(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
19 street vendors to support from the 101 Best Tacos guide
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In Los Angeles, knowing which side street to turn down can lead you to the best taco you’ve ever had. So, when the Food team compiled a guide to 101 Best Tacos in L.A., it made sense that taco stands, or puestos, made up a significant portion of the list.
But street stalls aren’t just good for a casual bite. Over the weekend, vendors provided food and even rudimentary medical care to Angelenos protesting ICE sweeps throughout the city. The vendors’ resilience reminded us that L.A. is a city of immigrants.
“It is important to support the community,” one vendor told The Times.
In that spirit, here are 19 of the best tacos stands, from carne asada in Palmdale to al pastor in Long Beach, to support in the City of Angels.
— Marie Sanford
Showing Places
Tacos El Llano
Palmdale Carne Asada Puesto $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Find Tacos El Llano in Palmdale under tents on an unpaved stretch at East Avenue R and 30th Street East. You’ll see the 7-Eleven nearby, and likely rows of parked cars and a swift-moving line of people. The menu centers on classic taco meats: asada, al pastor (graced with a nick of pineapple from atop the trompo), tripa, pollo, buche, lengua, cabeza and chorizo. Each one hits its mark. The asada stood out, perhaps because it was pulled directly from a grill billowing with smoke, chopped and piled on top of a just-cooked tortilla I’d asked to be lined with cheese. I covered my plate with onions, cilantro, lime juice and salsa verde from a stop at the DIY condiment table, stood in the open air under a hot sun, breathed in the wafting scents of sizzling meat and savored this specific moment of taco bliss.
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Angel's Tijuana Tacos
Tujunga Al Pastor Puesto $
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
If you see a line forming down the block for a towering, bright red trompo and the team manning the puestos stacked end-to-end looks more like a well-oiled assembly line than a casual pop-up, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled upon one of more than a dozen locations for my favorite al pastor. As the name implies, Angel’s Tijuana Tacos specializes in T.J.-style grilled and sheared meats topped with avocado salsa, cilantro and onions. While there’s cabeza, asada, chorizo and pollo, the al pastor — sliced thin with a flourish and a garnish of pineapple from the top of the trompo — is the signature item.
Angel’s manages to perfectly crisp the marinated pork almost to the point of singed, the flames licking the side of the eye-catching meat obelisk. The result is layers of spice-rubbed pork oscillating between fattiness and crunchiness, and when paired with cheese, that gooey addition pushes the al pastor toward decadent. The handmade corn tortillas get smashed almost paper-thin on a wooden press, then thrown on the comal until they bubble. Don’t let that thinness deceive you; somehow, these fresh tortillas always manage to withstand the onslaught of meat, salsa and as many grilled onions as you can heap on with tongs. Look for Angel’s across L.A. and the Inland Empire, including in Tujunga, Long Beach, Echo Park, Van Nuys, Eagle Rock, Chino and Woodland Hills.
Angel’s manages to perfectly crisp the marinated pork almost to the point of singed, the flames licking the side of the eye-catching meat obelisk. The result is layers of spice-rubbed pork oscillating between fattiness and crunchiness, and when paired with cheese, that gooey addition pushes the al pastor toward decadent. The handmade corn tortillas get smashed almost paper-thin on a wooden press, then thrown on the comal until they bubble. Don’t let that thinness deceive you; somehow, these fresh tortillas always manage to withstand the onslaught of meat, salsa and as many grilled onions as you can heap on with tongs. Look for Angel’s across L.A. and the Inland Empire, including in Tujunga, Long Beach, Echo Park, Van Nuys, Eagle Rock, Chino and Woodland Hills.
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Barbacoa Ramirez
Arleta Lamb Puesto $
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Lamb, when slow-roasted in a pit in the ground, sparks an animalistic instinct in the carnivore’s soul. One bite of glistening meat wrapped in earthy corn tortilla evokes the taste of a morning at the rancho in the highlands of Mexico. This experience is plentiful with Barbacoa Ramirez, set up under a tarp on weekend mornings near the Arleta DMV. Look for the taqueros wearing shirts reflecting the Ramirez family’s roots to the town of Atotonilco El Grande, Hidalgo. These tacos, with freshly hand-made tortillas, are a prize of craftsmanship and possibly the finest barbacoa to be found in Southern California. Why? It’s in the unyielding devotion of Gonzalo Ramirez, a fourth-generation master in the Hidalgo style who raises and butchers his own lambs in the Central Valley, feeding them only alfalfa and cracked corn. Enjoy the barbacoa also as a hearty consomé, as pancita, or ask for a taco of moronga, lamb blood sausage unlike any I’ve ever tasted, seasoned with loads of oregano, chiles and onion by an Hidalguense sheep farmer in L.A. An unexpected masterpiece.
