taco trucks galore

agent h and i love the mexican food. we just don't like to eat at a full service mexican restaurant esp. like el cholo or el torito. can we say el rip offo? i don't feel like paying $10 for 2 tacos, mushy beans, and bad spanish rice. ok, i understand it's to pay for all the overhead: rent, wait staff, insurance, blah, blah, blah. remember i am the asian $40 a day rachael ray ('cept i'm lot less annoying and slightly better looking than ms. yumo). if i don't find the restaurant a good value, then there won't be a return visit.

instead finding us sipping margaritas at the local acapulco, you'll find us hovering around the local taco trucks which are littered across this wonderful side of los angeles. there is one called El Taquito Mexicano a few miles away from our home we frequent. even after some idiot teeny booper ran the red light and t-boned us at the intersection and agent h was in the er, getting checked out, we asked our friend to do a taco run for us. when we got home from the hospital, we scarfed up 8 tacos between the two of us. fatty. greasy. tasty. it is the best comfort food and you can be full after just having 2 (well, i get full after 2 tacos). at a $1.25 a pop, you can't beat that.

back in march, we noticed a new taco truck sprouted up a block up from el taquito. wth, let's go try it. so after we took a stroll up and it was fairly empty compared the bustling line at the other truck. el gallito became the new favorite truck. with el taquito, the meat is real fatty and fixings are limited. red or green sauce? w/ or w/o onions? lemon? (i prefer limes over lemons for my tacos and pho). very few options. oh, yeah, it gets really crowded at el taquito. some assholes can get super obnoxious and get all king of the road by parking their car right in front of the line. if these tacos were bad, then i like throw one at their car. :P never mind, that'd be a waste of $1.20.

at el gallito, you can taste the meat. it was lean and fatty. not only can you select your fixings of tomatoes, onions, cillantro, lime, and two choices of sauces. they also grill up an small onion and jalapenos for you. soft sweet onion really hit the spot. there is a wait as the guy cooks up the meat but it's sure worth the wait. they also sell a good horchata for $1. they also sell burritos and quesdillas. we decided to take it to go this time around. oh, yeah, the guy behind the counter is starting to recognize us -- it's telling how many times we visit el gallito.

even big red had a taco. big red and bulgogi love the taco truck (bulgogi not pictured).

on a whim, i suggested leo's taco's in eagle rock which i found from taco hunt blog. so off we went to try this taco truck.


i was amazed they included gucamole on all their tacos. i had one of each: the asada, el pastor, chicken and the veggie. agent h orderd 2 asada and 2 el pastor. we shared a quesdilla which is nothing to write home about. if you go to the taco truck, stick with the tacos. the tacos were good but i felt that the guac and the extra stuff piled on top hid the true essence of the taco: the meat. i'd give it a 3.5 out of 5. not bad but not exceptionally good. dare i say that they're better than el taquito? mmm, yeah.

El Taquito

510 S. Fair Oaks, Pasadena, CA

El Gallito

Bellevue and Fair Oaks (just slightly north of El Taquito)

Leo's Tacos

4300 Eagle Rock Blvd, Eagle Rock, CA

we hope to visit some more taco trucks in the future.

no mongolian bbq -- healthy or not healthy? who the hell cares!

i was jonesin' for mongolian bbq last night it wasn't too long ago that i was introduced to monogolian bbq -- a few years ago. sure, there's ghenis khan at the malls. i totally poopoo ghenis khan simply because it's mall food. while i occassionally pick up an auntie anne's pretzel or a hot dog on a stick lemonade. but the mall isn't a place to eat a full meal. food laden with msg and salt at high prices is not particularly appealing.

