Taco Shops – Page 12

El Indio – A taco shop for breakfast.

May 10, 2010 Cathy Breakfast/Brunch, Taco Shops, What Cathy Eats!

Welcome back to mmm-yoso!!! the food blog written by a few friends. Kirk is on vacation with His Missus (still) in a faraway land (and eating exotic foods and having adventures you will enjoy reading about), ed is in Yuma working away and hopefully is eating and today, Cathy is blogging.

Hi again. Looking at my posting history, The Mister and I seem to really enjoy going out for breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and occurs during the least stressed part of the day. I guess that is a good part of the enjoyment factor.

A few days ago, The Mister and I had to be downtown early and only had a coffee before leaving the house. Neither of us considered the no traffic part of the day and we were more than an hour early. We drove over to India Street and stopped.
We have been to El Indio, a San Diego institution for more than 30 years, for breakfast before and I was kind of craving something salty. Perfect.
We ordered, paid and sat down. While waiting I took photos of the Las-Vegas-like decor.

Soon, my name was called and I picked up my tray.
Which consisted of a ham, egg, potato and cheese breakfast burrito the size of my 8 inch plate.
The ham was only slightly salty and complimented by the fresh cooked, crispy edged potatoes and plentiful amount of scrambled eggs. All on the fresh gigantic flour tortilla, at $4, this was more than enough food.
I got what I usually order here, Huevos Albanil ($5.25). Two easy cooked eggs, placed on top of fresh toasted corn tortillas toped with albanil sauce (green tomato sauce-not the salsa, which has onions), shredded Mexican cheese (I think it is Cotija, but maybe not) and served with excellent refried beans and hot corn tortillas.

Excellent and fun breakfast. A wonderful way to start the day.

El Indio 3695 India Street San Diego 92103 website

Hot, Cold, Wet & Hungry- Shrimp Cocktail and Birria de Chivo at Palominos

April 22, 2010 Cathy Taco Shops, What Cathy Eats!

Thanks for visiting the mmm-yoso!!! food blog. The part usually played by Kirk is being played by Cathy today. Because Kirk and His Missus are on vacation. In a faraway land.

Hi. Boy, have we had an odd weather year. Here it is April and we had cold winds and rain intersperse with some sun all day yesterday. The Mister was going to be working late, I was hungry and didn't want to cook, so we met at Palominos. Again.
Of course we could not decide on what to eat and while perusing the menu, saw a new addition in the soup category- Birria de Chivo- Goat … soup. Usually, this is more of a stew, but the goat factor was there, so I ordered it.
Soon, the fairly large bowl of meat and broth (I could taste ancho chilis, oregano, cumin, thyme and cinnamon) was brought out, with the appropriate sides of corn tortillas as well as onion, cilantro, lime wedges and red pepper flakes.
It looked like a lot of meat in the bowl of broth…and this is how much broth was in the bowl.
The rest was meat. A nice, gamey, fatty, flavorful goat. Which had been simmered for a long while, with meat falling off the bones. A rich, deep broth and rich, flavorful meat. For $6.49, one of the heartiest and heart warming soups we have had here.
When ordering, I decided to contrast the warm and meat with cool and seafood, so a shrimp coctele ($9.99) was in order. There were 30 shrimp in this large serving glass, with lime and tomato juice, cucumber and some onion. The fresh flavors of this 'broth' as well as the pretty large flavorful shrimp were a nice contrast and compliment to the fatty rich soup broth. It was a nice break for both of us. But I had to drive home in this…
and figured the traffic on the freeway would be backed up, so drove around the corners to Starbucks, pulled the old computer out of my car
and had a grande chai latte, no water, with The Mister before he headed back to work and I headed home. I hope everyone had a warm evening and safe driving.

Palominos #2. 9353 Clairmont Mesa Boulevard, Suite I San Diego 92123 (858) 292-8470

Luche Libre Gourmet Taco Shop

March 8, 2010 mmm-yoso Hot Dogs, Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops

For some reason, the interior of this place always has me humming:

"Those magnificent men in their flying machines,
they go up diddly up up,
they go down diddly down down….."

