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.

Holy Crap Balls, Batman. This spot is off the hook. On Fletcher Avenue just North of the 5 Freeway is a neighborhood called Atwater Village. It’s a quaint place- a small town yown on the border of a big city. A pivotal scene from Pulp Fiction was filmed one block up from this joint- (when Butch runs over Marsellus Wallace). I’ve driven by this taco stand on my way home for over a year now- and I’ve seen this joint appear in the last 6 months.

I Stumbled upon El Ranchito after a night of cheap drinking and mediocre food at Native in Arcadia. After a pit stop and another pitcher of beer @ The Game we decided to find a taco truck off of Mission. Due to the lack of reliable naivgation we ended @ El Ranchito after passing up an unnamed and closed Taco Truck. Unforgivable, cuz mother fuckers were drunk and ready to hit up any open taco truck.

El Tarasco is located on 3rd street, a block east of Loma near Downtown Los Angeles. Anthony and I were in search of a tiny cart that appears on 3rd and Crown Hill in the evenings, but it didn’t seem to be there that night. We saw El Tarasco’s Virgin de Guadalupe on its truck side across the street and made our way for a trial. I ordered two pastor tacos but was informed by the truck owner’s teenage son that they were out.

Your Taco Truck Primer… Taco trucks and stands are quite different from the restaurants that serve “tacos”. Tacos from restaurants in the US are filled with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, and ground meat. In fact, I am hard pressed to count tacos from restaurants as “true tacos”. True street tacos possess only the essentials. Meat wrapped in a warm hand sized corn tortilla. Onions, cilantro, and salsa (red or green) is up to you, but highly recommended.

One of my favorite late night carts in all of Los Angeles- I’ve seldom been led astray by the tacos at Taco Zone. At any time of night you’ll see a good mix of Echo Parquians standing in line- from blue collar laborers to hipsters and families. That’s when you know a Taco Truck is a neighborhood staple. The owners are quite friendly and don’t mind orders coming in English (which can be kind of a big deal at some smaller joints and temporary stands).

El Taurino, the bull, is a legendary taco hot spot in Los Angeles. Located on Hoover at 11th street in a very crowded part of town- it is constantly bustling. The restaurant is laid out cafeteria style- with many small plastic tables with attached chairs stationed all around. Everything is served on paper plates- so the mind set is definitely food on the go. However, its decor is top notch! It’s decorated with fine Matador paraphernalia and even a few mounted taurino heads (which I’m intent on nabbing for my apartment now).

El Takitaco- one the most aptly named Taco Trucks in all of Los Angeles. The tacos are savory and come in the usual flavors: pastor, asada, and carnita with lingua, cabeza and even pollo thrown in for good measure. The Pastor and Asada tacos are quite salacious. The steak in the asada tacos are finely chopped into even pieces, for easy chewing. The Salsa Roja on the Pastor tacos, is particulary spicy and leave the mouth burning for quite some time after ingestion.

Los Angeles. A sprawling metropolis that spreads over 498 square miles with a population of over 5 million people. And within those 498 miles, and among those 5 million peoples are the some of the best tacos in the world. And we’re going to find them.

Was in Amsterdam and noticed that the urinals were considerably higher than those in the States. Some poor guy had to pee up to hit the inside of the porcelain.