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Avenue 26 Tacos
Eagle Rock Pork Costilla Puesto $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Despite the loss of its longtime home in Lincoln Heights, Avenue 26 Tacos is still thriving. Puebla-born founder Erasmo Reyes set up his stall on an empty street more than a decade ago; his operation became so successful that new vendors joined, and it became the bustling Avenue 26 Night Market, which the city shut down in 2021. These days his puestos can be found in Eagle Rock, Little Tokyo and, more recently, Hollywood, but Eagle Rock alone serves what could be Reyes’ best taco yet: pork costilla. Added to the menu in spring, it’s now his most popular taco. Large hunks of pork rib charred fresh on the grill fill the palm-sized tortillas, rubbed in a spice blend akin to the al pastor’s. The just-crisp exterior hides a succulent, fatty center, and it can all be pieced apart by hand to separate it from the cartilage or eaten all at once. Whichever way you enjoy it, load up on the bevy of salsas.
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Birria El Jaliciense
Boyle Heights Goat birria Puesto $
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
You’ll probably smell the succulent roast goat from blocks away before Birria El Jaliciense slides into view. The Ramirez family’s Saturday-only sidewalk operation started out serving tacos and platos made from one goat each week, and due to popularity, scaled up to three. Family members roast the meat for seven to eight hours, scenting it with a rub of garlic, onion, black pepper, cloves and other spices. Their consomé combines the chivo pan drippings with tomato, garlic and onion, and simmers away in a large pot during service. The family begins preparing at 5 a.m. the day before, and arrives in Boyle Heights early on Saturday mornings to fire up the oven where the morsels of goat gain a golden hue and crispy edges. There are tacos dorados, queso tacos and soft, straightforward tacos filled with the juicy, tender goat in light sauce, and they’re all worth ordering. But the best way to taste the robust, lightly gamey flavor of the meat is plato style, where various cuts — such as ribs or shredded meat — come with a side of warm tortillas to assemble your own tacos. The most popular plate is the No. 1, the surtida en plato with consomé, which is Jalisco-style chivo in an ode to patriarch Hector Ramirez’s hometown. Hector and his family begin selling around 8 a.m. and continue until the chivo is all gone. Come early and hungry.
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Los Chingones
Boyle Heights Puesto $
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Carlos Escobar and his team set up the large copper cazos around 5:30 a.m. every day but Friday, stewing some of L.A.’s most succulent carnitas for hours in a mix of lard, garlic and Coca-Cola. The pork bubbles away, plumes of fragrant steam lifting from a corner of the black-tented puesto in Boyle Heights. Carnitas are the specialty at Los Chingones, and the chilaquiles — especially topped with carnitas — have taken on a life of their own. But the more simple tacos are also worth the stop, with Escobar and his team thwacking the fresh maciza, buche, costilla, cueritos and more with butcher knives, then scooping a hearty portion into warm corn tortillas. The straightforward maciza is juicy, just-salty and perfectly unctuous, the meat chopped into large morsels that shred away under the weight of the salsas. Be sure to load up on the salsa featuring slim slices of nopales tossed with tomatoes and onions in addition to the more ubiquitous fixings.
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Los Garduños Barbacoa
Lincoln Heights Lamb Puesto $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
On Saturday and Sunday mornings in Lincoln Heights, look for the covered stand Josefina Garduño sets up with her family in front of the Smart & Final parking lot, near the intersection of Pasadena Avenue and South Avenue 24. Her sole focus: lamb barbacoa, cooked overnight using family techniques honed in Capulhuac, a village about 30 miles southwest of Mexico City where many residents perfect barbacoa to sell in the capital on the weekends. The crew behind Los Garduños Barbacoa sets up an efficient assembly line: One person chops a mix of meats to order, either by the number of tacos or by the pound, while another shapes tortillas for the grill. Salsas lean dense and intense; a particularly potent roja registers as mulchy and earthy, an ideal pairing for the fragrant, simply seasoned lamb. Someone will ask if you’d like a side of grilled nopales, or a cup of spicy consomé bobbing with chickpeas and wisps of meat. Say yes to both.
