T. Nguyen

Tacos al pastor at Tacos Leo

Los Cincos Puntos, one of our favorite places for a taco, is located right near a cemetery. This is fitting, in a way: After all, in Los Angeles, nothing can be said to be certain except death and tacos. Indeed, we're willing to bet that if you peeked in backyards across town during Memorial Day weekend, you'll find tortillas and carne asada grilling on the Webers as readily as you'll find hot dogs and buns, and kids will be adding salsa to their tacos the way your 10-year-old self topped your hot dog with relish. Summer can't come soon enough.

Beyond the backyard, we're fortunate to have a landscape dotted with great taco trucks and taquerias. And while there are countless ways to connect these dots to come up with a top 10 list, ours is comprised of tacos that are not only stellar in their own right, but so fantastic that we would drive clear across town for them. Turn the page for the full list.

More >>

Emma Courtland

Doritos Locos Taco Shells

Since our first story on Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Taco, Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Tacos Taste Like Broken Dreams, we've received an abundance of new information courtesy of the friendly people at Taco Bell Corporate. We were invited to the new Taco Bell HQ in Irvine to re-sample the Doritos Locos Tacos, both regular and supreme. In addition to being given a tour of Taco Bell's test kitchens, exact replicas of the in-store kitchens where men and women in business casual discuss seasoned beef and crunch factor, we were treated to a healthy serving of what we reporters call "the facts," of which one was absolutely inescapable: We had been wrong.

More >>

T. Nguyen

Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Taco

"Consumers said that's more than just interesting, it's like 'where have you been my whole life,'" Taco Bell's chief marketing and innovation officer Brian Niccol told Forbes recently, about the public's reaction to the Doritos Locos Taco. This taco concoction is exactly what you might think it is: A regular Taco Bell beef taco with one giant Nacho Cheese Dorito chip that serves as the shell. Indeed, the Doritos Locos Taco successfully filled a void we didn't know existed; its sales led Taco Bell to a successful quarter, and there are plans to roll out Cool Ranch-flavored shells this year.

Our initial taste test of the Doritos Loco Taco, however, was decidedly underwhelming. This led us to wonder whether the deconstructed version -- a taco, a Dorito -- is greater than the sum of its parts. And so, for this Food Fight, we grabbed a bag of Doritos from a liquor store not too far from our local Taco Bell, and went in to find out.

More >>

Anne Fishbein

Chicken taco and a coke

If you didn't initially order the taco al pastor at Taqueria Cuernavaca, surely you will after the trip to the salsa bar. Because while loading the small plastic cups with salsa and a few dark, dark red chiles de árbol, you'll probably glance into the kitchen. And in said kitchen, you'll spot meat layered on a spit, carved into the shape of a fat exclamation mark and punctuated by a chunk of pineapple skewered at the very top. This is al pastor, and this you can identify within spitting distance because of all those impossibly late nights standing in line next to such a spit at a certain taco truck at Venice and La Brea, counting the number of crumpled dollars in your pocket that will dictate the number of $1 tacos you'll be able to buy. And so, when the server drops off a very fine horchata at your table, she'll add at least one taco al pastor to the tab, and you will be all the better for it.

More >>

T. Nguyen

Coconut pineapple tamale and chicken mole taco at Guisados

If you're going to Guisados, the Boyle Heights eatery that, along with Mariscos Jalisco, just won L.A. Taco's epic Taco Madness 2012, you undoubtedly are going for one, or two, or three of its famed stewed and braised tacos. But tear your eyes away from the long list of available taco fillings chalked on the giant menu for just a second and shift your gaze to the right. There, you'll notice that Guisados also offers tamales, which you can ask about while you put in your taco order. The mole tamale seems to be there most days; other options sometimes include a sweet tamale with shredded coconut and pineapple. Either is an excellent complement to any of the tacos, whether it be the calabacitas or tinga de polla. And, at only $1.50 per tamale, you may as well order at least one.

More >>

G. Arellano

Gustavo Arellano, with oranges

You might suspect Gustavo Arellano, the brain and wit behind the popular syndicated and OC Weekly column ¡Ask a Mexican!, as one of those Mexican food sticklers who bristles at ideas of yellow nacho cheese, the chimichonga, the chicken fajita pita, enchilada combination plates and Taco Bell's 50th anniversary festivities. Yes, Arellano admits to having once been fanatical about authenticity. But he's reformed.

