Review: Playa Mesa is the best new Mexican restaurant to come along in years

On the evening of March 19, shortly after Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that Los Angeles would be placed under a “Safer at Home” ordinance in response to the coronavirus outbreak, the rolling avenues of Boyle Heights were unusually quiet. At...

If there’s one thing Irvine desperately needs more of, it’s good Mexican food. I’ve always been baffled by the scarcity of tacos in Irvine, the center of a county where taquerias are nearly as common as gas stations. Apparently I’m not the only...

Welcome to the first edition of Tasting Notes, our revamped newsletter on the L.A. restaurant scene. In 2018, my final of five years as Eater’s national critic, I ate roughly 600 meals in 36 cities across North America. Since moving to Los Angeles...

Last weekend, I drove down to South Los Angeles to see what Carnitas El Momo was all about. I had never tasted the informal stand’s famous namesake dish, which reputable taco correspondents had claimed might be better even than the ones at Metro...

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...