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Tacos De Canasta El Abuelo
Boyle Heights Papa con chorizo Puesto $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Every morning at 7 a.m., next to the AutoZone in Boyle Heights, a stand is set up to sell one of L.A.’s best examples of a specific street food: tacos de canasta. The technique commonly involves layering small corn tortillas — stuffed with a modest amount of filling and folded into half-moons — in a basket. Ladling over hot, chile-infused oil and then covering the small tacos in kitchen towels helps keep them warm throughout the day. Tacos de Canasta el Abuelo has a short menu with three variations: softly textured chicharrón, stewed beans and, my favorite for its contrasts and porky oomph, papas con chorizo. In their cocoons, the steaming tortillas take on the smoothness of crepes. You’re encouraged to generously dress your order with crema, queso, salsas, chopped cabbage and pickled vegetables, all of which turn the flavors from simple to symphonic.
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Tacos El Toro
East Los Angeles Lengua Puesto $
(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
Benjamin Padilla has a way with a cleaver. He pulls a hunk of lengua from his vaporera, a large steel steam table set up in his East L.A. yard, and thinly slices the fatty, tender tongue. If you ask for it picada, he chops it into a fine dice, working quickly, the edge of his knife hitting the board rat-a-tat fast. Everything is cut to order.
Through a haze of steam, you can see tortillas on top of the mounds of meat, like patches of snow on a hillside. Padilla grabs the warm, vapor-infused tortillas — pale but with charred edges and slightly thicker than most, sourced from Tijuana — and fills them quickly. He throws the tacos onto a plate in a circular pattern, sprinkling them with onions and cilantro as he goes, and dousing them with salsa verde, with the final taco always placed on top in the center.
An al vapor maestro, Padilla says his uncles in Jalisco taught him to cook the specialty cuts of tongue, cachete, labio and cabeza, all from the head of the cow, all boiled with aromatics and steamed (except for the asada, which is grilled first) to ultimate tenderness. Each cut of meat is a study in different mixtures of fattiness and texture — cabeza chopped so fine it’s almost a chunky paste, cachete nearly shredded and labio with pockets of gelatinous gobs. Eat them from a bench on the sidewalk, and watch Padilla at work in a steam cloud dream.
Through a haze of steam, you can see tortillas on top of the mounds of meat, like patches of snow on a hillside. Padilla grabs the warm, vapor-infused tortillas — pale but with charred edges and slightly thicker than most, sourced from Tijuana — and fills them quickly. He throws the tacos onto a plate in a circular pattern, sprinkling them with onions and cilantro as he goes, and dousing them with salsa verde, with the final taco always placed on top in the center.
An al vapor maestro, Padilla says his uncles in Jalisco taught him to cook the specialty cuts of tongue, cachete, labio and cabeza, all from the head of the cow, all boiled with aromatics and steamed (except for the asada, which is grilled first) to ultimate tenderness. Each cut of meat is a study in different mixtures of fattiness and texture — cabeza chopped so fine it’s almost a chunky paste, cachete nearly shredded and labio with pockets of gelatinous gobs. Eat them from a bench on the sidewalk, and watch Padilla at work in a steam cloud dream.
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Carnitas Los Gabrieles
Downtown L.A. Carnitas Puesto $
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Bright red banners advertising “carnitas” welcome you to Carnitas los Gabrieles, a puesto next to Mercado Olympic in downtown. The street stand overflows onto the sidewalk with plastic red tables and stools, planchas and a row of aguas frescas in vitroleros. At the center of the action is taquera Guadalupe Baez, who churns pork in a massive cazo that bubbles golden-brown under the morning light. Colanders with handles sit on the perimeter of the deep-bottomed vat and hold different cuts of meat — buche, cueritos, lengua, nana (pig uterus), oreja (pig ear). Order them by the pound or in tacos with handmade corn tortillas that are cooked to order. If you’re torn between the options, Baez will gently guide you toward the most popular selections: carnitas, mixto and costilla. All are delicious and a stellar representation of Baez’s skills, which were honed in Huetamo, in Michoacán state, under the direction of her cousin, but my favorite is the costilla, luscious with fat and brightened with the full range of dressings available: chunky pico de gallo, pickled onions, cooling green and spicy red salsas and a squirt from a lime wedge. Open every day at 8:30 a.m., Carnitas los Gabrieles usually sells out by noon.
