L.A.'s Bill Esparza, who wrote our seminal "Tacos 101" series, has now etched his name at the top of the highly competitive world of taco scholarship. What vaulted him to the highest echelon? An incredible article published last week on LA Magazine's website called "Tacopedia: A Complete Taco Encyclopedia of L.A." The subhead is "45 reasons why Los Angeles is the taco capital of America", but it could easily have been "Mess with the Bill, get the horns," because the ostensible inspiration for the piece was a somewhat douchey post on Eater LA entitled: A New York City Tacopedia: L.A.'s Got Nuttin' on Us!
The Eater story could've been a list of good NYC tacos, but instead they took the position that it was time to school L.A. on taco knowledge and diversity, which is just silly. Frankly, most people in L.A. simply shrugged, but Bill isn't like most people. Hes a man on a mission and doesn't suffer fools. We're pretty sure he's been working on his own Tacopedia for some time now, so this presented the perfect chance to both present some solid regional research, and put a serious body blow on ill-informed Mexican food articles originating from New York, of which there have been far too many. We have a feeling there won't be many more after New York writers realize there's someone who's ready to deliver a digital beatdown if they make wild exaggerations or attempt to diss L.A.'s taco scene.
Check out some samples from Esparza's piece below and then read the entire 45 item Tacopedia, which we hope becomes a book at some point...
Marlin Tacos
Hailing from the states of Nayarit and Sinaloa, these tacos are filled with stewed and smoked marlin, then toasted. The best are at Nayarit seafood specialist,Coni’Seafood.
Tacos Gobernador
Speaking of Sinaloa, South Gate’s El Perihuete (a small local chain) makes a nicegobernador, named after a governor in Sinaloa who thought that a taco with Pacific shrimp, melted cheese, tomatoes, peppers, and onions was good politics. That gets our vote anyday.
