Thursday, June 7, 2012

Taqueria Mexico in Westminster, the LA Kings, and Pigs with Baseball Bats

Coming home from a late night game watch at LA Live for my beloved LA Kings hockey team.... I had a chance to go to one of my favorite local taquerias in the area in the aptly namedTaqueria Mexico.
I have been going to this place for years although my move to South OC from Huntington Beach meant my visits were not nearly as frequent. I have had some mixed experience but generally have had good to great results.

There were 3 of us, and since we were good and hungry we ordered 24 tacos, 6 each of the carne, pastor, carnitas, and chorizo. Ironic that I cant recall them having chorizo back in the day but it was indeed on the menu and as one my favorite I had to get it.

They brought our a fresh stack of tortillas, and normally they throw them on the grill to heat them up, but the guy behind the counter said they were still hot and good to go. Boy was he right....the tortillas were light and flakey and had the fresh corn tortilla taste which was amazingly perfect texturally with  the chopped meat.

For me the best thing about these tacos is squeezing the fresh lime(dont be shy with it!) and putting a pinch or two of salt along with some of the spicy carrots is a treat to be sure. Anyhow here are some pics...


4 types of Westminsters Finest Tacos
Carnita with Green Sauce
Ill be honest...this was either pastor or Chorizo...either way it was amazing.
We debated stealing this and selling it on Ebay as an "Urban Art" exhibit.


 At the end of the day every taco was amazing, but I certainly now how a soft spot in my heart for Chorizo Tacos. As a matter of fact authentic mexican style Chorizo is vastly underrated as a meat filling IMO. I am thinking most have the perception of the stuff in the supermarkets with a pig holding a baseball and assume its all the same. But the authentic stuff is soooo good. Nice texture with the bold salty/spicy combo of flavor that just can not be topped. Once again with the fresh lime and prototypical toppings is a taste sensation to behold.

Now as for as my bad experience, and I will preface that this happened probably 10 years ago but my ordered was taken by a man who was giving the stink eye, or the mad dog if you will and what side of the county you live on, then never heated the tortillas and clearly had some disdain for me for no apparent reason. I have been to this place enough where it was what it was and it never happened again but some reviews on Yelp had given similar stories. Once again this experience happened years ago, and visiting last night the Staff could not have been friendlier.

As a matter of fact it had been so long since I had last been there I was surprised by how many asians there were there. Back in the day it was all latinos with myself and my buddies as the only gringos. Was great to see though that OC's multi-cultural mix is becoming the norm and I can point to Albatros in South OC as another mexican place very popular with the UCI crowd.

So the real question now is....how much can that piece of Urban Art fetch on EBay?