Tarascos Mexican Restaurant – 4.0/5.0

When you’re driving home after a decent workout, what’s the greatest five-letter word you can see on the road? T-A-C-O-S.

Yes, I know “ramen” also has five letters, but it’s not exactly the best meal to eat after working out. Some would also argue that eating tacos after working out is not the best thing either, but those people would be wrong.

Tonight for dinner I had three tacos at Tarascos Mexican Restaurant. The tacos were excellent. Actually, to be specific, the carnitas and carne asada tacos were excellent. The al pastor was so-so.

Tarascos is located 6 doors down from my fiancee’s favorite cupcake shop, Lark. I’ve probably been to Lark about 10 times, and yet I’ve never noticed the enormous “TACOS” sign above Tarascos. Either I’m blind (huge possibility) or I’m losing my edge for tacos (shuddering just thinking about it). (Or they just put up those signs in an effort to attract more business – mission accomplished.) Regardless, the brightly lit “TACOS” sign above Tarascos was a saving grace for my growling stomach. While cruising Sunset after working out, I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to venture into Los Feliz, or double-back and head south of Wilshire.

Actually, let me be honest. It was dark (around 8:15 p.m.) and I originally wanted to go to King Taco to complete my long overdue review of the Los Angeles stalwart. (Review coming soon, I promise.) But admit it – King Taco (the one on Pico, and perhaps the other locations as well) ain’t exactly in the nicest part of town. I was driving home with some valuables in my trunk (read: objects worth probably $30, but with a sentimental value of $502,784, a.k.a., my dirty laundry) and didn’t want to take the chance parking my dirty car in the neighborhood.

I know, some of you might be thinking that Silver Lake ain’t the nicest neighborhood either. But after “living” here for almost two years, the neighborhood has grown on me considerably. Mostly thanks to the website “Look at this fucking hipster” which makes venturing the streets of Silver Lake an adventure of comical sorts.

Back to Tarascos. Apparently, they’ve got a parking lot which I completely ignored simply because I was speeding on Sunset. The interior of the shop is divided into two sections: (1) the kitchen and (2) the area where you stand and order your food. The first area is extremely large. The second area is the exact opposite.

Thankfully, Tarascos has a large outdoor covered seating area, complete with Christmas tree lights and music that sounds like they took a French jazz nightclub singer and put him in a Mexican polka band. At first, the covered patio reminded me of my trip to Taco House in downtown L.A. Thankfully, Tarascos is much much better.

First, I should note that Tarascos serves a lot of other food besides tacos. Unfortunately, for me, I will probably never try that other food. The tacos were $1.50 each and you could choose from the usual suspects of meat. They also had Jarritos(!), but only in orange and some other color/flavor that I’ve already managed to forget.

As I was sitting outside waiting for my order, the lady came out and brought me a platter of chips and salsa. Since my stomach was already starting to devour the thick layer of fat between my rock hard abs and the skin on my stomach, these chips and salsa tasted like the greatest thing in the world. Thus, I can’t really be objective in my assessment of the chips and salsa. Actually, now that I think about it, I had a steak burrito from La Salsa today and the chips and salsa that came with my lunch were nowhere near as good as the chips and salsa from Tarascos.

Random side note: Guess what food I missed the most when I spent my two years in Japan? Guess what food Japanese people cannot seem to cook right? Hint: Both answers are identical.

As I was sitting at Tarascos waiting for my food (and taking pictures entitled “Still Life of Jarritos at Night”), I started to think that the three tacos I ordered were taking just a little more time than necessary. But then I started to think “What if it’s taking longer than usual because they’re making it fresh?” I immediately wrote off that thought since I’m extremely superstitious and did not want to jinx my upcoming taco experience.

