La Esperanza

Beautiful Friday night in Chavez Ravine.  Dodgers take out the Reds, Kershaw pitched a heck of a game.  Kids went nuts enjoying the fireworks.  Baseball on a summer night with the kids, does it get better?  Well, that is up to La Esperanza.  When the game ended, I knew there was an opportunity for some tacos.

Jumped in the car with my Papou, Papap and my oldest son Alexander.  We shot North on the 101 and got off at Silver Lake Blvd.  Took it until it turned into Beverly and kept going.  Most places were closed.  Just as they were losing hope and I was losing patience on all of the questions, we spotted a truck on the North side of the street.  Popped a U-Turn and pulled up in front of this little gem.  We walked up, they had a table set with four chairs and a couple of random chairs around, worked out perfectly, we snagged the table.

Truck was clean, looked nice inside and out.  Lady working the counter was nice.  Broken English, well, maybe a word or two.  Guy working there was the same.  They were super nice.  I did the ordering.  We had multiple trips up ordering more and more tacos.  Experience was great.  Lady there got more social and nicer with each order.  Nice touch on the jalapeno's.  I do have to point out, they needed to be grille just a little bit longer.  Enough with the journey, on with the ratings!

Asada: 3, again, lay off the heavy handed salt.  You were two shakes away from a 4.  This stuff was solid.  Cut well, cooked well, good flavors, just slightly overpowered by the salt.  Like I said, just a couple shakes shy of a 4.
Pollo: 1, this was horrid.  So overcooked, so burnt, so over-seasoned.  This stuff was so rough I almost asked for a refund of the $1.50 a taco.  It was just inedible.  Shame on you for putting this in a tortilla.
Lengua: 2, pretty let down here in the tongue department.  It was a cooking issue, not a seasoning issue.  Way under cooked.  The meat came out chewy.  It was just stretchy and took a while to eat.  Saving grace was that they had a great salsa to pair with it and the seasoning was right on point.
Buche: 3, nicely done.  This is pretty good stuff.  They did well with it.  Smooth, cooked appropriately.  Not over-seasoned.  There is so much flavor here, you don't want to overdo the seasoning, and they didn't.
Cabeza: 4, Buttery, delicious.  I really enjoyed this treat.  It was the tastiest part of the trip.  This stuff was nicely done with crispy ends.
Pastor: 3, I originally was going to write this down as a 4, but it just wasn't.  I've had so much Pastor that has been horrific, in comparison it was better, but reality, it was just average.
Salsa Rojo: 3, spicy, very nice.  I really did enjoy this.  There were smoky hints from the adobe, but it really was not over done.
Salsa Verde: 3, sweet, delicious.  This stuff was a great compliment to the fattier pieces of meat.  Not spicy and was nice for Alexander to enjoy.

Readers, I again plea to you, find great pastor.  Don't settle, you deserve better, well most of you do.

This place was pretty good, I'll stop again if I see it.  Service was nice, food overall was pretty good.  Getting to try all that they had was great.  I appreciate that they didn't have carnitas because they said that they didn't have the equipment to do it right.  Mad street credit for that!

Thanks for reading, I ask again for you to tell your friends, and please, don't settle for bad pastor.  Stay Excellent everyone!