Finding something good to eat in Los Angeles is pretty straightforward. Drive by any corner in our county, and you will find a quick snack or regional dish that is likely be just as delicious as it is in Mexico, Central America, and beyond.
We are spoiled.
And with a city offering so many diverse styles of cuisine, it’s only natural that food hubs, like the well-known parade of food trucks, street vendors, and restaurants that line Whittier Boulevard or the city's many night markets, end up concentrating in such food-rich clusters.
Patata Street in Cudahy comes to mind, where street vendors sell anything from tacos to tortas ahogadas. As well as more established hubs like the Piñata District, which also offers a diverse array of foods all along one street.
For locals in Compton, one of these destinations is found on Atlantic Avenue, a street that should satisfy all of your cravings. When driving down Atlantic, we suggest rolling down your window and enjoying the scents and sounds coming from each stand as you follow your nose. The bar for street food in Los Angeles is so high the chances are also high that you will find something new that will blow your mind.
On a good day, Atlantic has a little over ten different stands and food trucks that sell anything from barbacoa to Sinaloan sushi. Often, you can find various styles of the same plate at different stands, each representing a distinct region. There are more than a handful of carnitas spots and birria stops along the way, and no shortage of surprises when you look at it closely.
We've rounded up seven of the best places found down Atlantic Avenue for you to indulge in gorditas, machaca, mariscocos, and more. Consider this a jumping-off point to explore what is quickly becoming L.A.'s most exciting new street food row.
Menudo La Durangueña
In the midst of sizzling meats and steaming guisados, we heard “Mira Mira Como Baila” sounding off in one stand, while a red pickup truck blasted some Huapango, its body rumbling from the loudspeakers.
When visiting one of Atlantic Avenue's best spots for gorditas, Menudo La Durangueña, we took in this scenery. Don’t be fooled by the name. While they sell their hangover-curing menudo; the show stoppers at La Durangueña are their gorditas estilo Durango.
The all-women-led stand makes its handmade gorditas every Friday through Sunday, setting up their tent and tables next to a bright green dispensary. The gorditas are handmade fresh every day by one of the ladies at the stand.
Each of the women has their own role: one charges customers, another pats the gorditas into shape, and another fills the gorditas and packages orders. It’s a system that makes their service quick and easy.
They offer different fillings like the classic chicharrón smothered in green or red salsa, papas con chorizo, and one of our favorites, picadillo rojo (stewy ground meat). For our vegetarian friends, they also offer rajas con queso (slices of poblano chiles and cheese) and their nopales rojos, which involves strips of nopales simmered in a flavorful red salsa. They said they also try and offer a new off-menu item each week.
These steamy gorditas are packed with flavor. While the stand offers salsa and lettuce to stuff them with, it is not needed. The guisados alone have enough flavor and a nice kick to them all.
When stopping by, we suggest sitting down and eating at their tables, enjoying the scenery and cotorreo (chatter) among vendors and residents, and taking in all that this little corner has to offer.
15502 S. Atlantic Ave. Compton, CA 90221
Sinalo Roll
If you’re in the mood for something that's not wrapped with a tortilla, Atlantic Avenue has your back. When we said that this street could satisfy your wildest cravings, we weren’t lying.
While some other food down this street is much more familiar, Sinalo Roll, the red food truck in front of East Rancho Dominguez Park, is the only one serving sushi estilo Sinaloa. This truck has unique offerings, from more common rolls, like the California roll, to its Sinaloan rolls, like their "Volcan," which includes battered shrimp and a chile tornado inside.
Instead of the crispy shrimp tempura you'll find at sushi restaurants, Sinalo Roll breads their shrimp the way you would bread a nice chicken or fish fillet, keeping the crunch but adding a different texture.
Try a bit of everything. One of their more refreshing rolls is their aguachile roll, topped with shrimp cooked and marinated in a zesty and spicy salsa verde.
Other dishes include non-seafood items like the Sinaloense, a rice roll stuffed with meat, avocado, and chile verde, then topped with melted cheese and bacon. Please don’t knock it until you've tried it.
All we know is that this is an excellent truck for those who want to try sushi for the first time but are intimidated by the idea. The day we visited Sinalo Roll, customers flocked to their food truck. Despite the immense number of edible options sitting next to this food truck, people still lined outside to place their sushi orders.
Thursday through Monday, 15116 S. Atlantic Ave. Compton, CA 90221
Birriería Gonzalez
From food trucks and restaurants to street vendors selling from underneath their tents, you’ll likely find a wide range of birria locations on Atlantic and Compton. And while we encourage you to try them all, our personal recommendation is Birrieria Gonzalez.
The popular bright red food truck can be spotted among the blue, white, and rainbow canopies lined down the street. Their birria de res is proudly estilo Tijuana, their meat super tender and juicy.
The tacos de birria here stand out because they crisp up their tortillas, making them sturdy enough to hold the shredded meat and its juices in place without the tortilla sogging up and falling apart. They also offer quesa-birria tacos, which include melted cheese that will give you a crazy cheese pull that is picture-worthy. And like any good birria location, you must have their tacos with a side of hearty consomé.