Now why the heck would this bright pepto-bismol pink, "luche libre"(Mexican professional wrestling) themed and decorated (I use that term loosely) restaurant have me humming that tune? Well, if you grew up in Hawaii in the late 60's and 70's you'd recognize names like as Ripper Collins(who once, when I recognized him in a parking lot, asked me "do you want to wrestle?") and Curtis "the Bull" Iaukea. Two of my favorites were Pampero Firpo (aka the Missing Link) and "Handsome Johnny Barend" whose theme song was "Those magnificent men in their flying machine". Barend always had me in stitches with his unhinged, rambling, crazy schtick. Man, those were the days….. My apologies for the somewhat obtuse digression, but the decor is just as crazy as "Handsome Johnny"……..

When Luche Libre Gourmet Taco Shop first opened, I like many others in the bloggersphere went to check out what all the buzz was about. The interior itself is probably good enough reason to visit at least once. On that visit, I got a Queso Taco:

Which was dry, tough, and bland carne asada, wrapped in a fairly tasteless, overly rigid, double corn tortilla, which was saved by the crisp mildly salty griddled cheese.

Of course I got the TJ Hotdog….. A bacon wrapped hotdog, with griddled onions and peppers….seasoned with mustard and (gasp) ketchup. A bargain at a buck-fifty.

I will say that you pretty much get what you pay for. I love TJ style Hotdogs, but I really didn't care much for this version. The first two times I had this, the bun was burnt, and not good eats.

I also noticed, that though the dog, an all beef "perro" had good flavor(though I'd like a bit more snap), for some reason the bacon is almost a non-entity in this flavorwise. To test this out, I once visited with an acquaintance of mine, a real fan of LL. Since I was buying lunch, I didn't think it would be really bad to play a little "joke" on him. I ordered his dog sans bacon. Our conversation got to the dog at hand, and I happened to mention how important the bacon was to this hotdog…… at which time he said something along the lines of, "yes, yes, of course this wouldn't be the same without the bacon. And this rocks!" Yeah, I guess that bacon makes this TJ Hot Dog, huh? Oh, I still haven't told him that he didn't have any bacon on his TJ dog……

Recently, after almost a year, decided to check out LL, and the TJ Hot Dog again. And I gotta say, even though the bacon is still waaaay back there in the background, this time the bun wasn't burned, and there was a good amount of peppers and onions…. and tomatoes adding a bit of tang to the whole thing.

If you'd like to read a very interesting post, one of my favorite fellow food bloggers, Masa Assassin has a fantastic post on the History of Mexico's bacon wrapped hot dogs. (MA also shares some my opinions of LL's dog….)

Over time, I've gotten a couple of emails extolling the virtues of the Carne Asada Burrito at LL. I don't know if you've noticed, but there has been a serious lack of "CABs" (Carne Asada Burritos) in my posts. If you've been reading long enough, you may remember that Howie had a not so little event called the "battle of the Bertos", a comparison of 10 Carne Asada burritos from places ending in "'berto". I guess you could call it "PTBSS"…. post traumatic burrito stress syndrome. Following the "event" I just couldn't face a CAB. Mention a CAB to me and I'd go though a series of ticks that would make a third base coach proud. But, as they say, time…. and hunger, heals all wounds. And recently, fresh off carne asada burrito rehab, I grabbed a CAB from Luche Libre ($4.85):

This was a good sized, two fisted burrito. And now is a good time to mention the salsa bar, with some good freshly made salsas, a la Mama Testa. My only complaint is a serious lack of "picante".

As for the burrito…. the beef in this was a total 180 from the Queso Taco. It was nice thickly cut what seemed to be flank steak, chewy, but in a good way. I still think it is a bit under-flavored, but I enjoyed the flavor of "the char".

The best thing the guacamole and the pico de gallo did was not to interfere with the beef. So perhaps I'm cured………

A good while back, I received an email from a FOY (Friend of Yoso), who deserves an apology since I can't find his email. He recommended something called the "DDT Loaded Baked Potato"($6.25). Over six bucks for a baked potato!?!?!! And yet, I was intrigued…. And when I picked my potato up, I understood why they called this the "DDT baked potato. The only question was what version of the DDT this poor spud was exposed to?

Was it the "elevated DDT", or perhaps the "spike DDT"? My money's on the "tornado DDT". This thing was a gooey, calorie bomb mess of a baked potato, with carne asada, grilled shrimp, mushrooms, and grilled onions and zucchini (you do need your veggies, right?), enrobed in melted cheese, and topped with a chipotle flavored sauce, much like the thousand island dressing stuff you get at mariscos shops.

