Pre-gaming over tacos before a Dodger game is always the right decision. Once you factor in the potentially bottle-necked commute up and down Chavez Ravine, whether walking, taking the Dodger Stadium Express, or sacrificing your wallet to the ball-field parking gods, you'll then have more than three hours to maintain need long-lasting energy to make it through the ninth.
Tacos make an excellent buffer for all the booze you may be tempted to indulge in, whether that's their infamous $28 micheladas, $9 Dodger Dogs, or $9 soft serve cones.
Or maybe you want a plate of tacos after the game to soak up the 69,000 milligrams of sodium from those peanuts you took straight to the dome. Either way, we've got you.
Here is your trusty, L.A. TACO-approved list for the best taquerías located within a mile of the stadium.
Teddy’s Red Tacos
The vampiro at Teddy’s Red Tacos is made with two of its chile de árbol-stained tortillas. These are seared on a plancha and topped with a thin layer of Monterey Jack cheese that spills onto the grill, making for a satisfying crispy edge. For his birria de res, founder Teddy Vasquez uses a beef shoulder cut, which yields a deeper, robust, and beefy flavor. The meat is shredded into a texture of thin strings and served incredibly tender, making it one of the city's best versions of birria de res.
Instead of radishes, his vampiros come garnished with cucumber, helping balance the intense flavor and spice from the birria and salsa. If you are looking for the type of taco you see on Instagram, which shows a person dunking the taco into consomé, this is your spot. Note: Taquero Teddy Velasquez has been making beef birria since way before it was trendy to do so.
10 AM to 8 PM., 1170 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90012
Angel's Tijuana Tacos
If you don’t have an Angel’s within spitting distance of your place, just wait. This workhorse of a Tijuana taquería has stands spread widely throughout the city, from Chatsworth to West Covina, the Inland Empire, and even O.C. This means there are seldom the hour-long lines of the past to get its tender, thick handmade corn tortillas filled with charcoal-grilled asada and massive, loaded spuds. We tend to skip the beef entirely for Angel’s tacos stuffed with al pastor, plane-shaved from a squat trompo of salty pork packed with crispy-edged angles. They plop a sizable nub of ripe pineapple, plop of guacamole, onions, cilantro, and your pick of a salsa roja and/or verde to hold you over until the next Dodgers postseason nailbiter.
Open 4:30 PM to midnight, 1185 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026
Guisados
Guisados are the pioneers in stewing meats and vegetables in Los Angeles. If you're craving something besides L.A.'s ubiquitous tacos of grilled or confit meat on a tortilla, their long-cooked proteins, vegetables, cheese, beans, and everything in between satisfies a deeper kind of taco craving. The sampler plate is little slice of Mexico within city limits. This place also deserves credit for always nixtamalizing its own yellow corn masa and making its own tortillas.
However, the unique benefit of this taco style is that there are usually a few options for non-meat eaters, like tender calabacitas or rajas. The way to do guisados is to point to the guisado that look the most appetizing and try as many as you can. This is the time-honored guisado process.
Open from 10 AM to 11 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. 1261 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026
A Tí Los Angeles
We get it. The older we get, the nicer things we want things to be. After all, we work hard for our money. If that's the case and the idea of some lights-out delicious tacos and a few nice cocktails or natural wine sounds good to you, then get to Echo Park's A Tí early enough to try out their cutting-edge, modern Mexican dishes.
We recommend its striped bass fish tacos, in particular. We've had a couple of iterations, including one with a koji-enriched guacamole. Ponce is serving them with a habanero-and-Kewpie mayonnaise at this freshly opened bar, which gets bonus points for staying committed to Kernel of Truth Organics's blue corn tortillas, L.A.'s only tortillería opened by L.A. locals that uses U.S.-grown organic corn.
Open 5 PM to midnight Wednesday through Sunday, 1498 W Sunset Blvd. Suite #2, Los Angeles, California 90026
El Ruso
If you crave a robust shot of northern Mexican flavor, hit up El Ruso on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. Tijuana-born, Culiacán-descended chef Walter Soto has made a name for his meaty guisados and smoky asada, which come packed into tacos and burritos on Sonoran flour tortillas, including the giant 18" tortillas sobaqueras handmade here on occasion. Soto's chile colorado bursts with slowly stewed pork, braised in dried red chiles. It is simple, more than filling, and completely satisfying, bearing an elaborate realm of spices and a subtle natural sweetness from the chiles in every bite.
Open 11:30 AM to 8 PM, 1647 W. Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026.
