What is the one important thing that you need to have to keep you going in your job? Dominic, owner of Don Chow Tacos, said fun. You definitely need to love and be having fun at your job. Especially when you’re running on a 2 hour sleep. I was surprised to find out from Dominic that he and Lawrence, the other half of Don Chow Tacos, still have their day time job. Dominic works in the IT department while Lawrence runs the family business. It’s also why they only do 3 nights a week from 10pm to 2am. With that kind of schedule you REALLY need to love what you do. I bow down to these guys. It’s what I call ultimate foodie passion. “I just love to eat” said Dominic. And I thank you and Lawrence for that because I can’t get that bbq pork taco out of my head!! Ugh! Want one now.

If you have read my long prelude about LA food trucks, you know that I was debating, on the plane to LA, about visiting the Don Chow guys. I was having the inner chills in the plane and was totally dead tired. I have to thank Virgin-America for landing an hour early, that was the deciding factor. Also Venice Beach was only 15mins away from LAX. In the end I was glad I didn’t go straight home because I would’ve SOOOO hated myself for missing the Don Chow Taco truck.

My sister and I arrived to, well, a lot of drunk people wandering around and a long ass line of people trying to get into the Townhouse Bar. That was where the taco truck was parked. We walked up to the truck and I quickly noticed “lengua” tongue! Oh hell yeah! I must get tongue whenever I see it. I introduced myself to Lawrence, he was taking orders, and Dominic, he was inside the truck cooking. I ordered 2 tongue tacos and 2 roast pork tacos, so my sister and I wouldn’t need to fight. After ordering from Lawrence, Dominic quickly changed it for us. He added 2 more carne asada tacos topped with onions and bacon, *GASP! While we were waiting for our tacos we chatted a bit with Lawrence and Coleen, their future day time truck manager. I learned that the recipes they use are family recipes and were tweaked to suit their needs.


Lawrence and Coleen were really working the crowd. We tried to help by shoveling our tacos into people’s faces. Coleen told us that sometimes people wander toward the truck with a puzzling face. Chinese? Mexican? Coleen would then tell them its Chino meets Latino. Later Dominic takes a break from working inside the truck to chat with my sister and I. We found out that they have only been running the truck for 6 months now and that it’s still hard to sell lengua. I hope that one day people will find lengua as normal as a piece of steak. Now for some food photos!

So I had the tongue, the carne asada topped with onions and bacon and the roast pork tacos. Was mine the mild ones while my sister got the more spicier ones? I just remember Lawrence tellng me what each one was but all I did was stared at the tacos. Hm….. My sister and I took our tacos away from the crowd to enjoy them. I had the tongue taco first. Hm…tongue. I…well ate it so fast (3 bites) it was all a blur. All I can say is, it was good. Next the carne asada taco topped with onions and bacon. This time I chewed slow enough…slooooooooooww enough to enjoy the taste. Hmmm beef yes, onion yes, crunchy porky bacon hell yes! The bacon definitely made this taco super good. I would eat another one but I still had the roast pork to go. Dominic explained to me that they roast their own pork and is nothing like those neon red color pork you find in restaurants. The Don Chow roast pork was amazing! Tender and slightly sweet which made the taco very good. This was my favorite taco that night, no doubt. After the 3 tacos, it didn’t stop there. Dominic gave us each an order of their carne asada chow fun. I love chow fun and his version was very good. Surprisingly not oily at all. It was a perfect drunk person’s food.

I asked Dominic about serving duck, like a Peking duck taco or something. Well he said that they actually tried it. Duck is frakkin awesome to serve but not very feasible. Dominic had pointed out for them to serve duck in their menu they would’ve had to increase the price because duck is way too expensive. Also they really stuff their tacos with loads of meat so they would’ve needed a large amount of duck meat for just 1 taco. But hopefully one day a Peking duck quesadillas special? Maybe? Guys?
I really really enjoyed chatting with Lawrence, Coleen and Dominic. They’re the coolest and nicest people around. And thanks for the frakkin awesome food!!

People! Go get some roast pork tacos now! And don’t be shy, go have a chat with them.

- Don Chow Tacos on Twitter

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