Man, this was a mess…. and yet, I couldn't stop eating. I didn't want to admit it, but I kinda enjoyed this…… I did need a cold shower after, and I don't crave it, but I can't lie. This pushed all the guilty pleasure buttons.

I'm not sure I buy the "gourmet" part, as the level of refinement really isn't there. That aside, there are some novel items on the menu, the prices are reasonable, the quality of some of the ingredients is higher. At its best, LL is a notch above the usual San Diego Taco shop(thoughYMMV), and the food is "Gringo safe". And I haven't even gotten to the free chips……

Luche Libre Gourmet Taco Shop
1810 W Washington St
San Diego, CA 92103

La Fachada

February 25, 2010 mmm-yoso Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops

A couple of Saturdays ago, during the big rainstorm, a couple of good friends and I decided to do a taco crawl. The weather refused to cooperate, howling wind and pouring rain, but I gotta give it up for JohnL and TammyC, they handled the dripping canopies and pouring rain like troopers, and we managed six stops, and about a dozen tacos a piece (including a coupla gobernadors, etc). In need of a stop where we didn't have to suffer through water pouring onto our tacos, and us. I suggested La Fachada. It had been a whilem and I thought after doing the mariscos thing, a coupla street sized tacos would make for a nice change of pace. Of course, the La Fachada I'm mentioning is the trailer parked in the lot of the restaurant.

And they were doing some pretty good business, even on a stormy Saturday……

Each of us went with tres (three) tacos. I selected Birria de Res (spicy braised beef), lengua (tongue), and cabeza (beef head), a buck-sixty each.

Much of it was like I remembered, the tortillas, even though hand made (pressed), tasted mass produced. The birria was on the stringy side, and the chili flavor was a bit muted. The lengua was a bit too waxy. The cabeza was very nice though, moist with an intense gamey-beefy flavor.

One thing that I didn't recall, was how spicy the pickled onions with habanero were…… pretty darn hot! The salsas are tried and true, nothing spectacular, but it met my expectations. Overall, a nice stop. So a couple of weeks later, I was in the area, and decided on a nice breakfast of a couple of tacos.

This time it was (from let to right) carnitas, adobada, and cabeza(again).

The real winner of the bunch was the carnitas, crisp, rich, and full of flavor, it really hit the spot. The adobada was pretty weak and too tough. The cabeza was even "beefier", and perhaps a bit less fatty/greasy.

I really enjoyed the carnitas, and may make it a point to drop by more often then the every coupla years thing I've been doing. Funny thing is, I've never been "in" the restaurant, as I've always eaten at the taco cart, so I can't help you there.

A couple of weeks after our taco crawl, JohnL contacted me…… at the end of the email he wrote "maybe over some tacos LOL I've been taco crazy ever since…." Looks like we'll go for more than a dozen next time?

La Fachada
20 25th St
San Diego, CA 92102

New to the Rotation: Mariscos El Pescador

November 24, 2009 mmm-yoso Food Trucks, Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops

Over the last couple of months, I've noticed that much of our rotation is seasonal. There are places like Latin Chef that fit into our Spring/Summer plans than during the Fall or Winter. Other places, like Asia Cafe we really don't visit often enough anymore. So those have been removed from the rotation…maybe just until the next time I update.

Over the last 3 months, the Missus has often requested a drive down to Chula Vista, and a visit to the Mariscos El Pescador truck. Even though thre are more than a few Mariscos places and trucks closer, heck there's even the new Mariscos German truck about a mile-and-a-half from us. But the Missus enjoys the Caldo de Pescado (fish soup) from MEP the best.

So we'll make the drive so the Missus can get Her hands on the always scalding hot Caldo de Pescado from MEP.

It's not super consistent. We've found that the soup is best between 10am and 2-3 pm, so we usually drive down on a Saturday or Sunday……though I have found myself racing traffic (and the clock) down the I-5 on a weekday evening to get the Missus Her fix.

She loves the large and abundant chunks of fish, usually plump and tender.

It comes with some hand scalding tortillas wrapped in aluminum foil, and for $5, is well worth the price.

Of course, I enjoy the fish tacos here. And I'm not above ordering something else to sate my hunger.

Tacos de Marlyn anyone?

