco. It was pretty spicy, but it tasted like soap. The green salsa was far better.<\/p>\n

The al pastor was good, but not among the best \u2013 I\u2019m not even sure it came from the trompo, since it looked like they were only just firing it up, and we might have come to early for the righteous pork treat. It was tender and thoroughly marinated, but saucy and quite sweet with chunks of fruit and onion in the sauce; good enough for me to give it the endorsement of pronouncing it taco-righteous.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

45 Tacos \u201cEl Primo\u201d September 7, 2010 Alley just north of Adams Blvd at Redondo Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016 West Adams Carmen and I ventured out for Tuesday evening tacos, seeking trompo. On Saturday night we had seen a giant sidewalk trompo right on the sidewalk in front of a Tacos Guadalajara truck, now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[13,12,9,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258"}],"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=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tacos.architectureburger.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}