Taco Task Force: Los Angeles Carnitas

Carnitas Los Angeles

Tacos Los Guichos fills their cazo with murky molten lard. Taqueros separate cuts in a hotel pan and colander.

The Taco Task Force previously tackled Baja style fish tacos, birria and the cursed potato taco, and while we found more than a little success, our January 22 mission inspired the most hope: Carnitas! Pork cooked in its own fat, preferably in a stainless steel or copper pot called a cazo. Organizer Bill Esparza (Street Gourmet L.A.) once again assumed control of the itinerary and provided key context, as he’s enjoyed the dish in his Mexican motherland, in places like Michoacan, Jalisco, Mexico City and San Francisco de Los Romo, which resides outside Aguascalientes. This time, he recruited me, Matthew Kang (Mattatouille), Dave Lieberman (OC Weekly) and wife Linnea, Zach Brooks (Midtown Lunch) and Valentina Silva (Eastside Food Bites). Who has the best Los Angeles carnitas? Find out!

Prior to our mission, Esparza e-mailed participants a primer, writing, “Most of the carnitas you’ve had in LA come from the cheater method, first boiling the carnitas in water, then frying them in lard or oil prior to serving. Although this is faster, the result is that stringy, and sometimes hard texture. This cooking style tends to be dominated by salt, since it lacks pork flavor. Carnitas are usually head to tail, lots of fun parts, but for our run, we are comparing the taco surtido only. Surtido is a mixture multiple parts. The hardest part to get right is the shoulder (maciza),so we’ll be looking to see all parts are cooked tender. We’ll also stick with a salsa verde at each stop as a control.”

There were certain factors we assessed at each stop, including the quality of the key ingredient, the condiments/tortilla, the quality of the cooking and the overall flavor.

Here’s my rundown, with interspersed scoresheets where MK stands for Matthew Kang, BE stands for Bill Esparza, JL stands for Joshua Lurie, DL stands for Dave Lieberman, LL stands for Linnea Lieberman, VS stands for Valentina Silva and ZB stands for Zach Brooks. We rated each category using a 5-point scale. Keep in mind that the scores don’t just represent a carnitas taco, they reflect a taco. In theory, a 5-point carnitas taco should be just as good as a 5-point potato taco, not that there would ever be a 5-point potato taco. EVER!

STOP #1: Metro Balderas
5305 North Figueroa Street, Highland Park, 323 478 8383


Mexican Restaurant Los Angeles

Abraham Guzman owns several Metro Balderas branches around Los Angeles. Highland Park is his latest locale.

The time to go to Metro Balderas is clearly on weekends, when Abraham Guzman’s Mexico City-inspired restaurant features carnitas and tacos loaded with almost every imaginable cut of hog, including riñon (kidney), trompa (snout) and nana (uterus).

My approach was to order a single taco at each stop, though some people split tacos, which was probably a better idea, since this sort of taco isn’t exactly quick to digest. Metro Balderas cooks their carnitas in a cazo, including cuerito (skin), costilla (rib), trompa (snout), nana (uterus) and oreja (ear), along with firm strips of stomach, juicy shoulder meat and gelatinous lips. The meat features a range of textures that contributed to rewarding bites, though the meat could have been pinker, which is a sign of expert preparation in places like Mexico City. The varied salsa bar added to the taco, including a tangy, somewhat spicy salsa verde of tomatillo and serrano.

Carnitas Los Angeles

Surtido ($1.99) taco involved fairly uninspired corn tortillas topped with crunchy minced onions, cilantro and mixed cuts.

Grade of Key Ingredient: MK 3.5 DL 3.5 LL 2.5 BE 4 ZB 4 VS 4.5 JL 4 AVERAGE 3.857/5
Condiment/Tortilla: MK 3 DL 3.5 LL 3 BE 4.5 ZB 4 VS 4 JL 3.5 AVERAGE 3.643/5
Overall Flavor: MK 3.5 DL 2 LL 3 BE 3 ZB 5 VS 3.5 JL 3.5 AVERAGE 3.357/5
Cooking: MK 3.5 DL 3.5 LL 4 BE 4 ZB 4 VS 4 JL 4 AVERAGE 3.857/5

OVERALL SCORE 3.6785/5

STOP #2: Los Cinco Puntos
3300 East Cesar Chavez Avenue, East LA, 323 261 4084

This super cocina (super market) has been an East LA staple since 1967. Inside, they house bins of dried chilies, semillas (seeds) and cones of piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar). Art on the building’s exterior bode well.

Mexican Restaurant Los Angeles

Any establishment that features a cartoon pig strumming a guitar pretty much has to be confident in its product, or at least have a good sense of humor.

People line up 20-deep to score orders of Michoacan-style carnitas, which are indeed cooked in a cazo. Most people order meat by the pound, fixings and stacks of tortillas to go, but it’s also possible to eat tacos in-house.

Mexican Restaurant Los Angeles

It was promising to see two women hand-patting thick tortillas before griddling them in an open kitchen.

Carnitas Los Angeles

We ordered tacos surtidos ($1.99) with fresh cleaved pork. Los Cinco Puntos offers a smaller range of cuts, primarily chopping shoulder meat and a second gelatinous cut. Some members of the group appreciated the crusty bits of meat, but to me, that just said overcooked. The overly crusty pork was too chewy for my liking. I did appreciate the thick, griddled tortillas, which more than held up to the meat, strips of pickled nopales and pico de gallo. In this case, the tomatillo and jalapeño salsa didn’t exactly sing, and this isn’t a taco I’d want to revisit.

Grade of Key Ingredient: MK 3 DL 3 LL 4 BE 2.5 ZB 4 VS 4 JL 2 AVERAGE 3.214/5
Condiment/Tortilla: MK 3.5 DL 4.5 LL 4 BE 3.5 ZB 5 VS 4 JL 4 AVERAGE 4.071/5
Overall Flavor: MK 3 DL 3.5 LL 4.5 BE 3 ZB 4 VS 4 JL 3 .5 AVERAGE 3.642/5
Cooking: MK 3 DL 2.5 LL 3.5 BE 2 ZB 4 VS 4 JL 2 AVERAGE 3/5

OVERALL SCORE 3.48175/5

GUIDE CONTINUED ON THE NEXT PAGE

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

Blog Comments

Okay. Now I’m gonna need some tacos. So hungry. Thanks for the post!

“But Jo-o-osh… why is there no u-u-uterus?”

Dave, you’re better than that, and you know perfectly well where to find the nana del puerco.

Good writeup, Josh. It took a significant amount of convincing for me (dorky white guy) to convince the cooks (jaded by whiny white people who only want muscle cuts) that I wanted the whole thing… and they still didn’t touch any of the truly “horrifying” bits, which is what I wanted.

Dave, kudos for never settling for what’s handed to you, and for never whining.

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