Mariscos El Pescador(In the parking lot of RTA/Toys R Us)
1008 Industrial Blvd
Chula Vista, CA 91911

Our updated "Rotation" Page can be found here. There will be one further update coming up.

Of course, if we're making the effort to drive down to Chula Vista, we're going to attempt to maximize the effort. Which means that if we're in the area on a Saturday, a stop at Hogetsu Bakery is a must…

As is a stop at La Moreliana, so the Missus can restock on Coricos. We'll usually make one additional stop, and thus far, it's the Al Pastor from Internacional 2000 that has the lead over the Carne Asada at El Poblano. You gotta love greasy goodness…..

So what's on your rotation this winter?????

Eating on the hood of your car – under the cover of darkness edition: La Princesita 2 Taco Truck

October 10, 2009 mmm-yoso Food Trucks, Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops

Recently, while driving home from dinner, we noticed a new taco truck in the old service station lot on the corner of Clairemont Drive and Balboa. Over the years, we've seen a couple of taco trucks, and even a BBQ truck testing out this corner lot. Most were gone within a week or two. But on a recent evening, I noticed that the truck was still in business, and decided to stop.

Driving into the parking lot and past the light show, I thought that something about the signs looked familiar.

Parking my car, and seeing the back of the trailer confirmed it:

This was La Princesita 2, the sister taco truck to the very popular truck parking in the lot of Joe's 99 cent store in Linda Vista. Thing were looking up. This trailer sold tacos, burritos, and tortas, and if I recall, the carne asada at La Princesita 1 is pretty good.

Tacos are priced at $1.50, so I got four……

Two Carne Asada, and two Lengua….I had wanted a Tacos de Cabeza, but they were out.

The Carne Asada was better than most of the something 'Berto's and the other taco shop chains in the area.

But suffered in our opinion, probably because we had just had some very good carne asada from El Poblano the night before. This was decent for carne asada done on a griddle, with some nice caramelized pieces, but lacking in a strong marinade. The occaisional piece of gristle didn't help things. Along with the decent salsa, onions, pickled onions, and cilantro, this wasn't bad, though I think the original truck's version is better. The corn tortillas were fine….

The Lengua (beef tongue) was too waxy, and lacked the nice gamey-beefy flavor of good lengua.

As it stood, this wasn't a very good version of lengua. If you're afraid of lengua, this is so mild, that if you can get over the texture, it'll be nice version for a first try.

It is nice to have some decent tacos in the neighborhood, and by what the folks were ordering (12 adobaba tacos!!!). I hope La Princesita 2 sticks around.

La Princensita 2 Taco Truck – on the corner of Balbo and Clairemont Drive.

Tacos El Poblano, and a South Bay Taco Crawl with Captain Jack

October 4, 2009 mmm-yoso Food Trucks, Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops, yoso-silly

**** This location of Tacos El Poblano has closed

Here's the last of my series of South Bay Taco Shops. I was taking a one of my weekend "drives" a couple of weeks back. And while driving through "Downtown" Chula Vista, I noticed a new restaurant.

It would have been "just another taco shop" except for the sign that said "Los Authenticos De Tijuana Ahora en CA". Which got my attention. I decided to stop, even though I had just finished two tacos from Tacos Yaqui. The fairly modest storefront, hides a pretty large, somewhat cavernous restaurant.

As I walked up to the counter, I could see flames rising from the grill next ot the cashier. So ordering was pretty simple, it had to be Carne Asada, and "something"……

That something was a Birria Taco($1.75):

El Poblano serves you tacos the way they think it should be served. There's no salsa bar, though the pickled peppers and carrots (escabeche) is fabulous, refreshing, and almost sweet. The birria was very mild, as I enjoy a bit more spice and "wildness".

A minute later my two Carne Asada tacos made its way to my table.

I loved the crisp but still pliable grilled tortillas, which added a nice bit of smokiness to the equation. The simple, but effective guacamole added richness. The salsa was nice and spicy, but the carne asada brought this down. As you can tell by the grey pallor, this was not the carne asada I just witnessed being grilled. It was tasteless and rubbery, not good eats. Everything about this taco was spot on, except the carne asada. And I'd usually visit another time before doing a post. So check out the rest of the post below, because on my next visit, it was just perfect, smokey, with nice caramelization.

