Taco News Roundup: Sonora Style Carne Asada in DTLA & More
Taco de asada from Mexicali tacos.
Welcome to the return of the Taco News Roundup, where we try to give you all the most important taco news in L.A. in a convenient, bite-size portion. $1 worth of news, piled high with just the right amount of cebolla y cilantro...
Eater LA's Farley Elliot reports that a new carne asada specialist, who will try to recreate the authentic Sonoran experience, will be opening in Downtown in June. According to Eater,
While places like Loqui in Culver City and Mexicali Taco in Chinatown both seek to recreate this unique carne asada experience, Sonoratown is leading the way with those sobaqueras and techniques. In fact, they’ve brought in the owner of Sonora’s own Asadero Campas taco spot to help lock in the recipes at the beginning, which shows they certainly mean business.
As if that weren’t enough, Sonoratown also has plans to partner with Humberto Raygoza, LA’s so-called Chori-Man, to bring his family recipe chorizo to the restaurant as well. The move should allow Raygoza to expand his operation and even hopefully host some Downtown pop-ups on site in the near future as well.
Eater says the spot will use flour tortillas just like authentic Sonoran spots in Mexico. Want to get fresh made flour tortillas? Bill Esparza has you covered in his latest column: 6 Places to Get Excellent Flour Tortillas.
Speaking of Downtown, did you know you the only (restaurant) place to get tacos de discada is at The Briks in Downtown LA? The Briks is a spot many LA TACO readers and contributors have recommended we check out, and contributor Valentina Silva has the scoop on discada in the following report:
Every Thursday night, starting around six o’clock, you’ll find Christerna paying homage to his Chicano roots. Standing over a large metal drum right outside his restaurant, stirring up his discada—a melting pot dish of meats and vegetables that reduces down to a hearty stew—the chef greets customers and curious passersby who stop to have a look and take a whiff. As far as we know, The Briks is the only restaurant in town that serves the Northern Mexican specialty.
Downtown is definitely becoming the center of the LA taco scene, when you think about all the places already opened, those about to open, and the late night trucks and even fancy restaurants that serve first-rate tacos. On the flip side, West LA has long been lagging the rest of the city when it comes to delicious taco options, but things are changing. One new option is the just-opened Kogi Taqueria in Palms. Near the site of Roy Choi's former Chego, this small but lively taqueria has taqueria basics along with Choi's vaunted Kogi tacos from the famed truck that started it all. Josh Scherer in LA Mag says
The Kogi spirit is still very much alive at the new spot, and all you have to do to see that is turn to your left while standing in line. There’s a massive photo of the back of a Kogi truck—bumper stickers, license plate and all—acting as a sort of muse on the store’s only full wall. And, if there’s a far-reaching metaphor to be drawn from the new brick-and-mortar (believe us, we’ll try to find one) it’s that Choi wants the same vibe, the culture, and the ethos of the trucks to live on without being beholden to the genres it spawned. And he’s doing just that.
We will have a quick review of Kogi up later this week, so stay tuned. Got your own taco news or taco tips? We want to hear from you! Contact us, or leave a comment below.
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