i am not a food connoisseur or even a real foodie by any means. i simply live to eat and look for good values, including my meals. in fact, ghetto places attract me like a fly to a pile of shit. don't invite me to some fancy schmancy restaurant like lucques on melrose. my mother in law invited us out to lucques a few years ago and the food was mediocre at best. parkway grill in pasadena? eh. firefly in south pasadena? pass. you know what they say. you can take the girl out from the east side ghetto but you can't take the east side ghetto out of the girl. simple comfort food and good values are always on the top of the list. this would explain why my love for $40 a day with rachael ray even though the host is ever so annoyingly perky and she could have do a better job with some of her picks. hell, my husband and i joked that we could do a better job. 2 people for under $40 a day and still have money left over for a few more drinks. i am more of a tony bourdain girl, glued to the tv whenever no reservations is on. he's more my kind of food personality. real. gritty. gruff. sexy? i was on the fence whether he's sexy or gross (being the smoking chimney he is). agent h convinced me that he's gross. sorry, tony. smoking is a big turn off. btw, agent h is my husband who probably will get mentioned frequently on this blog as he is my meal partner in addition to life partner. feel free to chime in with comment, hon.

back to mongolian bbq. man, was i a sucker for not trying mongolian bbq earlier. agent h introduced me to big wok mongolian bbq in manhattan beach. it was love at first bite. good quality all you can eat at a low price. who knew? a good ayce apparently doesn't exist in japanese food arena (i.e. todai, onami). at big wok (i also refer to it as big -ock because i'm a dirty old man in a woman's body), two lines form around a long buffet of fresh meat and vegetables to build your bowl o' noddles. there are a huge variety of vegetables to choose from and multitude of sauces you can mix in for flavor. in addition to the piping hot dish of delicious noodles, big wok will also serve rice and baotse. the prices are reasonable. i don't recall the exact price since it's been a while -- i guestimate it's somewhere in the ball park of $10.95 to $13.95. big wok became the gold standard for all other mongolian bbq joints encountered.

Big Wok

250 N Sepulveda Boulevard

Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

(310) 798-1155

oh, back to yesterday's jonesin', i wanted to try to place which got rave reviews for a place closer to home called Golden Palace Mongoilan BBQ.

No pictures as I forgot my camera. walking into golden palace is taking a trip in a time machine. i felt like i was eating at a 70's diner. the decor is rather outdated as they had funky light fixtures and tiles. i don't care for ambience of a place as long as it's not crawling with roaches and it's generally clean. nothing turns me off more than a "c" rating or the disgusting slop they serve at sir george's royal buffet in arcadia. there was a long line of people along a single serving station. the standard meats were present: chicken, beef, turkey, pork, and lamb. my noodles consisted of:

• chicken and pork
• onions
• carrots
• cabbage
• lots of cilantro
• broccoli
• garlic
• sesame oil
• gold palace's kung pao mixture of hot sauce, teriyaki sauce, bbq sauce, and hot oil sauce

when we carried out plates of hot noodles over to our table, we found the usual bowl of rice and baotse. there was also a cup of cream of corn soup, a plate of egg rolls, and bowl of crispy wontons. score....sort of. the soup was your standard cream of corn soup and the egg rolls are what you find under the heat lamp at your local panda express. they did not warrant an arrest for foulness but didn't wow us either. it was ok. these items weren't the stars of dinner.

the noodles were pretty good. a bit spicy. a bit greasy. a bit good but it doesn't hold a candle to my beloved big wok. the vegetables looked a little tired and forget the other buffet on the other side. there is a small buffet of salad fixings and desserts. dessert consisted of bad generic strawberry and lime jello, sad looking almond jello, orange wedges, pineapple, and grass jelly which didn't seem to catch anyone else's attention. thanks, golden palace, but no thanks.

for $10.95 a pop and 30 miles closer to home, golden palace serves as a decent quick fix but certainly not the first place i'd race to for mongolian bbq.

Golden Palace Mongolian BBQ

3681 E Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, California 91107

(626) 796-1832

welcome!

welcome to east side (of la) eats. i live, work, and play on east side of los angeles. while east side isn't as glamorous and flashy as the west side, the los angeles everyone and their mothers knows, the east side is and will be always my home base of eats.