L.A. TACO is co-publishing this guide with FT Globetrotter, the Financial Times' travel guides to the world's great cities. They cover the art, food, and culture of 20 cities around the world and have just expanded to Los Angeles.
Photos by Maggie Shannon
Olympic Boulevard’s “Taco Row” in Boyle Heights is one of the greatest strips in the world to eat tacos, even by Mexico’s standards. Within a four-block radius lined with drought-stricken trees, dense government housing and the city’s best Latino-owned liquor warehouse, you can easily achieve food euphoria. Every truck and restaurant window has its own regional speciality, and every taco hits those intangible qualities on first bite, over and over and over. The “flavour memory” of these tacos is still fresh, not too far removed from their counterparts in Mexico: the fiery yet tamed heat of a salsa, the tenderness of the meat or freshness of the seafood, and the quality of the tortilla.