Today: Dia del Taco
Archive for March, 2007
31
Mar
Day of the Taco
Building the Taco Dream
Anthony and I are both 2nd year MFA students at USC’s School of Cinematic Art’s Interactive Media Program. We bonded over a love of weird and historical places in Los Angeles and food- in particular-tacos. And thats pretty much how goodgoings.com came to be.
In one of our interactive design classes we were issued a challenge. Take a 30×12 inch Ikea Cabinet and create something interactive out of it in one week. I toyed around with building a re-creation of the World 1 in Super Mario Bros and a puppet theatre, but decided I needed to inject some taco loving into the project. Thus I decided to make a taco machine.
The concept is simple. Place your taco on the conveyor belt, turn on the machine, dispense your taco ingredients, and eat away. I sat down with my pops (a mechanical engineer) and talked feasiblity- and we decided it was do-able. I called up a family friend- Frank the Carpenter- and pitched him the idea. We immediately came up with a list of the ingredients and hit up Lowe’s for the parts. This past sunny Sunday- we set out to the build the mofo in my parent’s backyard.
The first task was getting the crank-shaft conveyor belt running. Which wasn’t that hard.
Then we decided to power the belt with a motor. However, we couldn’t get enough torque out of the motor Frank had handy. So we decided to strap on a powerdrill and control it with a light dimmer switch. Worked like a charm.
That baby can pull a cadre of hippopottami. The drill sounds like a jet liner passing overheard- giving the machine a sense of power that no 30 by 12 inch box should have. One’s taco will fire out of the machine like a bat out of hell if you don’t just kiss the dimmer. For a second, I felt like Tim Allen in Home Improvement- giving out a grunt of manliness. Thats the first time in my life that I had ever done that.
I brought the contraption to my department’s weekly seminar, where we had to present our creations. And present I did:
People were feeling the asada my ma and I whipped up. However, it was near impossilbe for the user to get the meat to dispense from the plastic squeeze bottles I designed the machine around. One had to resort to quickly scooping their ingredients onto their tortilla and saving the squeezing for the salsa verde and salsa roja I had stocked at the end of the treadmill. We soon found out, that the power on the treadmill made for great tortilla launching. Still, the tacos were in hot demand.
Overall, the concept was solid, I but failed to take into account the dispensers. The meat simply got plugged up in the tubes. I should figured out the meat dispensary problem out before designing the holding mechanism. A lesson learned, indeed.
The next iteration will be fully automated: where the food will dispense according to the position of the taco. The blue sky idea is to have a custom taco machine- where you can input your taco desire and have it neatly served directly into your mouth. They got automatic sushi machines in Japan.
Its just a matter of time till we get an automatic taco machine. I’m on it.
Me and my Taco Machine.
Occidental Showdown
Rambo’s Tacos is a staple for the kids over at Occidental. Open late and decently priced, it keeps the good people of Eagle Rock satiated. I lived in Eagle Rock, for a good while, but never gave much thought to the taco Rambo’s offered- they simply offered a late night snack.
I returned to Rambo’s with Anthony- a bit older, wiser, and with a discerning taco tongue. So we put the tacos to the test.
I ordered a batch of carnitas and carne asada tacos. After smothering one of each kind with both salsa verde y roja I took a bite.
The carnitas were a bit on the bland side- crispy, as I tend to prefer, but not very savory. Even with salsa roja- the carnitas were a definite: “m’yeh”.
The carne asada on the other hand, was quite delicious. The pieces were sliced evenly and had a tinge of chardness- which gave them an almost smoky like quality. Biting in yielded
some juicy bites and I was quite impressed.
Unfortunately, Rambo no tiene Horchata- which deeply saddened my poor Panamanian heart. I ran down the street to the veggie taco joint: Leo’s but they offered no refreshment either. Sadly, I ended up dousing my burning tongue with Diet Coke. No bueno.
Still, when your at All Star Lanes getting hammered on cheap whiskey on Saturday Nights- Rambo offers your late night carne fix. Not the best, but not too bad over all.
Rambo’s Tacos
Location: On the Corner of Eagle Rock and York Boulevards in La Ciudad de Eagle Rock
Positives: Price (1.05), Full Variety of Tacos (Lingua to Pollo), Asada is delish
Negatives: “M’yeh” carnitas, NO HORCHATA
Salsa Roja: HOT
Rating: B
Open Daily: 7pm- 2am
22
Mar
taco boy
South LA Pastor Stylee
It was a cold night, when Anthony and I decided to hunt down a new taco cart. We had heard of some places around 3rd and Rampart, but we decided to pick up a friend who lives around Pico and Alvarado. It’s a lucky thing we did, because on the way out we noticed a crowd of people standing around a construction site.
Anthony declared “Dude, it’s a stand” with a spit of pastor in full view from the road. We immediately busted a U-turn. The cooks were in fine spirits, serving up a long line of customers. After a greeting, I straight up order me some pastor and carnitas- which they were out of- so I rolled with carne asada.
The pastor tacos were phenomenal, with just the right amount of tang and spice independant of salsa. After my initial bite and chew- I doused the suckers with salsa roja and savored the awesomeness. Lately, stands like these have been THE place for pastor tacos, where the meat is delivered not to soggy and not too sweet.
But like other stands, this tends to make the other taco choices suffer. The asada tacos were starkly mediocre, even with some decent salsa verde.
