Earlier this year, my pal Justin Lin but together a documentary about Los Angeles as part of documenting a year long trip to China.
Part of the documentary focused on native Los Angeles food, which of course includes tacos. Justin grabbed me for an evening of all things tacos. So of course, I took him to my favorite spot: Echo Park’s Taco Zone.
More Atwater Food Loving and Tacos from the South Bay that aren’t from El Burrito Junior
Vince’s Market is located in one of the residential nooks in Atwater Village in between Fletcher and Glendale Boulevard. It is one of those rare local family owned markets still in existence here in LA and its existence is a testament to the charming ness that is Atwater Village. It also just so happens to be across the street from my apartment building and I frequent it often for my early morning cereal needs. However, Vince’s is also a deli and offers up a special Atwater treat: Carnitas sandwhiches.
Check out the large pork chunks in the this South of the Border style po’boy. Big, greasy, and savory these carnita chunks will remind you that pork is king of fatty white meats. The flavoring of the carnitas was a bit on the plain side- but still enjoyable. The sandwich is seved with a heavy helping of guacamole which soggs the sandwich up if you don’t eat it right away. The guacamole was tasty enough but I found myself picking out and masticating over the carnita cubes. Fatty, filling, and greasy at $2.50 a pop- the Carnitas sandwhich provides quite a high ratio of pork to the dollar. Eat it while hot and drink it with a Jarritos for an enjoyable sleep coma inducing morning sandwich.
South Bay Street Tacos: El Gallito in Wilmington
As a South Bay native who grew up only eating hard shell tacos in the beach cities, I am rather new to South Bay street taco scene. One does not usually find street tacos lurking in the cities of Torrance, Redondo or Hermosa- mostly cuz the popo would drive them out. But if you drive out anywhere east- you’re bound to find a truck. And in this case, East means Wilmington.
Over by the 110 Freeway Entrance for Sepulveda, is El Gallito. A truck that appears in plain day light in front of a Laundromat and stays out until at least 2 am most days of the week. I’ve noticed it there for a better part of the year whenever passing through Wilmington, and after a friend in Lomita expressed curiosity- we decided to hit it up.
I ordered the taco tri-fecta: dos carne asada, pastor, y carnitas. And as I am warrant to do- I tried each kind with both salsa verde y roja.
The carne asada was tasty but a bit on the salty side and a tad dry. The carnitas were pretty crispy and full of sabor, reminding slightly of Taco Zone which is always a great comparison. The al pastor tacos were decent but overall the sweetness overpowered the slight burning sensation one usually looks forward to in a pastor taco. Their horchata was quite delish with nice slabs of cinnamon floating around the milky-rice goodness.
Overall, Wilmas was representin hard with their street tacos. For a moment, it made this LA city-proper resident not be ashamed from being from the South Bay.
Overall Taco Grade: B+
Salsa Roja: Hot
Horchata Grade: A
Price: $1.25/taco
Vince’s Market- On the Corner of Atwater Avenue and Silverlake Boulevard in Atwater Village
El Gallito Taco Truck- On the Corner of Sepulveda, one half-block past Normandie in Wilmington
Hola taco mijos y mijias! It’s been too long! Been crunching at work and finishing finals! But we’re back with some major taco updates and a summer chock full of taco eating!
Pink Taco Party Recap- 6th and Imperial
The Pink Taco party, hosted by yours truly and our taco buddy W.Dot was a major success! Over 500 taco loving Angelenos found their way east of downtown to a wherehouse on 6th and Imperial. Hot mijos y mijas got loaded and tore up the dance floor to sets by our homies NO MSG, Them Jeans, and Royal Rumble. And despite a last minute taco replacement by Poquito Mas (Echo Park’s Taco Zone couldn’t make the party)- the carne asada, pollo and veggie tacos (damn veggie hipsters) sold like mad. Fellow Taco Blogger Hadley from from LATACO showed up too- which was definately an evening high-lite. Get down to the pics page and find yoself!
Official Pink Taco Party Flickr Stream.
Tacos Villa Corona- Atwater Village
Located on Glendale Boulvard between Larga and Atwater Avenue is Tacos Villa Corona- a family owned and operated Atwater staple. It’s literally a hole-in-the-wall joint where you can watch with pleasure as the owners cook your food to order. Famously known for their amazing breakfast burritos (eating a Spinach-Bacon-Egg-Salsa Roja Burrito every friday morning on the way to work is a ritual for me), Tacos Villa Corona, as the name implies, serve tacos. Except, they aren’t your normal taco variety.
Tacos Villa Corona serve up Potato Tacos which is pretty rare in this taco town. Stranger yet is that Tacos Villa Corona have Carne Asada on the menu within their tostadas, nachos and burritos. When I asked the owner’s son about this- he said he had no idea as to why the family decided to change their taco content policy. Strange strange strange.
I ordered up three Potato tacos- because I figured carb on carb action was going to be filling. Inside the corn tortillas, were TVC’s homefriend potates. Delicious in the burritos, the potatoes didn’t do much to save the tacos from being meatless. The queso was tasty enough but overall- a potato taco isn’t much of a taco to an Al Pastor lover like myself. The salsa roja had a good piping edge to it.
Disappointed by the lack of meat in my tacos- I ordered the best next thing: a carne asada tostada.