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Brothers Cousins Tacos
Sawtelle Carne Asada Puesto $
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Brothers Cousins, in the diverse Sawtelle neighborhood, is an institution. At 5:45 p.m. — 15 minutes before the puesto opens — a line is already down the sidewalk, wrapping into the adjacent Rite Aid parking lot. Blue tents with dangling light bulbs are propped up and a hulking trompo spins while festive music blares from a speaker. Seniors, parents pushing kids in strollers and baggy-pantsed teenagers wait patiently as the taqueros prepare for service. The assembly line moves quickly and efficiently once the stand opens, with six or so taqueros who slice strips of al pastor, stir meats in a choricera, dress tortillas, ladle aguas frescas into cups and take cash.
The pastor is the most eye-catching option. It outsizes the taquero who watches over it, shearing thin slices and finishing them on the plancha directly below. But the carne asada, with crispy edges still juicy with fat and flavor, most impressed me. It has a deep earthiness and hints of citrus that are enhanced with creamy avocado, smoky red and medium-spicy green salsas, not to mention pickled, sauteed and fresh veggies (nopales are a nice touch), cilantro and lime.
The pastor is the most eye-catching option. It outsizes the taquero who watches over it, shearing thin slices and finishing them on the plancha directly below. But the carne asada, with crispy edges still juicy with fat and flavor, most impressed me. It has a deep earthiness and hints of citrus that are enhanced with creamy avocado, smoky red and medium-spicy green salsas, not to mention pickled, sauteed and fresh veggies (nopales are a nice touch), cilantro and lime.
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Tacos Por Vida
Eagle Rock Al Pastor Puesto $
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Chef Roy Choi flipped our definition of what constitutes an L.A. taco when he introduced Kogi BBQ in 2008. But his newest taqueria, Tacos Por Vida, is a celebration of the city’s street taco culture with a tight menu featuring meats cooked over a charcoal- and wood-burning grill and recipes honed alongside staff who have been with the chef upward of a decade. Carne asada is usually my go-to, and Tacos Por Vida makes a worthy rendition that blends an array of styles, yet the al pastor is the taco that best demonstrates the celebrity chef’s skill. Korean influence makes its way into a marinade that features more than 30 spices and seasonings, including gochujang, garlic, orange, harissa, sesame oil, achiote, green onion and pineapple. And even though there’s no trompo in sight, the flavors sing through just as bright — the sweetness of the tropical fruit is so apparent that I found myself searching for bits of singed pineapple among crumbles of caramelized pork. The tacos are served on fresh handmade tortillas that are chewy and dense thanks to a corn-flour blend. They come dressed with finishing salts and a generous scoop of cilantro-studded green sauce, with radishes and limes served on the side. After getting its start next door to Roi’s Kogi truck in Palms, Tacos Por Vida has gone mobile, popping up in Eagle Rock, San Pedro and beyond. Stay up to date on the taqueria’s whereabouts on Instagram.
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Barbacoa Estilo Hidalgo
South Park Lamb Barbacoa Puesto $
(Silvia Razgova / Los Angeles Times)
A group of people huddling over a table one Saturday morning led me to make a U-turn and stop at this modest weekends-only puesto in the South-Central core. “Barbacoa,” the signs said, and my first bite confirmed the hypothesis that when you see a crowd of brown people around a taco stand in L.A., stop there. The puesto sets up weekend mornings on a sidewalk before an auto shop, serving a quietly perfect example of lamb barbacoa in the style of the central state of Hidalgo, rich with its own barbacoa traditions. The taquera, Demetria Lopez, is all business, with little small talk or niceties; she doesn’t need their employ. Her barbacoa de borrego is top-notch in terms of juiciness and flavor without any hint of the unpleasant gaminess sometimes associated with this dish. She minces onions and cilantro and composes her own salsas. Her stand distinguishes itself, ultimately, with its tortillas. A hand-pressed pliable tortilla with little pockets of char off the comal and a rich maize flavor is indisputably the base component to any excellent taco. Order a consomé and picture yourself deep in the pueblo, fed and content. Arrive early to ensure a plate before it sells out.
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Tacos Guadalajara
West Adams Cecina Puesto $
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
When I first heard that an old-school Mexico City taqueria named El Califa León had won a Michelin star — the first for a taco spot in Mexico — I thought immediately about the taco or two I had eaten there over the years and how its influence has spread to denote a Mexico City sub-style not often seen on the streets of Los Angeles. In Southern California, meats are generally chopped down to small bits to serve. The Califa style, however (or “gaonera” when it includes a layer of cheese), involves a single, extremely thin slice of high-quality bistek, costilla, cecina or chuleta that is slapped onto a hefty handmade tortilla, and that’s it.