Tacos El Poblano
217 3rd Avenue
Chula Vista, CA 91910

The South Bay Taco Crawl……

I guess this was inevitable. I'd been hitting multiple taco shops in the South Bay in recent weeks. And after receiving an email from "Grace" who was visiting San Diego, and wanted some recommendations on doing a "taco crawl" I thought, "why not do this yourself". I tried this once with a good FOY, a small but mighty eater. Unfortunately, we never made it past two shops…….

This meant I needed to bring in the "heavy artillery". There was only one person that I know of, who could handle this…… and I wasn't even sure that I'd be able to keep up. That person was….. "the man, the myth, the stomach….." my Urasawa eating buddy, Captain Jack. And of course, he was up for anything. So things started off this morning with CJ in my car, making our way down to the border…..

I had everything planned; we'd start off with Tacos Yaqui. Unfortunately, when we arrived in San Ysidro, we found that even though the sign said they open at 9am, and it was 930, they weren't open. It was time for "plan B". I headed up the I-5 and ended up in the now-all-too familiar RTA/Toys R' Us parking lot, and Mariscos El Pescador.

I figured we'd grab a Gobernador and a Tacos de Pescado (fish taco) and we'd be on our way. Pretty filling, but delicious, and we'd still be able to go on. But after the consomme and two tacos, the Owner, Cruz Vazquez, who we chatted with before the crowds, decided that we just had to have the "Tacos de Mariscanos", a mixto (mixed) taco. The size of which was daunting…..

This was like an over-stuffed mixed seafood version of the Gobernador, with sauteed fish, scallops, pulpo (octopus), along with the wonderful shrimp. With some of the spicy pickled onions, this was excellent. If the Gobernador, is "the Governor", this is "El Presidente"……

As an exclamation point, Captain Jack had a torta from the Torta Ahogadas truck across the parking lot. (A eating on the hood of your car post is coming up soon) I abstained, because this was a taco crawl, right? Talking about wiggling out of a tight situation.

After which, we headed off to Internacional 2000 for some Al Pastor, only to find that they weren't ready….. which led me to "plan C", and a visit to El Poblano. We grabbed a Adobaba Taco and a Carne Asada Taco. This time around, the Carne Asada was excellent, nicely caramelized, with a wonderful smokey flavor. Good stuff. I of course, kinda did the "four corners" here, engaging CJ in small talk. I also found that I eat pretty fast, so the delay gave me time to digest and adjust. After about fifteen minutes of small talk, CJ said the faithful words, "we're not done yet, are we?"

Which meant it was time to move on, and return to Tacos Yaqui, where we put down a Perrones Taco each, and some chips. Comparing the carne asada from Yaqui to El Poblano is like apples to oranges. Yaqui's carne asada is like eating steak, it is beefy, but milder in flavor, and served on a grilled flour tortilla with melted cheese, El Poblano's carne asada is smokey, and crisp.

Again, I finished several minutes ahead of CJ, and had time to digest.

We ended (taco) things at Internacional 2000 Taco Shop and had two Al Pastor tacos each. A nice, tasty, greasy end to our "taco tour". Funny thing, at the end, we both weren't full, but we were satisfied. I had an inkling to make a stop at Tacos El Gordo, but decided that I'd had enough. CJ on the other hand, decided otherwise, and we made a last stop a Panchita's for some sweets……

This "taco tour" was pretty easy, at no time did I feel uncomfortable. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a Food Marathon, but I'll tell you that I didn't have any dinner tonight…….

Tacos Yaqui – San Ysidro

September 30, 2009 mmm-yoso Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops

*** Tacos Yaqui has closed

During a recent lunch with FOY Candice, she mentioned a Taco shop in San Ysidro named after a very well known Taco Shop in Rosarito Beach called Tacos El Yaqui. Curious, I inquired as to the location, and was told San Ysidro. After coming home and doing a bit of research, I found that Tacos Yaqui specialized in Sonoran style Carne Asada.

So on a recent weekend morning, I made my way down the I-5, and took the second to the last exit before the border, at Via de San Ysidro. A couple of blocks later, I spied Tacos Yaqui…….

As I entered the restaurant, I noticed how busy they were….even at 9am in the morning, there was a steady flow of customers, all Hispanic, ordering at the counter. The picture menu had 8 basic tacos, and by the hand written sign behind the cashier, I noticed that Tortas, Mulitas, and Breakfast Norteno were also available.