When the nice lady delivered my three tacos, I could immediately tell that I was going to be eating above-average tacos. How could I tell? It’s all in the preparation and presentation. The tacos were perfectly lined up next to each other. There was a little container for the habanero salsa. The left side of the plastic tray was lined with ample slices of radishes and cucumbers. The onions and cilantro were chopped finely and sprinkled lightly on top of the taco meat. The carnitas was (were?) pulled in small shreds, as opposed to a lazy person pulling them in large chunks. Everything looked just right.

Hold on, I told myself. In the words of The Wolf from Pulp Fiction, “Let’s not start sucking each others’ dic……” Uh, nevermind.

When I ordered my food, I couldn’t help but notice the three types of salsa that were already prepared and stored near the cash register. Before I took a single bite of my tacos, I walked back to the cash register and asked for some salsa verde, since the “regular” salsa was served with my chips and the habanero salsa came with my tacos. The guy gave me what I needed and I quickly hurried back to my seat to enjoy the tacos.

The result? I became very pleased with Tarascos.

The carnitas were very soft, delicate, and melted in my mouth. Unfortunately, and maybe it’s because I view this with pretty much all food, the carnitas were just a little too salty for my liking. In spite of this, I thought the meat was well cooked and the taco was absolutely delicious.

The carne asada taco was also quite tasty. Within the first bite, you could tell that it was grilled minutes prior to arriving at my table. This meat didn’t have as much of an overpowering lime taste that most taquerias like to do (when compensating for using poor quality meat). Yet, the meat at Tarascos was well seasoned and no extra flavor overpowered the natural taste of the asada.

I should also mention that the double tortillas that held the tacos were slightly grilled which gave the outer tortilla a “mildly firm” shell, while refusing to be totally crunchy. The tortillas tasted like they were store-bought, but because of the proper grilling method just described, they didn’t detract from the overall taco-eating experience.

As for the al pastor, unfortunately it did not live up to the standards set by the carnitas and asada. The pastor was a little too blackened for my liking, which marred the taste. Although the meat was cut into larger than normal chunks, it was a little too chewy than what I was expecting. I guess chewy is a lot better than dry (or is it?), which the meat thankfully was not. Despite the negative remarks I just made, the al pastor was definitely passable. Perhaps I just got a few scraps which blackened easily on the grill (note: the al pastor did not taste like it was cooked on a rotating spit), so next time might be a better pastor experience.

As I mentioned earlier, the tacos came with a generous dose of sliced radishes and cucumbers. After eating my tacos, I devoured my cucumbers and suddenly felt like I just ate a healthy bowl of vegetables for dinner. I then patted myself on the back for making that healthy decision. In no way did my brain register the fact that I just ate meat and starches that were probably soaked in animal lard while washing it all down with orange sugar water.

[Flexing biceps right now]

Would I recommend Tarasacos to you? Absolutely. Ample parking, good steak and carnitas tacos, decent prices, and a pleasant experience. Next time I go back to Tarascos, I’ll be ordering two carnitas and two asada tacos. For now, I’ll just have to be content with pulling up my shirt and shaking my head in front of the mirror in disappointment at how slowly my soon-to-be-six-pack is coming along.

Tarascos Mexican Restaurant – 4.0/5.0 Jarritos

Address: 3319 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA

Google Maps: Link

Much love till my next post.

Tacos Arizas – 3.0/5.0

Every time I’ve been to Tacos Arizas, it’s always after a brutal “Camp 24” workout at 24hr Fitness. “Camp 24” is basically “jazzercise” and every class is pretty much like this: CLICK HERE. Needless to say, I go every Wednesday from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. (See you all in about 17 hours.) Since I’m coming from an exhausting workout, that usually means I’m starving for food and pretty much anything will do. Despite eating on an empty stomach after a grueling workout, the tacos at Tacos Arizas are only average at best.

Tacos Arizas (“Arizas”) is located in Echo Park, just off Sunset Boulevard. On any given day, the taco truck will be located on Logan Street, either north or south of Sunset. Thankfully, they purchased a bright neon sign to help guide their potential customers to the correct destination.

If you’re starting from downtown and traveling west on Sunset, you’ll eventually run into a restaurant with a huge sign that says “PESCADO MOJADO.” That’s Logan Street.

The tacos go for $1.25 each and Arizas has got every kind of meat you’d normally associate with a taqueria.

My main gripe about Arizas is with the poor quality meat they use for their tacos. Nonetheless, I really can’t complain when I just paid $5.00 for dinner.

Unfortunately, Arizas does not have a rotating spit and thus the al pastor is simply re-fried on a grill and served hot. Arizas uses store-bought tortillas, but thankfully places them on the grill to heat them up which gives them a decent texture. Double unfortunately, re-frying the meat is also what leads me to give Arizas only a 3.0 Jarritos rating. The asada and al pastor in my tacos came out slightly overcooked. The juicy meat that is regularly found at Kike’s is missing at Arizas. I kept trying to convince myself that the tacos at Arizas were something special. In the end, the tacos were nothing new and purely average.

Despite this, one thing Arizas does have that Kike’s does not is the great tasting lime Jarritos!

I’ve claimed in the past that taquerias selling Jarritos (specifically, lime Jarritos) will earn “bonus points.” In actuality, I only use this as a “tipping point” when giving my final rating. In other words, the fact that Arizas sells lime Jarritos doesn’t automatically earn it an extra Jarritos on the Jarritos rating scale. It simply nudges me one way or the other when determining my final rating.

So, how do the tacos taste? A bit salty. I’m not sure if the cook threw on some salt when he was re-frying my taco meat, but that’s how it tasted. I must admit that I’m overly sensitive to salty things since I try to cook my meals with as little (if any) salt as possible. I seriously shudder when I think back to my childhood days when I used to eat my white rice by pouring a little bit of soy sauce on top. I’ve reached that point where every meal at a nice/fancy restaurant tastes too salty, so I’ll end up gulping down 8 glasses of water and the waiter gets cranky because he has to come fill my glass every 3 minutes.

Ever wonder how some people can live past 40? As I was eating my tacos and staring at Arizas’ menu, I couldn’t help but notice another patron and his eating habits. This guy was a Hispanic dude who must’ve been in his late 40’s. I called him a “regular” because when I ordered from the Arizas lady, I couldn’t help but notice a large can of Monster energy drink next to the cash register. Odd, I thought, since Arizas would be the first taqueria to offer ridiculous energy drinks in addition to the usual beverages. Turns out, the lady at Arizas was just holding the Monster energy drink for the “regular,” since he came back from his errand, grabbed his tacos and the Monster energy drink and proceeded to eat.

So, this regular cracks open his Monster energy drink, proceeds to the “salsa bar,” puts his tacos on the counter, cracks open a salt packet and then pours the salt all over his tacos. (Note: I use the term “salsa bar” in quotations since it’s not really a bar but rather a counter that contains salsa verde and roja in clear plastic ketchup bottles, along with sliced radish, lemons and onions/cilantro mix.) As I mentioned before, I thought the tacos at Arizas were on the salty side. I CANNOT IMAGINE what they’d taste like after dumping a packet of salt on them. In fact, just watching this regular pour salt on his tacos made my heart contract in fear. I had to calm myself down by drinking another swig of my lime Jarritos and contemplate whether that was enough and that maybe I should order another lime Jarritos to make sure my heart would be able to calm itself down to have a good night’s sleep.

Then I was reminded of my buddy from high school, Steve Miksis. (Note: If anyone knows Steve Miksis, please give me his email. Thanks.) My buddy was a starter on the high school volleyball team and was therefore in pretty good shape. However, he would regularly salt his pizza. To explain, he would get a slice of pizza, then he would grab the salt shaker and proceed to add salt to his pizza before eating it. Frankly, that’s fucking disgusting. One time, we ate at Jack in the Box and he ordered that burger that I used to call the “heart explosion.” I forgot what the exact name of the burger was called, but it had FOUR hamburger patties and EIGHT strips of bacon. My buddy then proceeded to rip off the top bun, grab two salt packets, empty them both into the burger, put the bun back on, and eat the entire thing. I was so disgusted that I never went back to Jack in the Box for at least 4 years. (And the only reason I’d go back now is to claim my two free tacos, courtesy of the Lakers beating Orlando in Game 1 of the 2009 Finals.)

