Navarro’s Taqueria in Santa Ana Is Something to Taco ’Bout

In the high desert city of Hesperia, 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, it was so cold on a recent night that the salsas outside the Tacos La Madrina food truck stiffened with frost. The weather didn’t stop customers from lining up for tacos in...

There was a time in Southern California when birria was what you ate after church baptisms or for hungover Sunday morning meals, a restorative dish of musky goat broth rooted in the chivo-intensive cooking of west-central Mexico. Goat was as...

“Thank you for your patience,” the young owner says as I’m helping myself to the salsa bar, anticipating my birria tacos. “The tacos take a little while because we make the tortillas fresh.”  Moments later when the tacos arrive, they are...

Walter Soto stood under a makeshift tent in an industrial corner of Boyle Heights, making tacos in rapid batches of four. He pitched handfuls of shredded Monterey Jack cheese onto the griddle in neat piles; the strands hissed and buckled in the...

Santa Ana boasts better taquerias than many towns in Mexico. Carne asada? Pork al pastor? Birria, barbacoa, al vapor? You don’t have to look very far to find what you’re looking for here. Just a wild guess, but if someone were to actually do the...