The food truck has 11 other locations across L.A. and Las Vegas and is a must-stop when walking or riding down Atlantic Avenue. Luckily for us birria de res lovers, it is open every day of the week from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
15324 Atlantic Ave. Compton, CA 90221
Kitchen’s Corner BBQ
If you head further down Atlantic, near Rose Street, you’ll find a small white food truck that reads Kitchen’s Corner BBQ. If the sign doesn’t catch your eye, we promise the smell of chef David Lee’s smoked BBQ certainly will.
Chef Lee states that you will find “food for the soul" here.
The chef has mastered the art of slow-cooking tender cuts of meat, from ribs and brisket to chicken and sausage links. Essentially, all of your BBQ needs are found here, including sides like creamy mac and cheese, collard greens, and BBQ beans, among other things.
According to the chef, the meat here is cooked with great care. He smokes his ribs for 4 hours and his brisket is slow-cooked for 12 to 16 hours, all to ensure peak tenderness and a juicy bite.
If you're feeling ravenous, try what he calls his beef dinosaur rib, a giant single rib that hardly fits in your hand. Digging into that giant piece of meat will make you feel like you’re eating a giant brontosaurus bone straight from Ed’s Mammoth Ribs in the Flinstones.
You won’t want to be late when he opens. According to the chef, his smoked meats are so popular he sells about 600 pounds of meat in the first two hours after opening. But don’t take our word for it; go try it yourself and let us know what you think.
Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. 4420 E. Rose St. East Compton, CA 90221
Rinconcito Sinaloense
For those of you looking for a meal that feels like home, you’ll want to head to Rinconcito Sinaloense for something like the machaca plate made with the real air-dried stuff (beef floss) or anything the red food truck makes, from huevos con papa and guisados to Sinaloan brunches.
For their machaca plate, which comes mixed with chiles, onion, and tomatoes, they pair it with frijoles puercos, a chunk of asadero cheese, Mexican rice, and, if you’re in the mood for it, a refried tamal de elote on top.
The corn tortillas are handmade daily and their machaca comes in different forms. They have machaca con papa (potato) and for those in a rush, they also offer machaca burritos. Among their items are also plates like menudo blanco, enchiladas rojas, and bistec ranchero (a steamy meat stew).
Thursday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., 15601 S. Atlantic Ave. Compton, CA 90221
Mr. Coco's 75
Are you up for a swim in a pool of plump shrimp, springy callo de hacha, bouncy octopus, and enough tender young coconut meat to be up to your nose in ceviche?
Then dive right into Mr.Cocos75’s stand on Atlantic Avenue, specializing in Tecuala-style mariscocos that taste just as insanely delicious and refreshing as they do when eating on the beach in Mexico (sans the mosquitos and "jejen" horse flies, fortunately).
The street food stand is the first in L.A. to specialize in mariscocos, aka paradise in food form. A fresh, young coconut is macheted in two, then hollowed out and stuffed with an ungodly amount of fresh seafood along with its own tender young coconut meat, mixed in a secret sauce made of a bit of Clamato, Maggi, Worcestershire, and a handful of Mexican hot sauces. The resulting coconut is stuffed with so much seafood that it’s inevitable you'll have some fallen crustacean soldiers as you carry it to the lone folding table beside the stand. The mariscoco is as big as a basketball and weighs five pounds—at least.
Even the tostadas are imported from Nayarit, which makes this Mexican seafood street food dish one of L.A.'s best and low-key in the county.
15116 S. Atlantic Ave. Compton, CA 90221
Callos La Rosca
Chuy PataBionica is L.A.'s most prolific paisa influencer. He has nearly 1 million followers on Instagram for his raunchy and brash humor and trustworthy palate. He is usually the first to promote a new Sinaloan-owned spot anywhere in Los Angeles, Orange County, or the Inland Empire.
The Sinaloa-rooted influencer is also a prolific mariscos food truck restaurateur, and the most impressive thing at his Callos La Rosca is how they only serve one item: charolas de mariscos. His style of Mexican seafood is known as "botanas," which is somewhere between ceviche and aguachile; essentially, it's just good quality cooked octopus, poached shrimp, raw scallop-like pen shell clams, and ahi tuna fillets doused in secret "salsa negra" made of a doctored-up Clamato.
PataBionica's massive success with these mariscos trucks can be traced back to his being one of the first to self-distribute and sell revered callos de hacha to L.A.'s thriving Mexican seafood market. He built up his fleet of trucks with all the trust he had earned in L.A.'s Mexican seafood-loving community throughout the years. He also opened a meat and seafood shop where he now sells those same prized mollusks that are usually collected by hand, by divers off the extremely dangerous choppy waters off the Sonoran coast in the Gulf of California.
His charolas are chock-full of seafood and hit the spot if you need a dish to bring to a party or picnic, especially during the hotter months.
15413 A Atlantic Ave. Compton, CA 90221
