(Pictured Right: Tacos de Asada, Carnitas and Birria with bowl of chips)(213) 386-7361
Open 8a-10p daily
Downtown Tacos!
I got it on good word that I needed to try the tacos here, so I rushed over on my lunch hour to try out the tacos where you can see both Diego Rivera prints and George Washington in Masonic regalia on the walls.
Significantly easier than I thought it would be to find, this place is a perfect example of a hole-in-the-wall. From the street, it doesn't even look like its open. Parking is plenty in the rear though, as it shares a lot with the adjoining businesses. The lunch time crowd was pretty diverse, ranging from locals to what appeared to be an office gathering from nearby USC. The main thing you'll notice is that the kitchen is right at the front door -- no missing out on any of the good stuff!
Friendly staff waited on us, and promptly brought out chips and salsa. Salsa was good, and chips were typical of what you would get with cheese nachos. The salsa was just a little spicy, but very tasty. Jarritos are on the menu! I went for piña this time around.
There are only three meats on the menu here - asada, carnitas and birria. We each got one taco of each meat and dove in from there!
Meat
The thing you'll notice straight away is the sheer amount of meat on the tacos. There was easily enough meat on each one for two tacos, which should be taken into consideration. These tacos are good-sized tacos as well, bigger than what you'll normally find, so unless you're feeling particularly starved, you will be good with either 2 or 3 tacos total.
First meat up was the asada, which was pretty good. It was extremely tender which is a sign of excellent cooking, however it suffered from a lack of flavor. Not that it was terrible by any means, but it certainly wasn't something to write home about. Slightly above average though, really.
Next were the carnitas, and oh mannnn was I in hog heaven (haha)! Super-tender, they melted with each bite, which is hard to do for such a stringy meat. My only suggestion, which is very slight, is that I wouldn't mind if the meat had been just a little less salty. If not for that, they would have been absolutely perfect, and rivaled anything I've tasted in Mexico. For those that prefer their carnitas saltier than the typical, this may be your spot to go, but in my opinion, they could've done with slightly less.
Last was the birria, and here I was conflicted and ultimately disappointed. My first bite left me quite puzzled, as the meat was just lacking flavor. As in, there was nothing to it. It was very noticeable that this meat lacks the salsa which is typically served with birria. For the uninitiated, birria is goat meat, and man...it was soft, which is a GREAT sign of cooking the meat well, but I just found nothing in the taco that did it for me. By the second bite, I stopped eating the taco and left it on my plate. I felt as though I were eating meat just to eat at that point. Perhaps with the salsa the birria would have been better, but for now, I just saw no point in eating this particular taco.
Asada: 8/10
Carnitas: 9/10
Birria: 6/10
Score: 7.5/10, which after consideration, is really just about right.
Tortilla
Tortillas were pretty damn good, actually. Hand made as well (why can't more places do this), they were heavy on the corn, which is much more authentic to the traditional style. Downside to this though, was that they fell apart easily, which happens to be a pet peeve of mine. They also double-bagged the tacos (2 tortillas to each taco), which made them thicker, and lends itself perfectly to forming 2 tacos out of 1. If you don't split the taco, there's so much meat in there that its bound to fall apart and get messy.
Score: 8.5/10, for falling apart too easily =(
Toppings
The topping here was a welcome change of pace, with "pico de gallo", which is diced tomatoes, onion, salt, pepper and cilantro, and depending on the recipe, will incorporate some sort of spice or jalapeño. Here, it was a good complement, although I would've liked to have had more put on each taco, as the pico was pretty tasty. The one knock I had against it was that it didn't taste very fresh or cool, which leads me to believe that large batches are made early in the morning and sit in the kitchen instead of a fridge, allowing it to warm up, which sucks for salsa. Ask for extra if you care for a good amount of salsa on the taco. We ended up dumping some of the chip salsa on the tacos to make up for lack of pico de gallo.
Score: 7/10
"After-effects"
I went away pretty pleasantly satisfied, but due to the large amount of meat in each taco, I felt a bit bloated, but only because of the amount I ate. I wasn't expecting that much in each taco, so after ordering 3, I felt fine, just slightly heavy from the mass of food sitting in my stomach.
Score: 9/10, just as a personal experience to remember next time to only eat 2.
Bottom line, is that perhaps I shouldn't have listened to the hype as much, because that may be what's leading me to undervalue the tacos here. Granted, I'm not dissatisfied, but I also can't help the feeling inside of me that the tacos could have been much better with a few slight changes, or that maybe I caught it at a wrong time. I was a bit annoyed that I found myself constantly reaching over for more and more napkins, quickly making a mess on my plate. Either way, I'll emphasize that they were NOT bad, but only that I was expecting a bit more. From now on, no more buying into hype -- it only taints my experience which I'm trying to make as completely objective as possible for anyone else reading.
Bonus Points: (+1) For having every flavor of Jarritos available to order!
Price: $2.75 / taco, $1.75 for bottle of Jarritos
Wait time: 10-15 minutes
Distance (from downtown): 5-10 minutes by street from anywhere in downtown, depending on traffic
Total Score: 32/40
What I would order next time: One and one of asada and carnitas, with EXTRA pico de gallo!
Geolocate this post
Posted with LifeCast
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment