Inside L.A.'s Underground Street Food Scene With CNN's Nick Valencia in the Real Los Angeles

                             


Take a tour with CNN correspondent Nick Valencia and I into L.A.'s Mexican community, deep within the enclaves serving Mexican from very specific regions: DTLA's Mercado Olympic for shopping and street eats from Puebla, Michoacan, Jalisco and Mexico City;a food truck vendor in East L.A. from the State of Mexico, and a house in East L.A. that cooks up the best birria in L.A. from La Barca, Jalisco.

Help make street food legal one bite at a time; take time out of your week to dine at one of our delicious food trucks, stands, backyard or front yard eateries and even houses. Tell your politicians, friends and family to support working families and legalize street food--spread the word, street food is here to stay and it's a part of Los Angeles culture as it was always.

Hope you enjoy the segment as much we did filming it.

Flight or Flight: Street Food Under Fire in my Latest for Los Angeles Magazine

The LAPD's Grinch who stole street food--Officer Torta Terrorista


"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war"--Albert Einstein

A show of force by the LAPD to take from the poor


Everyone's singing the praises of councilmen Curren D. Price, Jr's and Jose Huizar's motion to legalize street food--photos are being taken, and speeches end in cheers and applause--meanwhile, the LAPD cases the Mercado Olympic and other street food havens around town issuing tickets to working families. 


Read Fight or Flight in my latest for the Los Angeles Magazine Digest!

 

Tacos y Mulitas Estilo Tijuana: Tijuana Style Carne Asada Arrives at the Mercado Olympic

At the beginning of the year I revealed the presence of a truly fascinating street food scene located in Downtown LA's produce district. The Mercado Olympic has continued to grow and change ever since as new vendors have joined the party.

This market is so busy I doubt I'll know all that's going on there anytime soon, but each time I try something different--this weekend I even picked a homemade queso fresco.

The stand that caught my eye on a previous visit: Taco y Mulitas estilo Tijuana, or Tijuana style, came too late in the curbside buffet for me to give it a try. I've previously written that real carne asada doesn't exist in LA, and that Mexicali Taco and Co. was the closest thing we had. The boys at Mexicali Taco and Co. roast their meat with gas, which is much better than the grammatically incorrect carne asada tacos around town cooked on flat tops. The verb asar means to roast, and you can't roast on a flat top.

Yes, I know, you've seen itinerant vendors around town cooking on mesquite. There are two basic components necessary here, first, the meat must be roasted on mesquite in order to be considered carne asada. The flavor that emerges from this process is crucial. Second, carne asada is the craft of northern taqueros, specifically: Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Baja California. Sonora is by far the greatest tradition, but I'd put Baja California in the top 3. In other words, unless the taqueros are from these states, they are weekend warriors from states that don't know how to prepare carne asada.



Our newcomer to the Mercado starts off with corn tortillas made to order--corn tortillas are the preferred choice of tijuanenses; in Mexicali as in Sonora, flour tortillas are the standard.



The meat is cooked on mesquite by a grill man who knows his business. The meat is of decent quality, but the seasoning and chopping are spot on. This is carne asada.



A young taquero has fresh onion and cilantro, the signature salsa roja (a tomato-based red salsa) of the Tijuana stands, and Tijuana style guacamole which is essentially pure avocado with some salt. He even wraps the taco into a conical shape like back home.



Of course I wish this was available in the evening, as is the tradition for carne asada--nighttime is when we crave burnt flesh. In Mexico, the grilled meat tacos come out after 6PM, but for now I will just have to live with this minor faux pas in order to enjoy what is now my favorite carne asada taco in LA.

Tacos y Mulitas Estilo Tijuana
Mercado Olympic
Olympic/Central
Sat-Sun, mornings until around 5pm