No one seemed to speak English, but ordering was no problem. I took a two taco combo for $5.99, and a Diet Coke. I was given a number, and in a few minutes some very hot chips made its way to my table. I grabbed some salsa from the little bar, and crunched away at the thick tortilla chips.

There are few things that stimulate your appetite than the smell of animal flesh charring on the grill; and this little restaurant had it going on all cylinders.

By the time my tacos hit the table, I was ready to chew my arm off. Determining a "must eat" taco didn't take the use of much brain power. I had to try the Sonoran style Carne Asada, in this case it's called a "Taco Perrones". Perhaps a FOY (Friend of Yoso) like Masa Assassin can tell me the history of the name….because ummmm, "Perro" means "dog".

If you're like me, and used to TJ style carne asada tacos, you'll be surprised…. and it's a pretty pleasant surprise at that. First off, the tortilla is flour, though very thin and griddled. Cheese has been melted on the bottom of the taco, making a nice stringy-mildly milky bed for the carne asada. In this case, soft and tender grilled flank steak, which was mildly flavored, letting the beefy flavor of the cut take the lead. The beans threw me off, but for some reason did really well in this taco adding a nice earthy flavor. Along with the pico de gallo and guacamole, this was a pretty damn good taco. The word balance comes to mind. I had gotten a few various salsas, but ended up not using them. Instead, I just enjoyed my taco.

My second taco was something called the "Monster":

This one came with doubled flour tortillas prepared much in the manner as the other taco. It was chocked full of nice, plump shrimp, prepared in a mild tomato based sauce. As good as the shrimp were, it was the stuff on the bottom that made this taco…… it was chiccharon, pork that had been deep fried to a crisp. Very nice…..

Overall this was nice meal, the tacos were good sized, not the small TJ style versions. It was quite a hefty meal. I'll definitely be back! Maybe I'll see you there….. I'll be the one inhaling the fumes from the grilling meat!

Tacos Yaqui
111 W Olive Dr
San Ysidro, CA 92173

Thanks for the tip Candice!

Eating on the hood of your car: Mariscos El Pescador

September 27, 2009 mmm-yoso Food Trucks, Mexican Restaurants, Seafood, Taco Shops

A while back FOY "SomTommy", the very same individual who first told me about Sab E Lee, emailed me about a Taco Truck in the Parking Lot of RTA and Toys R Us in Chula Vista. There's wasn't much in the email other than the simple sentence "try the fish tacos……."

I filed away that bit of information, and a few weeks ago, I found myself in the area, and took the L Street offramp, followed by a quick turn on Industrial, past the stop sign, and you really couldn't miss the truck.

It really looked promising, the truck was doing steady business.

Following "ST's", instructions, I ordered a Taco de Pescado, along with a Gobernador. Things were looking up, as I was immediately passed a cup of tongue scortching consomme, a savory seafood broth that promised the upcoming meal will deliver the goods.

The consomme kept me occupied until my tacos were ready.

I grabbed my two tacos and headed off to….what else, the hood of my car, and dug in.

I started first with the Fish Taco ($1.25). The pretty large piece of fish was sizzling hot, the flesh was moist, and even had a mild sweetness to it.

I loved the ratio of white sauce to the other ingredients. The tortilla wasn't the best or freshest I've had, but it was the fish that would keep me coming back.

The Gobernador was also very good.

Perfectly stir fried shrimp, green bell peppers, and red onion. All of this lies on a bed of a tortilla that has been griddle slightly crisp, with a layer of melted cheese, which allows the tortilla to build up a resistance to the juices of the shrimp and veggies. Though I still prefer the version at the Mariscos German Truck, mainly because of the addition of tomatoes, this is still a heck of a delicious taco.

Good enough for me to return with the Missus in tow……. Along with my Tacos de Pescado, the Missus got a Tostada de Camarones (Shrimp Tostada):

Gone in a minute, the Missus assured me this was good. i'll have to take Her word for it!

The Missus also got a Campechana, a mixed seafood cocktail. Full of the usual coctele suspects (shrimp, oysters, scallops, octopus), it was the tart and sweet tomato influenced liquid, with just a touch of picante. It was the perfect foil for the heat of the day.