What does this have to do with Tacos Arizas? Absolutely nothing. Just kidding. I just wish that the tacos at Arizas were a tad less salty. I mainly wish that the tacos were made with better quality meat, with just a little more “punch” from the seasoning. Then again, as stated earlier, I’m complaining about dinner that cost me $5.00. The tacos at Arizas are decent and there’s always a small crowd of people surrounding the truck.

But it’s missing that extra ingredient that pushes it beyond an “average taco” into a “Wow, I cannot wait to have these tacos again” feeling. Rather, “I cannot wait to completely ruin my workout with tacos again” feeling.

Tacos Arizas – 3.0/5.0 Jarritos
Address: Logan Street and Sunset Boulevard
Google Maps: Link

Much love till my next post.

Note to my loyal readers who visit Tacos Arizas:

If you’re going to eat your tacos at Arizas, make sure you stay to the left of the taco stand, unless you like eating your tacos while listening to the noise of a generator and getting high off gasoline fumes.

Orochon Ramen – 3.0/5.0 Negi

When I had my first bowl of ramen at Orochon Ramen back in 2004, I was the only customer in the restaurant. Recently, if you want to have dinner at Orochon Ramen, you’ll probably have to wait in line. Why anyone would wait in line for a bowl of ramen at this place baffles me.

Orochon Ramen prides themselves in presenting ramen that is loaded with spices. As the menu indicates, you can order EIGHT different grades of spicy in addition to a regular bowl of ramen.

In fact, if you take the Orochon Challenge and order the “Special 2” ($0.50 extra) and finish it within 30 minutes, you’ll have your picture taken and posted on the “Orochon Wall of Bravery.”

Ramen aside, this is actually a pretty funny concept since I would like to one day chill out at Orochon and wait for the late-night drunks to come pouring in and daring each other to do the Orochon Challenge. And yes, other people’s pain greatly amuses me. (And yes, I’m the guy who roots for the figure skaters to fall. Uhh, I mean, I don’t watch figure skating – I only watch hockey during the Winter Olympics…)

After eating at Orochon countless times over the past 5 years, I decided it was time to give it a proper review. My guests included Erai, Hugh-chan, and A# (“A-sharp”) [all aliases, in case you didn’t figure that out].

Anyone who knows of my love affair with ramen knows that my favorite ramen dish is “tonkotsu ramen with kimchi,” which is a huge difference from “kimchi ramen,” the latter being a spice-infused broth with added kimchi, as opposed to the former which is regular tonkotsu broth with kimchi added as a side dish. A spicy broth is far inferior to a regular tonkotsu broth with kimchee added, if that makes any sense. Just trust me. Seeing as how this was a JET Program reunion, I decided to ask the Orochon waiter if I could get a side of kimchi. His response, “Sorry, no kimchi. Go to Koreatown for that.”

No joke, that was his response.

The table immediately burst into laughter as I suddenly realized that this guy was telling me to go to Koreatown for kimchi, as if implying that this was a Japanese restaurant and Japanese restaurants don’t serve Korean items. And yet, of all the hundreds of ramen shops I ate at in Japan NOT ONE ever served a ridiculously spicy bowl of ramen, something that my Korean buddy told me occurred literally everywhere in Korea. Ha ha. Whatever. Not funny. I get it. Just give me the regular stuff, guy.

As you can probably tell, Orochon is not exactly an impressive ramen shop, so let’s start with the positives. Orochon serves water in these giant plastic cups, a welcome relief from the usual 2 oz. glasses you’ll get at every other ramen shop. Okay, maybe the usual glasses aren’t 2 ounces, but it seriously feels that way.

