Sometimes we like to dress up on Friday nights and head out to a nice cocktail bar. But other times, all we want to do is end a busy week with delicious tacos and good conversation. And that’s exactly what we set out to do when we decided to kick off our weekend with an evening on Lorenzo Boturini, also known as Mexico City’s “taco corridor.”
Named after an Italian historian and antiquarian, Lorenzo Boturini is a long street in the eastern part of the city that most people will drive through on their way to or from the airport. The approximately 12-block stretch that runs south of Parque de los Periodistas Ilustres is where you want to go to satisfy your taco cravings.
Our first stop is Los Güeros, one of the largest establishments in the area and a local favorite since 1972. Los Güeros was, in fact, a pioneer in the area, and its success was the reason many other taco joints began to pop in around it. The casual, two-level restaurant is busy with customers, but we’re shown to our table swiftly. We order a round of beers – not all taco joints in the area serve beer, we’ll learn soon – and start with a few basic tacos: pastor, suadero, and campechano (a combo of beef and longaniza). The pastor is our main focus tonight, and at Los Güeros, it’s crispy and well-seasoned. The chile de árbol salsa, bright and spicy, turns out to be a perfect companion.
Tacos al pastor, if you need a crash course, are true icons of Mexico City street food, brought to us by Lebanese immigrants who came to live in the nearby city of Puebla. When these immigrants made Mexico their new home, they brought the shawarma, cooking lamb on a vertical spit. Locals started to adopt this dish as their own, and it inevitably evolved over time – eventually, lamb was substituted with pork, and tortillas replaced pita bread. Today, the traditional al pastor meat is seasoned with achiote, cumin, herbs, and peppers like guajillo and pasilla and cooked on a trompo, our word for the vertical split. The taco is served on a corn tortilla with the toppings of your choice: chopped parsley, onions, and pineapple – the latter a bit of a controversial garnish; each person has their preference. Of course, no taco al pastor is complete without a squeeze of lime and a dollop of salsa.
Now, back to our tour. The vibe at Los Güeros is relaxed and friendly, with couples and families enjoying their tacos to the sound of pop music in the background. It’s tempting to order another round, but our mission tonight is to explore a few spots, and we don’t want to get too full too fast, so we get the check. Outside, there’s a large cooking area where you can witness the action firsthand and perhaps eat a taco or two if you’re too short on time to wait for a table. Watching the taqueros, the expert taco-makers, cook the sizzling suadero – a cut similar to brisket, a Los Güeros specialty – is nothing short of mesmerizing.
Our next stop is El Pastorcito, a no-frills joint whose name says it all. The completely packed tables, populated by groups of friends and families with small kids, prove this is the perfect addition to our tour. Though we hear that the queso fundido here is spectacular – a pot of melted cheese for D.I.Y. tacos – we stick to what we came for: a classic pastor. We’re pleasantly surprised to see that you can order it on corn or flour tortillas, so we get two of each. Pastor on a flour tortilla, while slightly unorthodox, turns out to be an excellent option. Generously filled with meat, the large tortilla allows for plenty of exploration with the many salsas and garnishes on the table, including a creamy guacamole salsa and a bowl of diced pineapple for convenience.
Only a few steps away, El Gabacho awaits with a much-loved item: the gringa. Slightly quieter than El Pastorcito, El Gabacho is known for this beloved specialty: two flour tortillas stuffed with al pastor meat and melted Oaxaca cheese. “The arrachera [flank steak] is also great here, but the gringa is what you can’t miss,” says our server approvingly when we place our order. A few minutes later, a fluffy, warm-from-the-griddle gringa arrives, packed with flavorful pastor and gooey cheese. When it’s time to pay the check, we tell the server about our adventure, and she tells us that El Pastorcito and El Gabacho are actually sister restaurants. “That’s why everything tastes so good,” she says, proving to be an excellent spokeswoman for both restaurants.
Los Originales del Norteño, the smallest and most casual eatery on this journey, might also be the most highly anticipated one. We’re here to try something we’ve never eaten before: a crispy taco dorado, which appropriately enough, translates literally to “golden taco.” We watch the preparation process intently as the taquero cuts the meat expertly from the trompo and places it on the tortilla, which he then rolls into a taco and fries for a few minutes on the griddle. The grand finale: a generous serving of Oaxaca cheese, melting on top of the taco. The result is fantastic. Tasty pastor, rich cheese, crispy tortilla – so good it might not even need lime or salsa, but a splash of green salsa does add a nice touch of heat.
As the tour comes to a close, we rank the night’s tacos and are sure to take note of the dishes we didn’t try out of commitment to our theme: the queso fundido at El Pastorcito, the arrachera at El Gabacho, even the desserts at a couple of spots looked quite tempting…all the more reason to come back to this part of town. But for tonight, we feel full and fulfilled. Our pastor mission has been accomplished.
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