Tacos have given me everything in my life: My career, my wife, my home, and they remain my daily muse. But last week, my voracious pursuit to find the next best taco in L.A. nearly cost me my life.
Whenever I see a new regional taco style unlocked in our beautiful city of tacos that has never been covered before, I become possessed with a burning desire to cover it immediately.
Nixtamal attracts me like one of those cartoon characters floating through the air, following the scent of food, and I will stop at nothing to go and try any place going through the effort to make handmade corn tortillas: driving, walking, taking the bus, biking, running, however I get there, but as long as I get there.
In this case, it was Los Trompos Taquería in downtown Long Beach, the first taco shop to open in L.A., specializing in all-beef trompos such as arrachera (skirt steak), picanha, and the first to offer “gaonera” tacos in L.A., which is now the famed cut of thinly sliced, pounded beef tenderloin, seared with lard on a plancha, served in Mexico City’s famous 1-Michelin-star taquería, El Califa De León.
New York got their beef trompo in May of last year via Santo Taco’s New York Strip steak trompo, and I can 100% objectively vouch that it is equally as delicious as the best I’ve had in Mexico City. Los Trompos is not even a month old, and they already have lines of up to 45 minutes on weeknights. Before Los Trompos, I knew that Distrito Catorce in Boyle Heights had recently started offering beef trompo tacos for dinner as well.