Orochon also serves beer on tap, however we had just watched the Lakers defeat Orlando at Weiland’s Brewery (with Derek Fisher hitting a game-tying 3 pointer and a monster 3 in overtime to put the Lakers up 3-1 – right after Kobe threw a Barkley-esque elbow), so we were a little beered out.

It’s also a big enough place so they can seat a bit more people than you would expect at an ordinary ramen shop.

And that’s about it. Unfortunately, Orochon fails to deliver a stellar bowl of ramen.

Let’s start from the little things and end with the big things. First, the “shinachiku” (bamboo shoots) are way too big and thick to belong in a bowl of ramen. Second, Orochon doesn’t include chashu pork, but instead thinly sliced cooked pieces of pork more akin to bacon (but without the delicious bacon flavor). Instead of biting into a nice piece of barbequed pork while eating your ramen, you’re left searching for tiny flakes of tasteless pork to eat. Not satisfying at all.

Third, Orochon drops a few slices of green bell pepper into the soup. I’m still not sure how I feel about this. Again, out of the hundreds of shops I visited in Japan, not one was daring enough to put slices of green peppers with their ramen. (That’s probably because Japanese green peppers, or “pee-man” [not joking at all, they literally call green peppers “p-man” and it’s pronounced “pee-mahn”], are completely different to their American counterpart, with the Japanese kind having a very thin and thicker skin but also a slightly bitter (yet delicious) taste.) If a gun was pointed at my head, I’d never include slices of green peppers in my ramen. However, I must applaud Orochon for doing so, since it actually mixes up the flavors a bit and provides a nice contrast to the usual ingredients found in a regular bowl of ramen.

Additionally, Orochon drops in about 3-4 nice big pieces of seaweed. But we’re not talking about the paper-thin slices of seaweed. I’m talking about the big thick “kombu” kind, which looks like mini bowtie pasta, but replace pasta with seaweed. Again, I must applaud Orochon for including such thick pieces of seaweed in contrast to the usual paper-thin slices we find at regular ramen shops.

But the two most important things in a bowl of ramen are completely unsatisfactory at Orochon: (1) the “men” (noodles) and (2) the soup.

The noodles at Orochon taste weak and on the border of being labeled flavorless. The noodles taste flat and there’s just no kick, no spark, no burst of flavor. Instead of gulping down the bowl of ramen, I found my pace starting to slow as I was eating, not from my stomach getting too full (which would be impossible), but because the noodles slowly started to detract from the experience with each bite.

The same goes for the soup: there’s only one layer of flavor, and once you get past that you start wondering why you’re even bothering to eat this bowl of ramen. The first 4-6 slurps of Orochon’s ramen is not bad, even bordering on fairly decent. However, as your move your way down towards the middle and the end of your ramen-eating experience, the soup slowly gets worse up until the point when you start questioning whether you can really eat another bite simply because you’ve now gone from having a decent experience to being stuck with a bowl of ramen that is truly nothing special.

And that’s my main problem with Orochon, besides the spicy gimmick: the closer you get to finishing the bowl, the worse it gets. After eating about 70% of my bowl, I just couldn’t take it. Trust me, there was plenty of room for ramen in my stomach, but just not Orochon’s.

Would I recommend people try Orochon? Absolutely. It’s definitely worth checking out once, especially if there’s an enormous line outside Daikokuya and there’s no line at Orochon (which is hardly the case these days, since both shops are typically jam-packed). Would I wait more than 5 minutes to eat at Orochon? I’d actually be hard pressed to climb the three flights of stairs just to eat at Orochon, so I doubt I’d have the patience to wait five minutes.

And what did my company think about Orochon?

Hugh-chan:

[Thumbs down...]

A#:

[Over it...]

Erai:

[Thumbs down...]

Your faithful narrator:

[Meh... Average...]

Final Rating: 3.0/5.0 Negi

Orochon Ramen
Address: 123 S. Onizuka Street, Los Angeles, CA (3rd Floor)
Google Map: Link

Much love till my next post.