Every night after 6pm you will find La Oaxaquena parking a block south of Rose Ave on Lincoln Blvd in Venice.It’s a popular truck with locals and serves up a diverse menu with everything from tacos and burritos to the more Oaxacan specialties like memelas and tyaludas.
The patrons are made up of immigrants and Venice locals. The occasional Venice burnout will stroll up to the window, count his change and get a taco. The foot traffic is made up of day shift workers attempting to catch the last bus home, youths on bicycles and the occasional vagrant.
I ordered two tacos - asada, and al pastor and a cesina memela with a fruit punch Jarritos. A memela is basically just a massive taco folded into flat bread with a spread of black beans and your meat of choice. This one came topped with avocado salsa, tomatoes, lettuce and cotija cheese.
carne asada and al pastor $1.25 each
The al pastor was dry and mixed with caramelized onion. The crumbled pork had a sweet flavor to it and I wasn’t enjoying it until I wrapped half the juicy plump jalapeno into it. The pickled jalapeno dominated the flavor which I didn’t mind . The asada got the jalapeno treatment as well. The beef didn’t taste hot off the grill and the salsa roja was too mild. The avocado salsa did provide a nice cool counterpart to the spice of the jalapeño.
cesina memela $4.50
The cesina was pork and had an achiote flavor to it and had a jerky-like texture . The warm taste of the black bean paste paired with the coolness of the avocado salsa, lettuce, and tomato made was a lot to contemplate. Delicious isn’t a word that comes to mind but it was definitely interesting. It was the type of food that before you really realized what you were eating it was half way gone. In the end I was just poking around for bits of meat with the fork and chomping on the marinated carrots.
Between Valentino's and La Oaxaquena it's an easy choice. La Oaxaquena.
2.5/5
La Oaxaquena
Lincoln and Rose Ave afer 6pm
tacos $1.25
Rate La Oaxaquena
I think you may have had a random bad experience at La Oaxaquena. These tacos were very good reminded me of the tacos I would eat when living outside Mexico City.
ReplyDeleteThe cabeza here is a must. La Oaxaquena can really be hit or miss (with little in between), but on a good night, I'd argue they're the best tacos on the west side.
ReplyDelete