As we scanned L.A.’s horizon for tacos, we saw the roaring fires of a new street food vanguard bivouacked among our blocks.
Kebab stands suddenly seem to be everywhere in the city these days, outpacing the proliferation of hibachi trucks and smashburgers, and nearly rivaling the storied ranks of our taco trucks and taco tables.
This flourishing of one of humanity’s oldest forms of cooking–meat impaled on a stick, roasted over a fire–on our boulevards makes perfect sense for a city that loves to eat on-the-go without sacrificing quality; pulled to the side of the road, shrouded in smoke, savoring the immediacy of a barbecued dish torn straight from the flames by the hands of a cook steeped in generations of knowledge.
And you, most likely hunched over your car’s hood or sharing a folding table with strangers, meat juices dripping down your chin like the freeway nomad you. For those steeped in L.A.’s taco lifestyle, it’s nothing new.
L.A. TACO spent the summer exploring L.A.’s street kebab scene and were rewarded many times over as we grubbed on hand-shaped, flame-grilled koobideh, and feasted on Persian chicken hearts, Moroccan lamb liver, Afghan lamb chops, and Turkish adana kebab seconds after they were slid off their steel shampoors.
In the greatest street food city in the country, we were stunned by the range of skewered meats we found, and chose to include skewered meats from China, Thailand, Brazil, and Nicaragua, as well. Noting that L.A. also has a banging shawarma and doner scene right now, we opted to save those similar indulgences for a later story.