Monterey Park: Cook's Tortas

After reading Carolyn's review on yelp (here) and seeing how they made LA Mag's "17 Great LA Sandwiches," Cook's Tortas was on the top of my list as one of the must try places. I was near the 626 for work one day, and Diana mentioned about grabbing a quick lunch here before I got back to the office so of course I jumped at the opportunity to eat something other than Asian in this area!

Cook's Tortas

1944 S Atlantic Blvd

Monterey Park, CA 91754

www.cookstortas.com

Selections of the day! Not really your traditional Mexican torta spot. They put a lot of their own spin to create their unique sandwiches. A modern take with different influences!

There's even salads! Apparently Taco Taco is a popular choice.

Agua Fresca! There are some really unique flavors.

Sides you can choose with your torta.

Some of the desserts. Hmmm... I could not stop staring at the cookies.

I ended up getting a cucumber-lime agua fresca. Their cucmber-lime agua fresca is just money. The drink is refreshing and not overly sweet but just enough for me. It helps cut into any heaviness from your sandwich. Who knew cucumber and lime go so well together?

Celery agua fresca. Yes. Celery. Very interesting but refreshing as well! Imagine the feel you get when you take a bite of celery with your buffalo wings. It's sorta like that... except in liquid form haha.

Carne Asada Torta. I truly believe you can rate a Mexican eatery by how good it's carne asada is, and I gotta say I like it. The marinade is there and the skirt steak is tender. The pico de gallo is great and it has a good amount of avocado in the torta as well.

For my one side, I chose the red fries, which is sweet potato fries. It's good but since it was served in a styrofoam cup, it got soggy near the bottom from the heat.

Diana's Grilled Veggie Torta. Veggies are great either grilled, roasted, or caramelized, and they certainly picked the right veggies for that. Grilled zucchini, roasted peppers, caramelized onions, and fresh tomato make up the sandwich with a delicious garlic spread.

Potato salad. Probably the best potato salad I've had anywhere. Good portion control of mayo just to make it come together and mustard for that little kick.

I couldn't resist so I got their huge Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookie and I'm so glad that I did. I love chocolate chip cookies and with the walnut, it adds this nuttiness to the cookie. I like how they bake it so it's crunchy. Kinda reminds me of Tartine's!

AHHH it just sucks that I work/live so far away or else I would totally add Cook's Tortas as part of my lunch rotation and try a different sandwich everytime. Lucky 626 kids :[

Redondo Beach: La Cueva

Recently I've been frequenting this Mexican food spot near the Redondo Beach, just touching Torrance & Lawndale. If you know me, you know I love tacos and when Leonard and I drove past it one day on our way to ball, we saw that they have 5 tacos for $4.99, our Asian-ness kicked in and Leonard & I decided to try it one day after bball.

Now.... La Cueva doesn't have the best carne asada or al pastor but it's pretty solid. At $4.99 for 5 tacos, it's about a buck per taco. Where can you get street tacos for $1 all day every day except at taco trucks?? There's a small outdoor seating area so there's a place to sit as well. Plus one for La Cueva.

They also have other deals where you get 3 tacos + chips & guac for $5 or 3 tacos + agua fresca for the same. Legit, especially if you're strapped for cash!

Sorry for the photos. It was taken with the iPhone since my SLR is still sitting at the shop waiting to be fixed :[

La Cueva

4565 Artesia Blvd.

Lawndale, CA 90261

Right across from South Bay Galleria Mall.

Here's 3 tacos with their spicy salsa: carnitas, al pastor, and asada.

Al Pastor: got a little kick to it!

Carnitas: a little dry that day.

Asada: favorite protein selection there.

Chips + guac. Part of the 3 taco combo! I'm not a big fan of guac but here you can actually see chunks of guac. None of that fake stuff!

On a separate occasion, got the 5 taco combo deal! I love how they give you beets & pickled carrots here.

For $1 a taco, this place is awesome and it's even better now that the girl is starting to recognize us and gives us free chips. I think that also means we are going too often haha. Sure there's King's Taco in LA and their taco is only 25 cents more... but guess what... there's none around me, soooo La Cueva is a good enough substitute for me :]

Los Angeles: LA Taco Adventures at Kogi, Flying Pig, Pinches & King Taco!

