The tacos are delivered through the window with just the tortilla and meat, it’s up to you to add onions, cilantro, and your choice of salsa (rojo, verde, avacado).

Along with more food options when compared with the El Taquito truck, there are also more drink options.  You can get your agua frescas, canned sodas, and bottled Jarritos here.  All these options and lack of taco specialization may be part of the reason why this truck isn’t as consistently excellent as the competition just south of it.

All in all, the tacos are good (we’ve  definitely had worse), but not as stellar as the El Taquito truck just a half block away.  Buy your tacos at El Taquito, and send your burrito loving friends up the street to pick you up a Jarritos Tamarindo Soda.

The truck is located on the corner of Fair Oaks and Bellevue Dr.:
400 S Fair Oaks Ave
Pasadena, CA 91105

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Rating: B

Horchata Rating: Normal (decent)

Positives: Plenty of parking. Bright yellow truck makes it easy to find. Large variety of DIY sauce, good selection of drinks.  They serve more than just tacos (burritos, quesadillas, and mulitas). Full selection of fillings: cabeza, lengua, tripa, asada, carnitas, buche, al pastor, pollo, suadero, chorizo.
Negatives: They serve more than just tacos.  Meat and tortillas are generally quite dry, and is sometimes lacking in seasoning.  No chicharron.

This taco truck is located in the parking lot of Nishikawa Auto Shop:
510 S Fair Oaks Ave
Pasadena, CA 91105

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Rating: A

Horchata Rating: Normal (good but nothing special)

Positives: They serve chicharonne tacos. Full variety. Lengua and cabazas are good but a little soggy. Excellent carnitas- full of flavor and not too dry. Asada is inconsistent, though generally solid but not amazing.
Negatives: No salsa handling. Cicharonnes run out early, and the warm weather brings out crowds.

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.

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)

Benefit of the Doubt

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!!!!