Tacos at Frida Taqueria are cheaper than those in the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, where I often eat. That's surprising, because Frida is located on the plushy Westside. It's inside the Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of pricey shops in Santa Monica.
Frida offers five tacos for $10, or $2 each, which beats Central Market tacos by 50 cents.
There are differences, of course. Downtown tacos have the sort of taste you would expect in the heart of a Latino shopping district.
Westside tacos are more, well, Westside. Downtown, carne al pastor (marinated park) has that fresh off the spit taste, even if it never spent time on a vertical spit. Frida's pork is saucier. seasoned with tomatoes and achiote, slow-cooked and then grilled.
Frida has more elaborate fillings than the usual taco stand, including cochinita pibil and chicken mole.
Cochinita pibil is the Yucatecan dish of pork slowly steamed in a pibil, or undergorund pit. Frida seasons it with achiote and vinegar. The mole sauce takes hours to make from chiles, plantains, bread, nuts, seeds and chocolate.
Frida offers basic taco stand fillings such as carnitas (shredded roast pork), grilled chicken and carne asada (grilled beef). But you won't find the sort of meats that real taco fiends go for, such as cabeza (head), buche (hog maw) and lengua (tongue).
The presentation is classic: two soft corn tortillas underneath the meat and chopped onion and cilantro on top. Frida aupplies the traditional red and green salsas. The spicy red salsa is made with arbol chiles, the green salsa with tomatillos.
What is definitely Westside is the option to have the filling in a lettuce wrap rather in tortillas, a nod to the lo-carb crowd.
Not a restaurant but a stand, Frida opens onto a communal patio where you get to watch pretty people eating fast food.
To please their tastes, Frida goes way beyond tacos to a resplandor de mango salad with greens, mangoes, grapes, caramelized walnuts, goat cheese and passion fruit dessing.
No downtown taqueria and certainly no taco truck has ever soared so high.
Frida Taqueria at the Brentwood Country Mart, 225 26th Street, No. 14, Santa Monica, CA 90402. Tel: (310) 395-9666.
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