HAH! I'm back bitches. Honestly, I wasn't planning on updating this blog till my next Asia trip since this blog so far has been about food in Asia when I was studying abroad or traveling, but a lot of my friends have started blogs and I figured... since I'm the original out of them, I gotta step my game up! Plus, now I'm based in LA so might as well get it going. Regardless, I'm gonna start with a LA staple, tacos!!

2 weekends ago, a few friends (Diana & Mikol) and I decided to go on this search for tacos around LA. Props to them for deciding on which spots to stop. Our trip that specific night took us from Venice to Sunset on Hollywood to East LA. I think the odometer read 80 something miles at the end of the night. Nevertheless, it was some crazy fooding haha.

Kogi (stop 1)

So one of the Kogi trucks was at The Brig in Venice Beach that night so that's where our search for tacos began. Not really the traditional Mexican tacos, but I had to have Kogi so we incorporated that haha. It's actually a good thing too cause it turned out there were 4-5 different food trucks there that night! (more on that later)

When I order, I usually like to order Kogi's special of the night cause it's usually something you can't find at their dine-in lounge (Alibi), and it is something different.

The taco trucks next to The Brig. There's a few others too, but there's Kogi!

Their special of the night! Shredded chicken mulita with their salsa roja. Seriously, the salsa makes this a must get. Actually, anything of theirs with salsa roja is bomb.

Spicy Pork Taco. My favorite taco from Kogi. The flavors are much more intense than short ribs, chicken, and tofu.

Diana & Mikol's order of tofu and spicy pork taco. Supposedly they updated their tofu taco but I still find it a little bland. Good option if you're going light though or vegetarian!

The Flying Pig (stop 2)

This was honestly a pleasant surprise since they were at The Brig as well. We all heard from a friend how much she loved the truck so we decided to try it out ourselves.

The truck.

Tamarind Duck Taco & Braised Pork Belly Bun.

So the duck taco was essentially asian roast duck or peking duck. then they sprinkled almonds and added a pickled beet salad. They also added a mardarin orange on top to simulate the taste of the orange dipping sauces most chinese restaurants give you. Such an interesting way of deconstructing each ingredient of a traditional peking duck and then putting them together for different textures. The tamarind also added a sweetness.

The pork belly was essentially taiwanese "guabao" and they played around with it. The pork belly even tastes the same. they added marinated onions and cucumber instead of the traditional pickled vegetables and crumbled peanuts.

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so we wanted to go to kogi and that night they were at venice beach. but when we got there we found out that the trucks like to gather all in one place. didnt try the other two in the picture though.

Pinches (stop 3)
8200 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Our 3rd stop took us over 40 minutes to get there from Venice Beach, the famous Pinches on Sunset.

Pinches, right in the heart of Sunset Blvd.

Mr. al Pastor & Mr. Carne Asada. Of course one of my basis for judging tacos is how tasty their al pastor and carne asada is. Their al pastor is pretty weak in my opinion but their carne asada was like biting into steak nuggets. Pretty awesome.

Mexican Coke! Made with real cane sugar. Absolutely love it!

Also at Pinches, they have this cactus taco. Cactus was... interesting. Tasted a bit like mild bell peppers with not much bite to it. Kinda like.. jelly but not as soft hahah. I would try cactus again, but maybe used differently in a dish hahah.

The also had this guava flan, that didn't have much guava flavor to it at all. It tasted like.. a really really sweet & creamy flan.

King Taco (Stop 4)
4504 E 3rd St
Los Angeles, CA 90022

King Taco, a LA staple.

Al Pastor with Salsa Roja. I absoutely love their salsa roja. Intense flavors and spiciness. Also love their al pastor the best. It did feel like they skimped on the meat though haha.

Mikol's favorite cabeza. I'm not a really big fan of cabeza because I think it's too fatty but the salsa verde definitely cuts into the oiliness.

I think by the end of the night I had about 6-8 tacos from eating my own and sampling Diana and Mikol's haha. More tacos to come!