I rely on one puesto in Los Angeles near my home that I know makes this taco well. It sits unassumingly in front of an upholstery shop on West Adams Boulevard. Tacos Guadalajara, named after Mexico’s major western city, is manned by a taquero from Oaxaca and makes a perfect local version of the Mexico City Califa style. There’s no sign. It pops up Tuesdays through Sundays on the sidewalk, enduring despite the hyper-aggressive campaign by developers to gentrify the boulevard by practically any means necessary. I go for the cecina. The slices of cured beef are thin enough to be almost transparent. The meat meets the grill for about 20 seconds on each side, and that’s about all it needs before settling into a tortilla. I add a small spoonful of the puesto’s frijoles de la olla and grilled onions, and a tiny dab of its blazing orange habanero salsa. Simple. I take a bite and am transported to the streets of beloved “D.F.” on a late night. Or, in other words, taco nirvana.
I rely on one puesto in Los Angeles near my home that I know makes this taco well. It sits unassumingly in front of an upholstery shop on West Adams Boulevard. Tacos Guadalajara, named after Mexico’s major western city, is manned by a taquero from Oaxaca and makes a perfect local version of the Mexico City Califa style. There’s no sign. It pops up Tuesdays through Sundays on the sidewalk, enduring despite the hyper-aggressive campaign by developers to gentrify the boulevard by practically any means necessary. I go for the cecina. The slices of cured beef are thin enough to be almost transparent. The meat meets the grill for about 20 seconds on each side, and that’s about all it needs before settling into a tortilla. I add a small spoonful of the puesto’s frijoles de la olla and grilled onions, and a tiny dab of its blazing orange habanero salsa. Simple. I take a bite and am transported to the streets of beloved “D.F.” on a late night. Or, in other words, taco nirvana.
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Tire Shop Taqueria
Historic South-Central Carne Asada Puesto $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Angelenos can eat tacos in a thousand different settings, but one nightscape conveys a specific romance: the large tent sheltering grills and bodies in constant motion, blue smoke swirling around bare light bulbs, a horde of people who picked up the scents of mesquite and beef even before they turned the corner and joined the jagged, swiftly moving line. That’s the promise of Tire Shop Taqueria, the Historic South-Central taco stand that originally set up across the street next to the now-closed El Jarocho tire shop. The nickname stuck, though the banner that lists the options for tacos, mulitas, vampiros and other variations says, “Taqueria San Miguel.” Stay alert when it’s your time to order. The crew works to maintain its rapid tempo. Tortillas hit the griddle to order, and the taquero flicks on the dressings for the Tijuana-style tacos in nanoseconds, finishing with a generous blotch of guacamole. Chorizo, pollo, cabeza and al pastor all hit their essential marks, but it’s the feathery-crisp carne asada that best embodies the scene’s smoky allure.
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Birrieria Barajas
East Compton Goat birria Puesto $
(Andrea D’Agosto / For The Times)
Robert Barajas Jr. wakes up every morning at 2 a.m. to start making birria horneada — “ovened,” he says. “We used to make it in the ground, now we use conventional ovens in order to have that crispy taste.” It is never simmered, adds Barajas. His father started the business several years ago, serving birria de chivo much the way the family has been making it for three generations in Tecalitlán, Jalisco. Birrieria Barajas opened first as a puesto on Compton Boulevard and then launched a truck across the street, parked in front of Eddie’s Liquor every day but Monday, beginning at 6:30 a.m.
“When we started we wouldn’t even sell half a goat,” Barajas says. “By word of mouth and faith we started to get going week by week. There are a lot of people that make birria. But it has to be goat, and it’s supposed to have your special mole, a kind of rub, your own recipe. Maybe that’s why we have good clientele, because we make the rub, everything, every day.”
The most popular order is the plato birria de chivo con pistola, a bowl of the spicy, fall-off-the-bone goat meat bathed in consomé that comes with a shank and tortillas, onions, cilantro, radishes, chiles and lime wedges for composing your own tacos. Of course there are regular tacos, and there are tacos dorados, folded and fried, with cheese if you want quesabirria. Every order comes with a complimentary small fried bean taco, and the beans are a recipe from Barajas’ grandmother, who died earlier this year. “My grandmother told my dad to ‘give customers a nice gesture,’” Barajas says. And once a month Barajas Sr. still prepares montalayo, a fried ball of goat stomach with sausage-like tripe stuffing; order it chopped into a taco.
