Welcome to Friday’s Weekend Eats Newsletter from L.A. TACO’s Hadley Tomicki, a look at some of the newest and most exciting food-and-drink finds and culinary throw-downs in L.A., made just for members of L.A. TACO. You get this (and more!) every week in your inbox when you become a member of L.A. TACO.
In addition to the limited-edition burgers, midnight steak frites, and ropa vieja tacos you’ll find below, swing by Smorgasburg this Sunday for SmorgasJOON, celebrating Iranian food with over eleven food vendors, art, music, shopping, and more.
For previous Weekend Eats collections, look here and here.
BURGER MAFIA AT RAY & ROY’S MARKET ~ BOYLE HEIGHTS
Smoked Guinness chili burgers! Smoked Guinness chili burgers!! Smoked Guinness chili burgers!!!
Yes, it bears repeating. Burger Mafia has a monthly, Friday night “Burger Vault” residency at Boyle Heights’ 126-year-old Ray & Roy’s Market, making a different, limited-edition burger outside of its usual menu each time.
Tonight, it will be making chili with Guinness Extra Stout, using fire-roasted chiles, chipotles en adobo, spices, dark chocolate, and more, including a beef ball that is smoked over the chili, allowing its fat to drip into the pot, before the meat is folded back into the chili.
Burger Mafia will make smoky burgers out of that, and also offer cups of the chili for sale, along with onion rings and chili cheese fries. 5 p.m. can’t come soon enough.
July 24, 5-9 p.m., 2800 E. 4th St. Los Angeles, CA 90033
BIG RIG’S BBQ ~ EAST HOLLYWOOD
Big Rig’s makes Texas barbecue in a 160-gallon offset smoker, with recipes that highlight the owners’ Filipino and Mexican roots.
So you know you’re going to eat well when it brings its white oak and peach wood-smoked brisket and carnitas burritos with beef tallow-fried tots to Good Friend in East Hollywood on Saturday morning.
Big Rig will serve both a Cali burrito and a breakfast burrito, along with a quesadilla, featuring your choice of brisket, smoked carnitas, or housemade longanisa, and a housemade salsa verde, cilantro crema, and its jalapeno-infused salsa Doña.
8 a.m.- 1 p.m., 874 Virgil Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90029
CULINARY ALCHEMY TACO NIGHT @4100 BAR ~ SILVER LAKE
A pop-up outfit called Culinary Alchemy is making tacos, nachos, quesadillas, and crunchwraps every Friday night at Silver Lake’s 4100 Bar, pairing blue corn tortillas made with masa from East L.A.’s Tortilleria Del Bajio with its chicken tinga, ranchera that uses a housemade marinade, suadero, and vegan, marinated mushrooms. Tacos are $5 each or $12.50 for three.
The nachos, which the pop-up makes by frying its own chips, come with white queso, chiles both sweet and spicy, and a black bean pico de gallo, while the quesadillas have Chihuahua cheese, black bean pico de gallo, and your choice of protein.
The crew comes back every Sunday to make smashburgers, some of which push beyond the typical by including ingredients like smoked gouda, black garlic aioli, and for a kimchi burger, gochujang aioli and fresh herbs.
Fridays, 6 pm. - 1:30 a.m.; Sun, 2-8:30 p.m., at 4100 Bar, 1087 Manzanita St. Los Angeles, CA 90029
LA JAMA ~ ECHO PARK
La Jama is a new food truck parked in Echo Park featuring Peruvian, Cuban, and Mexican dishes in one place. Find the truck in front of Sprouts on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and moving east along Sunset, closer to El Moro, on weekends.
That means there’s tacos on blue corn tortillas with lechon, filet mignon, and ropa vieja chicken; Cubano sandwiches with oven-roasted pork and honey ham; fish-and-shrimp ceviche; lomo saltado bowls; asada burritos; and smashburgers with grilled chile poblano.
That’s what that means.
1433 Glendale Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026
AFTER-HOURS AT THE MULBERRY ~ SAWTELLE
It’s late, and you’ve worked up an impressive appetite performing your solo rendition of “Up Where We Belong” at Dots Space karaoke on Sawtelle. Now you’re hungry and in need of a drink. Steak frites would also be nice. Steak frites are always nice.
The Mulberry, the Korean-American bistro that recently entered the Michelin guide mere months after its debut, is going late-night with a dedicated menu of the kinds of things you want to eat as you enter the witching hours.
There are steak frites featuring a 6 oz. skirt steak, fries, and an au poivre you’ll use the fries to mop up; fried wings with sweet chile and scallions; a Napa kimchi made with an assist by Perilla; a plate of French fries with horseradish aioli; and steamed rice; along with a $12 Korean someak, featuring a shot of minhwa dokkaebi soju with a Trumer Pils. Additional cocktails include a plum martini, white negroni, and a cocktail known as “banana milk.”
Thurs-Sun, 1800 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025