After these visits, I've been dropping by whenever I'm in the area…. like on my way home from my regular visits to Hogetsu Bakery. I guess there aren't too many Asians eating here, since on a recent evening, one of the guys working at the truck, came up to me, and mentioned that the truck was moving. Moving! Before I got too excited, he told me that because of some city ordinance, the truck was moving closer to RTA! Whew……..

This past weekend, quite curious, I dropped by to see where the truck was now located. The truck has now moved to the "Customer Pick-up" parking lot, right next to RTA.

In order to enter the area, you'll need to either go thru RTA, or walk to the left of the orange netting, and detach it from a hook on the wall. There are now a couple of tables set-up under the tarp as well. This puts the various sauces within easier reach……

Just in case you don't want to eat on the hood of your car…….

Either way, it's good stuff.

Mariscos El Pescador (In the parking lot pf RTA/Toys R Us)
1008 Industrial Blvd
Chula Vista, CA 91911

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Eating on the hood of your car: Internacional 2000 Taco Shop – Al Pastor

September 20, 2009 mmm-yoso Mexican Restaurants, Taco Shops

There’s something about eating off your car. You know what I mean, getting something from a food cart, window, or truck, and placing it on your hood, and having a nice messy old time. There’s just something visceral about it. So I thought I’d do a short series of posts, of stuff I’ve eaten off the hood of my car.

I found out about the Al Pastor from Internacional 2000 totally by accident. I was waiting for my order from the Mariscos El Pescador truck (another upcoming EOTHOYC post) when a young lady asked me what I’d ordered (tacos de pescado and gobernador). We both chatted while we waited, and pointing South, she mentioned really good tacos on the weekends from “International Mercado”. She loved the price, a dollar, then really got my attention when she said it was Al Pastor, right off the spit! Returning home, I started doing searches on “International Mercado”, and came up with only one match, Internacional Mercado 2000 in Chula Vista.

I couldn’t miss the plumes of smoke rising in the air as I entered the parking lot of the mercado. As I drove up the parking lot, I noticed…. well how could I NOT notice, the area set-up outside a window, with Pollo Asada (grilled chicken) grilling on one side, and Al Pastor on the trompo (vertical spit) on the other.

I mean really….you can’t miss it….

The drill was fairly easy. You ordered at the portable cash register, “quatro al pastor por favor”, paid ($1 each) the man, was handed a receipt, and you moved to the next line. The really nice guy manning the flame spitting vertical spit device takes your receipt, and he asks (and luckily for me points) to all of the accompaniments, and you go yes or no. And he goes to work.

Corn tortillas were thrown on the oil laden griddle to the right of the trompo, and when ready were put in front of the spit. I noticed that after serving the woman in front of me, the gentleman waited to complete two sizzling spins before he started carving the sizzling meat. Holding the double tortilla at an angle, the Al Pastor was caught as it was trimmed.

As a “coup de grace” the gentleman added a few pieces of the saturated, caramelized pieces of meat sizzling on the bottom of the trompo pan on top of the trimmed meat. Topped off with cilantro, onions, and sauced, the plate was handed to me……

But he wasn’t done yet….as I walked away, he waved a hand at me, and made a wiping motion over his mouth, and pointed at the window of the taco shop. Now how did he know I’d be making a mess? I grabbed a few napkins, and headed off to my car……….

Biting into the tacos, the first thing that struck me was the balance of flavors and textures. Nothing over-powered anything else. The crisp pieces of Al Pastor were wonderful. The Al Pastor had a mild sweetness, from the drippings of the large slice of pineapple placed on top of the Al Pastor as it was turning on the spit. It reminded me a bit of mild Char Siu. The meat was very moist and tender. Enough words from me, the pictures say it all.

You know, I’m not a very religious person, but I’m just wondering of that young lady was my “parking lot guardian angel”. Here I was, leaning on my car, eating tacos in a busy parking lot, a slight breeze blowing in my face, watching the sun set. It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

Some notes: The young lady told me that Al Pastor was only done on Fri-Sat-Sunday. Maybe someone who speaks Spanish and visits can confirm. These tacos are $1, though it looks like a whole range of tacos are offered, along with that delicious looking Pollo Asado.

Internacional 2000 Taco Shop (Window in the parking lot of Mercado Internacional 2000)
1415 3rd Ave
Chula Vista, CA 91911

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