Craft Tacos In North Park

Founder Gerry Torres has brought to North Park a menu of tacos only that will surprise and delight you.  He uses only the freshest local ingredients in his unique taco offerings, and pairs them with aguas frescas, prepared on site every day.  The only item on the menu is tacos, but there is nothing there that you've ever seen before.

Tacos are nestled into homemade flour tortillas that have been lightly fried.  They are delicious by themselves, but add the unique ingredients of City Tacos and you have a real treat.  The camaron, is sautéed shrimp in a Serrano chile egg batter, topped with grilled calabacitas and corn, tomato salsa with cilantro and red onions.  The Borrego is pulled lamb with wild mushrooms, cotija cheese, tomato, cilantro and fried leeks in a chipotle cream sauce on a house made corn tortilla.  I had the pollo asado, a chicken taco, with arugula, raisins, tomatoes and sliced almonds, with a little bit of a spicy sauce.  I also loved the scallop taco, small scallops, bacon, cream sauce and a little bit of heat.  They also have a mahi taco, chile relleno taco, and Portobello con vegetables.  It's a small restaurant, with only about 8 tables inside and a small patio.  We loved the place and will definitely go back.  Here's a taco stand without rice and beans, without quesedillas or any of the typical finds.  Tacos is all they serve.

As I was thinking about going to City Taco, I was reminded of the days when pizza went from plain to fancy.  It might have been Wolfgang Puck who started the gourmet pizza craze.  He started putting barbequed chicken or cream cheese and lox on his pizzas and the whole world followed.  Could the same thing happen with tacos?  I think it might. I talked to my son Phil about this possibility and he feels that tacos and pizza will coexist, side by side.  Right now gourmet tacos are mostly found on food trucks.  There are some great taco trucks nationwide with some wonderful flavors on their tacos, but not many unique taco restaurants are found in brick and mortar restaurants.  I'm hoping this will change as people become more open to trying new things.

After lunch, we headed to NorthGate Supermarket, a huge Mexican grocery store.  The center isles are much like any market, but the perimeter is Mexican all the way.  The most impressive thing was the deli cases filled with more guacamole, cervice, salsas and cactus salad than I've ever seen in one place.  The meats were amazing.  We usually see chicaronnes in a bag, like potato chips, but at NorthGate they have the whole hide of a pig, about three feet long, in one piece, fried and in a plastic bag.  Not anything I would eat, but somebody must like it.  Homemade masa for tamales, homemade sopas and tortillas, homemade soups and just about everything Mexican you can imagine.  I tried the rice pudding, which was delicious.  I also bought a few Mexican pastries.  I don't like most of the Mexican sweets, put there are some turnover type pastries, filled with fruit that I love.  I brought those home to enjoy another day.  It was another great day with my foodie friends, laughing and enjoying each other and food.