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 Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | September 2006 
On the Taco Trail
 Cindy Price - NYTimes
| | Senor Frog’s custom lobster tacos. |
I've never met a taco I didn't like. Weaned on Taco Bell and my Lebanese mother's Old El Paso tacos, I'm not terrifically choosy. High-end, low-end, commercial, authentic – even a bad taco is better than no taco.
But things change. Deep, obsessive love begets connoisseurship, and a more refined understanding is sought. The plan? A trip along Highway 1, from Los Angeles to San Francisco – among the most beautiful stretches of road in the country, and possibly the hottest taco crawl outside of Mexico. My boyfriend, Taylor Umlauf, will take the wheel and help sample the goods – generous spirit that he is – with hours between to soak in the scenery. The hum and buzz of 380 miles of winding open road await – five days, 28 taquerias, 49 tacos.
Eager to hit the road, we decide on a whirlwind tour of Los Angeles.
In the city's central section, Pico-Union is a largely Hispanic neighborhood that tourists rarely brake for, but it is home to the taco trifecta – King Taco, El Taurino and El Parián.
King Taco owns El Taurino, and both have a terrific atmosphere – bustling assembly-line kitchens, lively patrons, Latin-themed jukeboxes. Each produces tasty blueprints for the authentic Mexican taco: saucer-size soft corn tortillas about four inches wide, topped with steaming meats that hum with cilantro, onion and a shot of hot sauce.
But it is the loner, El Parián, that sways the heart. It is a favorite of the taco-blogging sensation, the great Bandini ( www.tacohunt.blogspot.com), who has warned me that it always looks closed.
Parking in back, we slip into a surprisingly roomy restaurant with sit-down service. In the open kitchen, enormous pots bubble with birria (stewed goat), while customers toil quietly over chips and salsa. My carne asada taco arrives, the thick, juicy strips of steak bursting with flavor and laced with ripe tomato. Flanking the plate are the requisite slices of radish and wedge of lemon.
Across town, we cruise into a busy commercial strip of East Los Angeles. Those who have never sampled a fish taco would be wise to cut their teeth at the tropical urban oasis Tacos Baja Ensenada. Filled with plump pieces of fried halibut and stacked high with cabbage and an otherworldly cream sauce, it is the kind of taco you don't look up from.
Day fades to night through Venice and Santa Monica, and in the morning, we burst onto the open road. This stretch of Highway 1, just before Santa Barbara, where the road hugs the Pacific so tightly you can see the spray coming off the rocks, makes you want to laugh and crank up the music.
Do rich people eat tacos? I had heard that wealthy Santa Barbara was a hotbed of authentic taco activity, but I was hard-pressed to believe it. A cruise down tree-peppered North Milpas Street, however, confirms it. The street is lined with taquerias, including the one that started the craze – La Super Rica Taqueria.
Known to many as "the Julia Child joint" – she was a loyal customer until she died two years ago – La Super Rica is bright and airy, and the tortillas are handmade on the spot. On the cashier's recommendation, I pair a taco de bistec (charbroiled steak) with a queso de cazuela (a heavenly cheese baked in tomato sauce).
Just as I'm sitting down with the owner, Isidoro González, a white-bearded passer-by leans in. "It's not just a taqueria, it's the best restaurant in town," he says. Heart be still, it's David Crosby. A fellow taco-hound! "You don't have to continue any further," he says, eyes twinkling. "This is it – this is the place."
Starry-eyed, we proceed. Nearby, just off charming State Street, where white stucco boutiques sit neatly under manicured palm trees, is a no-frills storefront called Lilly's Taqueria. The menu, scrolled hurriedly across a white eraser board, reads like Hannibal Lecter's grocery list – cheek, lip, tongue, eye. I opt for the lengua (tongue), and dig into the tiny pocket.
Emboldened, I ask the owner, José Sepulveda, about the ojo taco (cow eye). "It sounds kind of unusual," he says with a laugh. "They think they're going to serve the eye right there. We chop everything, and it's cooked and steamed."
Right. It does kind of look like browned Steak-Ums. But I also spy some gelatinous, clear bits. "Oh, that," he says, catching my hesitancy. "That's nothing. Just different parts of the, uh, muscle."
Oh, boy. Like the cornea? I think, plunging in. The flavor is rich, straightforward – a bit greasy, but doable. "Tacos de ojo" is also slang in Mexico for "eye candy," as in "that Salma Hayek is un taco de ojo." Possibly excited by the connotation, my vegetarian boyfriend leans in swiftly for a bite, then stares sheepishly at the plate before dipping in for round two.
Back on the road – the whistle of the wind, the rush of passing trucks, the smell of salt air. Passing a herd of grazing cows, Taylor grips the wheel, muttering: "I can't even look them in the eye."
