Cinco de Mayo, Culver City, CA

Seriously, was I lost?  I got up this morning and drove Alexander, Yiayia and Papou to the airport as they are taking off to Colorado to visit my brother Peck.  Not many things to do at 6:45 when there isn't enough time to go home, but you really don't want to go to the office that early and no restaurants are open.  I started the day off with a beautiful walk through Venice Beach.  I enjoyed the waves crashing, the wind lightly blowing with the cool fog running through my beard.  I walked from Venice to the Santa Monica Pier then back to the Venice Pier and walked to the end of it.  The shops were closed, the arguments were the same.  Muscle Beach was empty and not even opened yet.  I got to enjoy watching some shop keepers begin to open up, street workers diligently clean up the garbage and felt like I saw 25 episodes of the show Cops go down in a matter of minutes as "locals" attacked runners and passer byes.  Lucky for me not a word was said, not a slur thrown my way.

I left Venice and drove towards the City of Culver.  I had some early meetings there and 8:45 with traffic would make this perfect.  Breakfast?  Yeah, I needed that.  I thought, where is open?  I've been asked to go off the grid and do a write up on Tito's.  I've been asked a number of times.  I figured today was the perfect day to do this.  I pulled up to Tito's just before 9 to see that it is closed and does not open it's doors until 10am.  What?  I mean come on, if you are going to be nothing more then a good Taco Bell, then keep the doors open dude!  Don't get me wrong, Tito's has its place, but I really can't wrap my brain around this place being much more then a local, glorified Taco Bell.  A fried tortilla is a chip dude.  I love a hardshell taco here and there, but well, I'm just ranting, I'll let it go for now...Next door is Cinco de Mayo's.  I've often wondered about that place.  It is smack next to Johnny's and Tito's.  I mean, prime location and the place is 24 hours.

Here's the taco story, they are pricey!  I mean three tacos for damn near $9?  I had to get a hardshell, they pride themselves on being better then Tito's.  Let me tell you before you even read the rating, it SUCKED!  They have a fairly extensive menu and the breakfast stuff looked pretty solid. Chilaquiles  was on the menu and I love that stuff.  I also make a damn mean chilaquiles, so I like it perfect.  Theirs looked good, but I was here for the tacos, duh!

RATINGS:
HARDSHELL BEEF: 1, this was horrid.  I did not finish it.  It was dry, the shell was crispy, I was just trying to find something nice to say.  Go to Tito's for the hardshell.
SALSA: 1, They give you chips and salsa, they suck.  Just return them, you don't need the canned tomato with habenero seasoning.  Not spicy, not good.  I really feel like I took one for the team here.
LENGUA: 2, yeah, just not very good.  I don't know why they don't take the time to make it right, but it was tough, cut into huge pieces, which made it take even longer to eat.
PASTOR: 3, It was good.  Solid, not amazing but good.  I would eat it again and would for sure eat it over a Tito's taco.  Highlight of the trip.

They did have a bar with different peppers, I do love the huge Serrano  peppers that were there.  They were fresh and delicious.  I hope that they use those in the chilaquiles.  This place has stiff competition between Tito's and Johnny's.  I don't think that they stack up day to day, but the place was alright.

Thanks for reading, hope everyone is doing excellent, tell your friends and get ready for a major download next week, THE CREW and I are hitting 6 places in East LA to Downtown!  Happy Tacoteering.