Taco News

Fish taco deathmatch:Tacos Baja Ensenada vs El Taco Nazo at Chowhound.

LA Taco Review goes crazy for El Parian.

The New Diner says no mas to King Taco.

Also...new polls added to sidebar.Sorry but if you voted on the old ones you'll have to vote again.

El Poblano

El Poblano is a cemita poblana truck that parks at the corner of Fairfax and Pico weekdays from 11-4pm. The cemita poblana milanesa is the truck specialty but they also serve tacos.



They were out of al pastor so I went with carnitas and carne asada.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the meat at El Poblano. Ever since the Tacos Kimberly incident I approach some trucks with the "please dont kill me" mindset. I know it's ridiculous but I still have bad flashbacks.

But the meats here were tasty and juicy and the tacos well prepared. The carnitas had a salted punch to it and the asada a peppery aftertaste. There wasn't alot of salsa on the asada taco so I just wrapped the jalapeno into the taco and went for it. This made quick use of my orange jarritos and I started to regret this decision about two thirds in to it but it was damn good.



Both tacos could have used more salsa though. Part of that is on me for not asking for some extra on the side but I always like when the taquero ladles an ample amount of salsa on the taco so I don't have to ask for extra.

I got curious so I ordered a cemita poblana de milanesa for the road. My sandwhich came on a sesame domed roll with a cut of beef that was pounded thin, breaded and fried and then topped with panela cheese, slices of avocado, onion and a chipotle chile. Sabroso!



The sandwhich was quite tasty at first but the further I got into it the dryness started to affect the taste. The cemita roll is very bready and there wasn't anything saucy of any kind to counter the breadyness. I'm not a cemita poblana expert so I'm not sure if it's customary for this sandwhich not to have some kind of mayonaise spread or salsa. It could have used something though.



El Poblano, Pico/Fairfax Midcity. Tacos $1

hottest salsa in LA?

carne asada taco with habanero salsa from El Super Taco

I was asked awhile back which taco establishment has the hottest salsa.

King Taco certainly is in the conversation with their infamous salsa roja. The same goes for el taurino(same salsa). Cactus taqueria has a spicy salsa roja and some nights they have a habanero salsa.On the westside Don Felix used to have a intense habanero salsa but they've since started serving a milder version.



Some habanero salsas are tempered by other ingredients such as tomato or tomatillos. Not the habanero salsa at El Super Taco(pictured above). It's basically a straight habanero blend with maybe some lime or water to thin it out.

The heat is intense and there are three stages.First it burns your lips and tongue. Then it fills of the sides of your mouth and hurts your temple and makes you instantly start to profusely sweat like you've been sitting in a sana for 30 minutes.
Then it settles down your throat and the spice doesn't go away. It just stays there..and it starts to hurt actually. Then there comes a point where no amount of water or bread or anything will help you. You have to just wait it out.

There is plenty of warning though. The salsa is labeled "very very hot".

Taco News

Gave the blog a makeover. If your using IE for some reason it's not loading properly(working on that). Loads fine on Mozilla, IE is acting estoopid.

OC Weekly's Gustavo Arellano on burritos with heft in the OC.(there are tacos in the photo so it's topical)

LA Taco Review is back with a report on La Taquiza . It's been awhile since LA Taco Review has been on the taco scene. Welcome back Taco Gator!

Oishii eats- Tacos in Guatemala. Those look good!

Tacos Mexico one of Las Vegas's best? Say it isn't so. Although I'm digging the retro style architecture(pictured above)

Some degenerate swine removed The Great Taco Hunt and TACO from the link section of the wikipedia.org tacos entry.

Pedro Pe's Lunch Truck

I found this on the interwebs.Meet Pedro Pe, LA's finest lunch truck comedian.



Featured in this movie are the taco trucks Tacos El Primo and Leo's which park near the Ranch market at West adams and Redondo ave.

Dennis Kucinich

I havn't had the desire to go taco hunting lately. It may be the cold weather at night that is keeping me in. But it's also the fact that my friend the Fabulous Kiwi Simmons whom on occasions serves as my co-pilot has refused to join me on anymore taco journeys until I admit that Dennis Kucinich is a viable Presidential candidate. Oh and also..I have to stop calling him Dennis Kookinich.



So the next few posts I'll be taking from the cutting room floor. Taco trucks and taco stands that didn't make it on the blog for one reason or another. And in an attempt to blog more often I will keep some of these reports short and to the point.


someone pushed me....yeah

This was a taco wagon that was at the corner of Vineland and Vanowen(i think) in front of a laundry matt and liquor store.

I was drunk and don't remember the trucks name or if it even had one. I forget most of that night. I do remember one thing though. The tacos were awesome.



This looks like asada and pastor. I woke up the next morning and found these photos on my camera. Gosh..and I didn't even ask her name. I'm such a taco whore.