Now we were talking my language! The carne asada was savory, juicy, and soft as all hell. Coupled with black beans, some shredded lettuce, tomatoes, a hard shell and some cheese- this made my taco-less afternoon worthwhile. I folded up this bad boy- and pretended it was a taco. It invoked a King Taco carne asada sope- which isn’t a bad comparison at all.
No horchata was available which was poops mcgee- but over all- the tostada was a worth venture. The folks at Tacos Villa Corona are friendly as all hell and will be happy to chat up Atwater history with you. Its rare to find such an authentic vegetarian friendly Mexican food joint that even your hippie vegan friends can enjoy.
Taco Rating: B-
Tostada Rating: A
Breakfast Burrito Rating: A+++
Horchata Rating: N/A
Salsa Roja: Hot!
Tacos Villa Corona
3185 Glendale Blvd
Open Early-4pm (Or When Food runs out)
Be there or be square! I’m working to get a new taco lady- the one I had wanted to over charge me.
Anthony and I have been itching to cut a taco swath westward and fill out our Flickr Taco Map. And so my pal Kyle, upon hearing of our westward bound taco ambition, tipped us off to a Mid-City Taco stand named El Chato.
El Chato, like all greatly positioned taco stands, sits in a car repair shop parking lot from 7pm til 2 am- nightly. A pastor spit sits on the the main counter- gleaming like a meat beacon under the dim street lights of La Brea. Kyle, swore by scouts honor- that the al pastor tacos here rivaled El Taurino and King Taco standard. Of course, Anthony and I had to put this claim to the test.
I ordered 3 pastor tacos, 2 carne asada tacos and one lingua plus a horchata. They had no carnitas option- which was appalling, but they included roasted sweet onions- which was a plus!
The asada tacos were quite salacious! Their texture was slightly chewy and packed with savoriness. I found them to be a bit saltier than the standard asada taco, which I happened to like. Anthony disagreed with my opinion though, stating they were thinner than the average taco and nothing really worth getting excited about.
The pastor tacos were great! They were drenched in marinade and had just the right amount of hotness. Its texture was tender, the sauce sweet, and left the mouth with a pleasant burning sensation. Its suprising to get tasty pastor out of a taco truck because the meat spit doesn’t benefit from being out in the night air as many a good pastor stand is.
The lingua taco was savory, slightly pasty and overall decent. Nothing really to say about it, so if I were you I’d stick to the pasotor and carne asada. The horchata was delicious despite being a bit milkier than most joints. However, this was welcome to pacify the hotness of the al pastor.
Overall, El Chato was pretty damned good. However, my stomach was churning for the next two days. Anthony and Kyle were fine- so either I had some remnants of the terrible cod fish I had from Mission 261 in San Gabriel left in my belly- or something in the tacos killed me. Tacos don’t usually do me wrong, so I’ll blame it on the cod and maybe the lingua. I usually stick to the trifecta of pastor, asada, and carnitas; lingua is outside of my routine. So, I’ll leave El Chato with the benefit of the doubt- because they sure tasted good going down.
El Chato
Corner of Olympic and La Brea in Los Angeles, Open 7pm till 2am
Grade: B+
Horchata Grade: B+
Positives: Cheap, Good Asada and Pastor, Free Grilled Sweet Onions, Toothpicks
Negatives: No Carnitas, My Stomach Got Pwned
PS Oje Mijo!!!!
Last month, I was in San Francisco on business and decided to head down to the Mish for some taco goodness. My friends from the Bay are always talking smack on LA tacos saying the Mish gots the goods. Well, I had to put that notion to the test.
So, among my afternoon wandering of the Mission- I stumbled upon El Buen Sabor Taqueria on 18th Street. Now usually, I don’t do resturaunts unless I get a good tip. But, I was a stranger in a strange land and my belly was empty.
The place had a small kitchen like charm. It had the usual goods: carne asada, carnitas, al pastor et al. I decided I’d go with two carnitas, one carne asada and one al pastor taco con todas (everything).
Usually, when I order everything that means onions, cilantro, and the salsa of choice. But in San Francisco that also means black beans- which I was somewhat appalled by. When I get a fried hard shell taco- I expect beans- but not within a soft shelled street taco. Still, I wasn’t about to diss the taco lady in her kitchen so I begrundginly accepted my tacos con frijoles.
The al pastor y carne asada tacos were- decent. The pastor was savory but not seasoned well enough and the carne asada was suffered from not being freshly grilled. The beans were prominently tasted over the meat, which is fine, if your a hippie vegetarian. I was ready to call up some of my SF friends and laugh over the phone, until I tried the carnitas.
Dios mijo, Batman! T carnitas were well shred which allowed for a amazingly crispy texture. They were fresh off the grill allowing them to be piping hot and reeking with savoryness. The meat overpowered the beans and harmonized nicely with the salsa roja. Coupled with some delicious horchata, I closed my eyes and for a second felt like I was eating at Taco Zone back home in Echo Park.
San Francisco, you pass the test. Saved by the skin of a piggy.
El Buen Sabor
Overall Taco Grade: B, Carnita Grade: A+
Horchata Grade: A
Positives: Nice Setting, Good Service, Delicious Horchata and Carnitas
Negatives: Pricey, Beans, So-So Asada and Al Pastor
Price: $1.75 a taco
At the Corner of 18th and Mission Street, San Francisco CA
sent to us by matt korba
Today: Dia del 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
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