“When we started we wouldn’t even sell half a goat,” Barajas says. “By word of mouth and faith we started to get going week by week. There are a lot of people that make birria. But it has to be goat, and it’s supposed to have your special mole, a kind of rub, your own recipe. Maybe that’s why we have good clientele, because we make the rub, everything, every day.”
The most popular order is the plato birria de chivo con pistola, a bowl of the spicy, fall-off-the-bone goat meat bathed in consomé that comes with a shank and tortillas, onions, cilantro, radishes, chiles and lime wedges for composing your own tacos. Of course there are regular tacos, and there are tacos dorados, folded and fried, with cheese if you want quesabirria. Every order comes with a complimentary small fried bean taco, and the beans are a recipe from Barajas’ grandmother, who died earlier this year. “My grandmother told my dad to ‘give customers a nice gesture,’” Barajas says. And once a month Barajas Sr. still prepares montalayo, a fried ball of goat stomach with sausage-like tripe stuffing; order it chopped into a taco.
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Tacos La Güera
Florence Beef costilla Puesto $
(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
This is where I want to spend a perfect, breezy L.A. afternoon, eating tacos de guisado and drinking Sidral Mundet. Here there is no trompo of spinning al pastor, no choricera bubbling with carnitas. The gentle star of the show is a wooden press for white corn tortillas. Deep steel pans with lids hold guisados, and there’s a pot of refried beans for smearing on the teleras for tortas. Underneath the plastic tarp that stretches over the sidewalk between the Tacos La Güera truck and an iron fence on 59th Place, I sit on a plastic stool at a folding table decorated with stacks of melamine plates, bright yellow squeeze bottles of French’s mustard (for hot dogs), salt shakers, napkins, satin roses, a large molcajete. On a small TV screen attached to a corner of the truck, Colombian bullfighter Rocio Morelli gives an interview, answering questions about her brilliantly embroidered traje de luces, “suit of lights.”
The sounds lull me into a Sunday reverie: the slapping of fresh masa and the squeak of the tortilla press, then the cacophony of a metal spatula hitting the steel flattop to break up small piles of asada and cochinita as they sizzle. The tacos de costilla are made with thinly sliced short rib meat, seasoned with chile and spices and then sautéed on the griddle, just until juicy, and served in warm, freshly cooked tortillas. They need nothing more than onions, cilantro and a squeeze of lime.
The sounds lull me into a Sunday reverie: the slapping of fresh masa and the squeak of the tortilla press, then the cacophony of a metal spatula hitting the steel flattop to break up small piles of asada and cochinita as they sizzle. The tacos de costilla are made with thinly sliced short rib meat, seasoned with chile and spices and then sautéed on the griddle, just until juicy, and served in warm, freshly cooked tortillas. They need nothing more than onions, cilantro and a squeeze of lime.
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Los Sabrosos Al Horno
Wilmington Suckling pig Puesto $
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
The sight of a whole roasted pig drew me immediately to David Delfín’s stand at the Taco Madness event hosted by L.A. Taco last year. His Nayarit-style taco is like nothing else I know in Southern California: He chops a combination of yielding meat and crackling skin and piles it on two small corn tortillas with sliced cabbage and a duo of thin salsas both twanging with mustard. Its flavor at first pounces like a squiggle of Bertman Original on a ballpark hot dog before mellowing on the palate and melding with the pork. My Southern roots compel me to mention the chance similarity between Delfín’s masterpiece and South Carolina whole-hog barbecue, also traditionally served with mustard-based sauce. Los Sabrosos Al Horno can be elusive to find: It’s most often a weekend pop-up that appears either in Cudahy or Wilmington. Follow its Instagram account, and also check its Facebook page, for information about locations and availability. These tacos are more than worthy of the hunt.
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Tacos Lionydas
Long Beach Al Pastor Puesto $
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Since popping up for the first time in early summer 2022 near Long Beach’s Los Alamitos traffic circle, Lionydas became an instant locals favorite for sizzling al pastor that seemed to raise the bar for this taco category in the Harbor area. Lionydas, initially named Tacos Lionel, is powered by Mixe taqueros. These Oaxacan cooks have carved out a formidable reputation in taquero circles for their masterful skills at the trompo. At Lionydas, that oaxaqueño touch emphasizing spice and sweetness in the pastor adobo plays gloriously against other options like cabeza and mesquite-grilled asada. Focus on the al pastor, yes, but if pressed, my personal go-to here would be the chorizo taco. Fragrant, crumbly almost like cake, the chorizo is Mixe-style to the max.
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