After getting some pie, Donny and I went to check out the relatively new bar Mission Dolores. We had the same problems with it that many others do: it was way too crowded and WAY too loud. After our friends Matt and Phaedra joined us for a drink, we moved next door to the beautiful and quiet Rock Shop, where we could actually relax. After a while we got hungry, so a couple of us ran across the street to Oaxaca Taqueria to get some takeout.

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Is it possible to live in a city for over 20years and practically know nothing about it? How was it possible for me to only recently found out about all these street tacos wonderness in my own backyard (even if the backyard is about an hour drive away)? I guess I know why. I didn’t REALLY get into everything food until I moved to NYC and started this blog. I didn’t REALLY appreciate awesome authentic tacos until I became obsessed with the trucks at Red Hook. And I didn’t REALLY get into the street food scene until this whole street food wave that took over 2009. But then still I wasn’t able to grasp just how many street taco vendors are in Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights and etc… Not until I came upon Dylan Ho’s post about street tacos in LA. And after watching Dan Delaney taco crawling with Dylan, I wanted to go street taco crawling as well and actually pondered about asking Dylan as my tour guide. But decided not to, seem so out of the blue and he probably either ignore my email or say no. Then I thought about, hey I can just write down the locations of all the taco stands he blogged about and have my own little taco tour! And two things really set this tour into stone were Jonathan Gold, from LA Weekly, writing about Antojitos Carmen and Breed Street Scene in Boyle Heights and included their Twitter accounts. The second thing was my friend Sandy wanted to have a street taco tour as well and actually lives near to most of the vendors.

I’ve done many food tours before small and big so I wasn’t expecting any different from this taco tour. It was like okay, let’s go get some tacos. I wasn’t prepare massive this whole thing was and I still don’t. I thought the 2 nights that I went pretty much covered most of the vendors but then on Yelp and a closer look at Dylan’s blog, proved that there were many many more.

Anyways let’s start this frakkin epic journey and I do mean E P I C.

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As I mentioned in my previous Baltimore Eats post, the weekend that I was in Baltimore was the same weekend as the Fells Point Fun Festival. While looking for breakfast I happened to have found it but it was too early. The vendors were just setting up but I did see giant chunks of meat getting ready to be BBQ’d. After getting breakfast and trying out my first ever scrapple I walked back to the hotel and was stuck watching Sky High on HBO. Yeah I just couldn’t get myself to stop watching it and actually be out doing something. What finally did get me out of the hotel was hunger. Again I had no idea what to eat for lunch but I knew where to go back to Fells Point to check out the festival.

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I just came back from a quick, well sort of quick, lunch at Madison Square Mark’t. It takes up the tiny island next to the Madison Square Park. There weren’t many choices to choose from for savory food items. I decided to hit up Fatty Crab and Hill Country. Planning to get meatballs from the Viking stand next time.

First I went to the Fatty Crab stand and got the Al Carbon Taco which is a hanger steak taco. For $4 I felt I got a little ripped off. The hanger steak was pretty good but the whole taco wasn’t all that. Also they only used 1 tortilla and so half way thru the taco just fell apart. And I accidentally put too much hot sauce and my mouth was burning after eating it.
Second I got the jalapeno with cheese sausage from Hill Country. They were out of their beef and I didn’t want to wait. For $6 this was much better than the stupid taco. When I stabbed my fork into the sausage, cheese oozed out! Hello! It came with a side of pickles, very nice as well, and 2 pieces of bread. I don’t know where they bought the bread but it was so fluffy and light!

- Madison Square Mark’t

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.
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So on June 27th, around 11am (I say around because I was 15mins late) Howard, our friend Steph and I met up at Grand Army Plaza to start our food truck journey. We had traveled from Park Slope to Williamsburg to the East Village to Union Square to the Flatiron District to West Harlem to the Meatpacking District to the West Village back to the East Village to SoHo and finally back to Park Slope. We had lost Steph half way through because she had to meet up with a friend. In the end Howard and I spent about 11 hours, 12 trucks, sore feet but loads of fun. *A sad note, the Le Gamin truck had to be in Jersey that day so we weren’t able to try it. Steph had the chance to eat the merquez sandwich earlier in the week and couldn’t stop telling us how good it was. Boo
Click to read which trucks we went and what we thought about them!