Taco Dollar ~ Inglewood

Inglewood Blvd. & Lennox Ave. ~ Inglewood

Taco Dollar sits right in front of a tiny, improvised DVD market selling everything from live Banda videos to Ghetto Brawls and the like. Taco Dollar has some of the coolest graphics I've ever seen on a truck in Los Angeles or anywhere else for that matter. Hopefully, this sets the bar higher for Taco Truck decor and originality.

Large white buckets full of a smoky red hot salsa, tomatillo, avocado sauce, onions, pico de gallo, cut radishes, and cucumbers await the recipients of some of the best tacos I'd had this year. After CBro and I had taken a new virgin correspondant on a 14-mile late night bike ride through South LA, Watts and into Compton for a taste of the Taco lifestyle, we were winded and starving, and these tiny belly-bombs stood out with a character as unique as the truck that produces them.

I had an asada and a pastor taco-- sadly they were out of carnitas to do the holy trinity of taco tests. Instead I also had a mulita, a quesadilla made with thick homemade tortillas with your choice of meats, in my case pastor. The asada taco was good and greasy, with a slight trace of cinnamon that was more apparent in the pastor. The cuts of steak were just right, long but lean shreds of beef that were spicy but retained their essential steak flavor.

The pastor blew my mind. It is a soft, saucy bite, crumbling apart in the mouth with a light crunch. The sauce has a hint of cinnamon within the delicious cumin and chile-based flavor as well as just the right nip of hot spice. The tortillas were a little thick, but hardly interfered with one of the best mobile pastors I'd sampled in LA. In a sense it was an atypical pastor with a good hook that you made you hungry for more, as if your tongue needed more time to decipher the elements of flavor.

The mulita was easy to discern as tasty even before tasting it. The handmade tortilla looked so plump and soft, with a rough texture up top and the marks of the grill on its top n' bottom. The pastor takes a backseat to the cheese here, which is gooey and tender. Overall it's a soft, sweet little treat almost like a pastry.

Rolling down Inglewood Blvd., we spotted another taco truck just a block down, its flank and front tattooed with amazing air-brushed Mexican flags and figures. It might appear Inglewood is on top of its Taco truck game, necessitating more taco-time in this 'hood.