A friend has been telling me about a taco place his coworker has been raving about, so we tried it out. Had to drive all the way to Chula Vista (which in LA terms isn't actually that far) to get to Tacos El Gordo, but the talk has been about how authentic their tacos are to the ones you can find in TJ. I haven't been across the border yet so I wasn't really sure what to expect, after all the best taco's I've had here were at Lolitas on Clairemont Mesa or even Taco Tuesdays at El Torito. The actual place isn't hard to find, it's pretty much right off the freeway, but the parking lot is horrendously small. I can only imagine what hell there'd be at a time when it's packed, heck we went around 3 or 4 on Saturday and it was nearly full.
This has to be one of the cleanest taco places I've been to, and it's set up really well with a lot of tables and booths. How it works is you order how many tacos you want at the stand (kind of like Panda Express in a way) and then pay at the end. A fellow customer noticed that it was our first time there so he kinda gave us the run down on what's good (which he said was basically anything...). But what he did accomplish was translating the menu, because who would've known that sesos meant cow brain, and which one was tripe and brisket. Honestly, after hearing that they serve cow brain compelled me to try it (a little inspiration from Andrew Zimmerman perhaps?), I don't even know how that happened. In fact when I ordered the sesos the cook kind of gave me a wide eyed look which probably should've triggered some signal in my head that it wasn't a good idea to get it. Anyway so I picked up one sesos (cow brain), one tripas (tripe), and two adobada (spicy pork). Total price? $8.05 (each taco was about $1.85). Ok, so the price isn't exactly cheap, but would the quality make up for it?
First up, the adobada. Hands down, the best taco I've ever had in my life. Each one can be finished off in 2-3 bites, but each bite has intense flavor and a good amount of meat. The actual pork is really similar to Chinese bbq pork, but the taste is completely different. It's not sweet like the Chinese version, but more sweet/salty with a little spicy kick, although I did feel it wasn't as spicy as I wished for it to be. We couldn't really figure out what the white sauce was but it was delicious and complemented the pork well. There was a salsa bar but I elected not to add any to my tacos.
Ok, here we go: cow brains (right). I figure it's probably best to eat that one first, so if it sucks the tripe (left) will wash out all the 'brains' flavor. First bite: the only bite. I was hoping all the onions and green salsa topped onto it would help too, but no, it was definitely too much for me. The texture is textureless. It's basically tofu with a terrible after taste that salsa couldn't overcome. One of my friends tried it and likened it to avocado without the great taste. For me, it definitely didn't work but I'd probably advise against trying it. I'm sure I was psychologically handicapped as well since before the first bite I had a wonderful image of a cold wet brain waiting to be butchered. Thank god the tripe taco was good, the smoky overcooked bits of tripe really took out the brain taste. Taco El Gordo's tripe is very crunchy and flavorful, albeit too crunchy for me, but perfect for my cousin but still a very good taco for me.
In the end, this was definitely a great experienece and can't wait for my next trip back. There's tons of other stuff on the menu that I wanted to try like beef tongue, brisket (breast), chicken, quesadillas, etc. On yelp.com it seems that there are other Taco El Gordo's in National City and Pacific Beach which are closer alternatives, but ratings wise the general consensus is the Chula Vista shop serves the most authentic TJ tacos. Highly recommended
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