San Luis Obispo is a lot like Santa Barbara, but less fancy. On a sidewalk, four Mexican construction workers sit eating lunch. On a whim, I run through my list. They nod approvingly, but when Chapala, a little-known restaurant in nearby Morro Bay, is mentioned, the big guy on the end lights up like a firecracker: "Yes, yes! That's the one!"
Morro Bay is a fishing village about 10 miles north, with a service street that runs along roaring Highway 1. Tucked discreetly into a gas-station minimart, Chapala is easy to miss. Last November, after seeing long lines form for his homemade tacos, its owner, Antonio Dominguez, turned Chapala into a full-service restaurant, with a mariachi band that plays Friday nights. To mark the changeover, a temporary plastic sign flags in the wind.
Inside, the restaurant is awash in color – a vibrant, charismatic place with big wooden chairs brought in from Mexico. Festive music competes with the clank of the kitchen as the host grabs a couple of menus. The tacos are the best yet. The al pastor (marinated pork) is kicked up with a zigzag of cream; the shrimp taco is sautéed in a homemade achiote sauce.
Our next stop also turns out superb tacos, but with a beachside surfer appeal. At Ruddell's Smokehouse, a bubble-gum-colored outpost on Cayucos Beach, the owner, Jim Ruddell, owns up to his "gringo tacos" with a laugh, but his house-smoked meats and seafood are no joke. We feast on cumin-dotted pork loin and sweet, smoky oyster tacos, to the thrum of the crashing waves.
Fat and happy, we set our sights on the rocky landscape of Big Sur. The commercial world slips away as we climb the coastline, the gray-brown Santa Lucia Mountains rising suddenly over the swirling blue Pacific. Before us lies a stretch renowned for its vast, awesome splendor, a 90-mile picture postcard in the making – but alas, a taco wasteland.
As the dark cliffs of Big Sur give way to the bright green heartland. This is Watsonville, an agricultural town, filled with taquerias catering to the ever-increasing Hispanic population.
Fiesta Tepa-Sahuayo looks like a classic California hole-in-the-mall, but the festive interior brims with homeland trinkets. The tacos hardly disappoint, but my guess is that the real gems are the hard-to-find specialties, like shrimps in rose-petal sauce.
Santa Cruz, to the north, is a flip-flop, sand-in-the-shorts kind of place. Taqueria Vallarta turns out to be a major operation catering to daytime shoppers and late-night partiers, and my defenses kick up. Teenagers don't have the most discriminating tastes for food.
Young America, I stand corrected. The carnitas (shredded pork) tacos are delicious, and grabbing them to go, we pick up a six-pack and head up to the Skyview drive-in movie theater. It's a classic drive-in, screening Hollywood blockbusters and entertaining a laissez-faire policy of B.Y.O.T.
Halfway between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, we turn off into the rolling green hills of Pescadero, a tiny little blip of a town with a handful of general stores, a single bar and one gas station. I have been tipped off that there is a taqueria holed up somewhere in town, and that the ingredients are straight off the farm. I ask around. "There is no sign in the window," a local offers, "but there is a taqueria in the gas station."
Inside the gas station, it's lunchtime and bustling at Taqueria y Mercado de Amigos. Workers squeeze into booths, sipping hibiscus sodas and chatting over the sizzle of the grill and the rhythmic cha-ching of the register. Two cooks work quickly – grilling the shrimp just till the edges blacken, searing the al pastor and drizzling it with hot sauce.
On the last day, we reach San Francisco and its Mission District. The streets are lined with murals and filled with the sounds of friends heading for happy hour, cars honking as they pass. The taco to beat here is at La Taqueria, where awards line the walls. But I've heard word that two other restaurants, Taqueria San José and El Taco Loco, were gaining. Clearly, I will need to sample one from each.
Having barebacked it sans gringo toppings all the way from Los Angeles, I decide to indulge my American peccadilloes and load them up with guacamole, sour cream and cheese. In the Mission, this is called the "super taco."
Three carnitas are placed neatly shell to shell. At first blush, San José's, filled to the breaking point with rice and beans, looks doomed. La Taqueria's is clearly the looker – fresh ingredients folded gingerly into a wax-paper pocket. But scraping aside the mound of rice on the San José taco, I am blown away. The pork is charred perfectly – crispy on the edges, with a center so sweet it brings a tear to the ojo.
Nearby, the legendary El Tonayense taco trucks (named for the owners' hometown, Tonaya, in the Mexican state of Jalisco) are hopping. Hitting the truck at Harrison and 22nd Streets, I sample an ace tripitas (pig intestines).
It's fitting that our last stop finds us at La Palma Mexicatessen, a tiny grocery store lined with the Mexican spices we've sampled along the way. In the back, kitchen workers shout orders and hand-roll tortillas to order. The crowd is lively – and why not? It's a beautiful afternoon, and the streets of this gorgeous city are lined with tacos. Determined to cap the crawl on the perfect note, I ask another customer what he likes on the menu. He smiles broadly.
"Everything." |
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