The Pinata District is always a reliable place to pick up a pinata when the need strikes during the school week, but it’s on the weekends that the area really comes alive. Because that’s when the music is on full blast and most of the warehouses roll open their doors and more street vendors than you can count park curbside and start cooking. The vendors vary from weekend to weekend, though you’ll consistently find more than one cook tugging at a mound of fresh masa to make huaraches or pressing them to make tortillas to be filled with stewed chicken or chorizo. There’s almost always someone frying chicharrones and someone else pulling churros out of a vat of hot oil and bagging them for an impatient kid gripping a mini-unicorn toy. Every inch of sidewalk real estate is occupied during these weekends, which means sometimes you’ll have to wait for someone to finish dressing their tacos before you can walk on. Still, the crowd always parts when a stroller rolls through, and if someone wonders aloud where they can find a Captain America-shaped piñata, someone else will yell out the answer. The city may be bursting with exclusive new corporate-driven food halls, but it’s gatherings like the Mercado Olympic that make the city so special.
Olympic Blvd. & Central Ave., downtown
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