One day, I swear to find a stand that serves horchata, but until then its Orange Crush and Diet Coke with my salsa. One needs some sweetness to douse the sizzle of the al pastor at this joint.
Overall, not too shabby at all- especially for the price.
Rating: B
Horchata Rating: n/a
Salsa Roja: Hot
Positives: Bomb Ass Pastor, Good Salsa
Negatives: No Napkins (they were all out, which is probably a good sign, but still annoying), No Carnitas
Westmoreland and Pico, Near the Construction Site
Los Angeles 90006
For our east coast readers, or those who enjoy some eclectic entertainment, there looks to be a fairly new and very entertaining video podcast brought to us by Fornal Films.
In the UnderbellyNYC episodes, Baron Ambrosia exposes the eateries known to locals and ignored by the guidebooks. In Episode 2, the Baron introduces some local fare in the form of a chimi churri truck…truck food is good. Tacos come from trucks.
I subscribed to this podcast at Episode 1 as it brought back some gastro-recollections. I’ve eaten at the cuchifritos joint he features and I can vouch that it’s some tasty stuff (Did the lady in the episode look a bit uncomfortable at times?) Well after watching this, I had to do a quick search on chowhound to find a place in LA that had some cuchifritos. It looks like Ciudad might serve some during their happy hour…well hell yes to that.
Subscribe to the UnderbellyNYC podcast with iTunes.
More like El MichoaCAN’To
Anthony and I heard from the husband of one of our professors that a mystical machaca taco hut existed out in North Hollywood. My interest was piqued, as machaca is usually a breakfest beef served with eggs and onions. And I love me some breakfast (next to tacos)- so of course, we had to experience this particular brand of meat between tortillas.
We should have known the night would end up disappointing, after getting lost on the freeway trying to connect to the 170 from the 101. After a twenty mintue detour of jumping on and off the freeways onto random suburb streets, we found El Michoacano. Immediately, I ran up to the stand and ordered the machaca along with asada and carnitas.
All the tacos were served in a home-made tortilla which was heartning at first but the machaca was pretty much flavorless, reminding me of wet corn beef. Machacha is supposed to be a dry type of meat, slightly crunchy and with a hint of chile sauce. It was also served with cabbage which just added to the overall taco weight.
I wish I could say the carnitas were better- but they weren’t. The pork was soggy and flavorless, and the gigantic corn tortillas had me pretty much full after a second bite. I sampled Anthony’s carne asada, and it was suprisingly decent with the salsa roja but overall nothing to write home about.
Still, the service was positive, the price reasonable, and the horchata was excellent. But when one’s mouth isn’t burning from sabor, even great horchata isn’t going to save your ass.
Rating: C
Horchata Rating: A
Salsa Roja - Normal
Positives: Machaca, Decent Asada, Price (1.10 per)
Negatives: Flavorless Carnitas, Way too much meat, have to request which salsa you want, Its in the valley
7201 Lankershim Blvd
North Hollywood, CA 91605-3804
09
Mar
Fish and Chips Stateside
As a follow-up to the last UK fish and chips entry, there is a really good place here in the LA area, more specifically:
English House of Fish and Chips
921 S Baldwin Ave, Suite H, Arcadia, CA 91007
626-446-1430
I have no idea how authentic it is being I’ve never been across the Atlantic to sample the newspaper wrapped versions, but the fish here is quite good with the batter being crispy and the fish never overcooked and never dry. The fries could use some work, but it’s easily overlooked. I usually order the three piece fish and chips with an order of cole slaw and fresh lemonade. Oh yeah, they’ve got fish tacos too, though I’ve never gotten around to trying them.
The Atwater Newbie has a link to an LA Times has article listing some restaurants that serve up fish and chips, but they neglect to mention the very tasty crispy goodness that is served up at this unassuming eatery at corner of Baldwin and Fairview Ave. in Arcadia.
01
Mar
Fish and Chips
So I keep promising Ko I’ll write more here but I never come through. Well I thought about doing a parallel series on chippies but it is such a heavy meal that I find it difficult to eat it more than once a month or so. Besides, all the fish and chip shops in my area taste very similar so there wouldn’t be much point to it. But I will review one fish and chip shop since I had many misconceptions about the meal when I moved here, and I imagine other people do to.
Most chip shops seem to have a few places to sit and eat, but I would guess about 90% of people get it for take-away. The average chip shop is not a posh or fancy place at all, in fact most of them are quite dingy inside. The fryer is usually right behind the order counter, and there are heated compartments right above the fryer to keep the fish warm. The fryer itself is usually divided into two sections, one for frying fish and meat and the other for frying potatoes. There is also a chamber where the chips are stored after they are fried. Many chip shops use fresh potatoes and fish, but some use frozen. The fish is often fried with the skin still on it, but many people do not eat the skin.
The average menu at a chippy has several kinds of fish, but the standard fish is cod. Other fish that can be found around here are haddock, plaice, rock, sole, and skate. Other items that can often be found on the menu are chip butties, battered sausages, battered spam, fried chicken, steak and onion pies, chicken and mushroom pies, cornish pasties, and saveloys.
I walked into the chip shop thinking I would order cod, chips, and curry sauce for the chips, but I decided on haddock, chips and mushy peas. This along with a can of “fruit twist” fanta cost £5.60, or $10.97 at today’s exchange rate. When you order you have the option of getting it open, or wrapped. If you want to eat it on the street say “open.”
Fish and chips can also be purchased at pubs, where it costs in the area of £8, but I’ve never seen a restaurant that serves it.
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