All I can determine from this photo is that the truck is from the city of El Monte. Which begs the question...why is a truck from El Monte setting up shop in North Hollywood? Quite puzzling if you ask me.

If anyone knows of this truck or it's current whereabouts please come forward so I can put a name to these little baby bombs.

El Hameca

"hey bandini...try the taco truck on 11th st next to the salvation army, I'm scared to"

"I'm scared to also" I wrote back.

"You're the taco hunter not me!" she replied.

Point taken.

I don't generally report on mariscos trucks. As much as I love mariscos the trucks that specialize in them don't always make the greatest meat tacos and I don't want to give a bad review to a mariscos truck based on their tacos. It's not what they do. But I see this truck all the time and I was interested if they made a decent taco.

El Hameca is the trucks name. It parks in front of a building supply warehouse between Olympic and Colorado on 11th St in Santa Monica and caters almost exclusively to the day laborers that hang about the area. There's no menu on the truck so I asked what kind of tacos they had and was told "beef and pork".

I asked for one of each (carnitas, carne asada) and with a bottle of coke the total came to $5.50. Ouch. It's obvious I was profiled as an outsider, a taco novice, a desperate gabacho that would be willing to pay anything.



Sadly on this taco journey I have experienced this before. If there is no menu and no prices on the truck sometimes the truck operator/cook/cashier will charge you whatever they feel like. Of course they can't do this to the day laborers that congregate in the area but someone that looks like an outsider..why not? They probably won't be back anyway and your business depends on the empty belly of the migrant labor worker not the taco whims of some office worker that took a wrong turn and only has 10 minutes to grab lunch or in this case an anonymous taco reporter.



So how were the tacos? Hopeless on every level. From the canned liked quality of the salsa roja to the wilted cold corn tortillas. The carnitas was decent but the carne asada was fatty and had all the flavor boiled out of it. For every bit of edible beef there was a fatty glob of gristle that stuck to the back of my teeth.Getting through the whole taco was an exercise in endurance and idiocy but I kept going and as my stomach started to churn and as more and more chunks of gristle slid down my throat I finished the taco and immediately chomped on the jalapeno to rinse the vileness of the flabby beef out of mouth and mind.

But I can't complain. I still live in Los Angeles, the taco capitol of the country and it's not as if I have no recourse. I get to blog about how I was profiled and overcharged.This is why Al Gore invented the internets.



1658 11th St
Santa Monica,90404
Daytime only

Taqueria Morelia

I stumbled on to the La Tienda carneceria on Inglewood Ave in the city of Lennox by accident. Perhaps the taco gods were looking over me this sunny afternoon because I had every intention to get on to the 405 north. But as luck would have it I missed that onramp and found myself on Inglewood Ave staring down this taco cart.



The sign read "stop ya estan listos los pollos" which translates to- stop! the chickens are ready.

I watched as whole chickens were lifted from the large smoker style grill and then met with a cleaver on the cutting board. Every so often the lady manning the grill would lift the hood to turn the chickens and the smoke would chimney out followed by the most incredible smell of chargrilled pollo.



There wasn't an organized method to order and the two women were so busy manning each others stations that people just started announcing what they wanted . "torta de cabeza!" someone shouted,"burrito de pollo!" said another.

I figured I better get in the game so I just belted out my order "tres tacos, dos cabeza, un de pollo!"

But for about 3 seconds I felt like the most desperate gabacho in all of LA. Who am I to belt out my order? I'm a soft westsider, I'm not local, what was I thinking? But those fears were quelled when one of the girls looked up and smiled and acknowledged my order.I was safe from any embarrassment.



There were tubs of salsa(verde, roja) on a table adjacent to one of the grills and tubs with jalapenos, limes, radishes. After topping my tacos with the onions, cilantro and salsa roja I dug in to the pollo first.



The tender cubes of pollo had that perfect charcoal taste with a citrus marinade that was just the right balance to the salsa roja. Each cube of chicken had a peppery crust and a soft juicy center. Oh man...this was the pollo that I've been looking for.


cabeza taco

And the cabeza? Excellent as well. Very soft and not fatty or waxy like alot of cabeza. No gamey aftertaste either which I have experienced with some cabeza. This cabeza was comparable to the excellent cabeza from Tacos Chatos

Salsa was homemade and a nice blend of chiles. Some spice but nothing that will make you sweat it out. That's what the jalapenos were for.

I ordered three more tacos de pollo for the road intending to wait until I got home to eat them. But I couldn't resist and I opened one of them up while I was driving and just went for it. I held the taco in the cup of my palm and devoured it ,the juice from the pollo running down my wrist as I got back on the 405 onramp heading north.



Tienda Latina Carniceria/Taqueria Morelia
10333 S INGLEWOOD AVE
90304, LENNOX