Years of writing about food, restaurants and Mexican-American issues have broadened Arellano's perspective. He has explained that the epithet "greaser" as leveled against
Mexican-Americans refers to the high fat content of many Mexican
dishes -- pinto beans fried in lard, for example. In turn, Mexicans refer to Anglo-Americans as bolillos (French rolls) and mayonesa (mayonnaise).

"Greaser" certainly doesn't describe Arellano, but it's not a stretch to apply the label to Taquería Zamora, a Santa Ana hole-in-the-wall renowned for giant platters of cheap comida, accompanied by complimentary refried beans topped with salty cotija cheese. Arellano has chosen this taste of Mexico in a strip mall to chat with Squid Ink about his new book (scheduled for release tomorrow), entitled Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He's clearly a regular. A customer on lunch break whispers to her companion, "There's the Mexican."

More >>

Anne Fishbein

Irene Montano at Mitla Café

Sure, you may think you know a lot about tacos, but do you really? Because however knowledgable you may be, Gustavo Arellano knows more than you do. Arellano -- OC Weekly editor, author of ¡Ask a Mexican! and of the forthcoming book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, etc. -- has written today's feature food story, which might help you out some. After which you will be hungry and need to read (and eat) more, which is of course just what you should do.

Like the Virgin Birth and the Great Deluge myths, Mitla's story is just one version of the same epic tale: Southern California's romance with the taco, that meal of convenience that has entranced us for nearly a century. It's come in many forms: as the taquitos at Cielito Lindo, as the jingle for Tito's Tacos, as Kogi's Korexican marriage, as the plate of 'em eaten at King Taco by politicos looking for a photo op -- vegetarian, carnitas, soft, hard, high-end, street.

Read the story.

T. Nguyen

Taco sampler at Guisados

LA Taco's Taco Madness 2012, an annual NCAA-style tournament to determine who reigns taco supreme in Los Angeles, concluded last night, and madness it was. The exciting finale between Mariscos Jalisco and Guisados was so close that it required multiple recounts and caused a temporary bit of confusion. That's right, just like Bush v. Gore.

The entire showdown, actually, was quite a thriller. Hundreds of devoted fans of Mariscos Jalisco's fried shrimp tacos and Guisados's braised and stewed meat-filled creations logged their choice on LA Taco's website throughout the day. There were so many people voting, in fact, that the two often were separated by less than a dozen votes and swapped the lead position multiple times. When the polls closed at 7 p.m., all votes -- more than 1,400 of them -- were counted. Incredibly, the final score was 743-743. A dead heat.

More >>

E. Courtland

Doritos Loco Taco

We were rooting for Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Taco. Honestly we were. We talked it up for weeks in total earnest and even posted a countdown on our Facebook page. Because if somebody gave a green light to a taco shell made out of Nacho Cheese Doritos, an idea we're pretty sure we came up with on the playground in third grade, then what does it mean for the rest of our insane schoolyard fantasies? It means there will be a hoverboard.

More >>

T. Nguyen

Taco sampler plate at Guisados

If your March Madness brackets are already looking pretty dismal, look, as you always should, to tacos for your saving grace. L.A. Taco kicked off Taco Madness 2012 last week, its annual NCAA-style tournament that pits our favorite taquerias against one another to determine the king or queen of the tacos in Los Angeles. The tournament, now in its fourth year, should not be confused with KIIS FM's own coincidentally (or suspiciously) similar NCAA-style "Taco Madness" competition, which is pretty much the same concept as L.A. Taco's, only with more font colors and separate brackets for different geographic regions. ("On Air With Ryan Seacrest" writer Simon Bingham denied, via tweet, stealing L.A. Taco's idea: "Guess it's just not as original idea as we thought.")

Seacrest and his radio station aside, Mexicali Taco & Company beat Mariscos Jalisco after a riveting volley of votes to win (L.A. Taco's) Taco Madness 2011, and we're hoping for that same level of excitement this year. But everyone first will have to survive the initial round, which includes Mexicali squaring off against El Taco Llama and Mariscos Jalisco against Rambo's Tacos. More interesting, perhaps, is the impact Guisados and the other new players will have on the whole bracket.

More >>