Best Tacos? Mexico, Gringo

The original King Taco truck: a vehicle filled with more devine goodness than the Pope-mobile.

The final stop on my Taco Quest in California was to East L.A. -- home of King Taco itself. On a hot tip from J.J.'s friend, we had learned that there were two excellent taco joints to explore: the aforementioned King Taco, and Taco Real, just blocks from one another. We set out to see who was the real king of tacos -- names notwithstanding.

As we stood in line at King Taco, we saw a woman in line and asked her, "If you had to choose one, which would you say is better: King Taco, or Taco Real?"

She took a moment and then replied, "Mexico."

I laughed, "Well, I agree, but unfortunately we're sort of stuck here, and it might take awhile before we can make it down to Mexico."

I said this before realizing that what her answer meant was that she didn't understand the question I asked her at all. And then I realized that we were the only non-Hispanic people in line.

In other words, we were in the right place.

For the record, King Taco wins!

Taco Quest Continues: The Whole Cow, Nothing but the Cow

Last week, I made it out to L.A. to continue my ongoing quest for some of the finer tacos this side of the border. In particular, I was interested in retracing the steps of intrepid New York Times reporter Cindy Price, who wrote an impressive article on the authentic taquerias in the greater LA area, just as I was discovering tacos in Central Illinois. In this two-part series, I detail some of the highlights of my own taco expedition.

Some of the fine tacos at Lilly's Taqueria... I think that the taco de ojo is the third one.

With my friend J.J. joining me for the trip, we headed to Santa Barbara to recreate some of the major highlights of Cindy's trip. First stop: Lilly's Taqueria, where they serve lots of cow parts: eye tacos (taco de ojo), lip tacos (taco de labio), and cheek tacos (tacos de cachete), and finally head tacos (taco de cabeza -- what part of the head, you ask? I don't know!!). Many of these were animal parts that had not really occurred to me as possibly being food prior to the visit to Lilly's. But I ordered them all.

Of course the highlight was the taco de ojo -- I'd been looking forward to trying it for some time. Due to some prior arm-twisting, I had elicited an agreement from J.J. to take a bite of the taco de ojo herself, however I didn't force her to follow through with this when we got there... the eye taco tasted alright but had sort of a gooey slimey quality to it. Also, right after I told her she was safe, I took another bite and encountered a bit that tasted something like tough cartilege (presumably this would have been J.J.'s bite). This caused me to wonder if I had bitten into an iris or something, but I didn't dwell on it and kept munching. Best not to think about these things.

Next we headed to La Super Rica. The NYT's Cindy Price had gotten my hopes up that I might spot some David Crosby-class celebrities here, but there was no one here that I recognized. Their taco menu was a lot more limited than Lilly's -- I think their options were parsed down to steamed and grilled pork and steak, and I must admit that both were mighty tasty. The line here stretched out the door, which I've heard is pretty typical at La Super Rica. As I bit into my steak taco I wondered whether there might be some inverse relationship between the number of weird animal parts served and the length of the line stretching out the door. With happy faces and full bellies, we headed back to L.A., where the taco journey continues...

Next time on Taco Quest: East L.A. and beyond!

Dispatch from the SoCal beat

I've been out of town for almost three weeks in sunny Southern California, and, as is my way, went into a pretty thorough blog-shutdown mode while on vacation. This led to leaving a big downer as my last post for a period of almost two weeks (sorry!). I assure you, I was not spending the last two weeks mourning as much as enjoying everything Sunny CA had to offer. Since it looks like I'll be back there soon, methinks I'll be adding SoCal as another part of my beat ("a Northwesterner writes about life in the Southwest?").

A couple highlights:

• ArcLight Movie Binge. The ArcLight cinemas boast the finest audio and visual experience of any theater in the nation. DW2 and I went over there first to see The Wrestler -- which is a stupid movie to use to appreciate these things given the movie's deliberately gritty video style. So... I went back there with my good friend J.J. and proceeded to watch Milk, Revolutionary Road, and Frost/Nixon...
  ... All great movies!, and as of today's check, Winston-Salem is 0 for 4 on showing any of them.
  
  
• Weather! I was in Palm Springs for Christmas, and so instead of having a White Christmas somewhere, I was resigned to plucking grapefruits, lemons, limes, and oranges off the trees in 65 degree weather. I had a lot of time to miss the chilly winter weather I've been accustomed to as I drank fresh-squeezed orange juice by the pool.
  
  
• Food, food, food! I was very intent on following Cindy Price's path up the California coast to try some of her picks for the finest tacos around. Unfortunately, we hit Santa Barbara on a day when all of the taco joints were closed. J.J. and I thus shifted gears and discovered The Palace, which served Cajun food, and where I had some of the best scallops I've ever had... they were so perfectly cooked that they melted in your mouth. Back in LA, we discovered Jitlada, rumored to serve the hottest Thai food in Thai-town. We tried the Thai mussels, which featured the biggest mussels I've ever seen (and also the greenest) in a sort of lemongrass broth. For the record: Thai basil is amazing on mussels.

There is much more to write about from the L.A. experience. However, suffice it to say that outside of 8-dollar beers at some places on the Sunset Strip, L.A. was not quite the contemptible town that I had prepared myself to encounter. I can't wait to go back!