Today, Josh and I again were short for time. As it happens, Josh was in Ventura (and I in Camarillo) so we both decided to meet there for tacos. So many places to choose from but we ended up going with Lalo’s on Ventura avenue.
If you simply go off of the reviews on Yelp, you would think that this place was the best in Ventura. It definitely has many devoted fans and I’m obviously aware of what’s at stake here. Which is to say nothing since only like, 3 people read this blog. But I know that Lalo’s is a treasure, a jewel, blah, blah, blah…….it’s been around. They have a good reputation and that’s not easy to achieve with so many Latinos in this area.
So, Josh and I meet up and order our tacos at the walk up counter when I noticed that they have a great special on the menu. For $3.75 you get 3 tacos, and judging by the size of the tacos it’s really a pretty good deal. They were not the palm size ones you may get at other taquerias. The tacos came topped with cilantro, onions, and what seemed to me as a heat neutral salsa roja. It had some nice flavor but only average spiciness.
In any case, the tacos:
Carnitas, hands down the best I’ve had since I started this blog. Big deep fried morsels of pork with crispiness on the outside and tender succulent innards that fell apart in shreds. Maybe “innards” was not the word I was looking for but none the less, it was pretty damn good. A little greasy with some pieces of fat (although mine didn’t have much fat, Josh’s included one huge cut of it) but just delicious.
Al Pastor, well, since Josh and I decided that this is now “Ventura County Pastor” it was very good in that vein. The pork cuts were smallish and tender, again, that ancho chili flavor was predominant in my pastor (with no pineapple to be found) but I’m now accepting this as normal around here. Solid taco in my opinion though, I enjoyed it.
Carne Asada, seems like they nailed down the flavor of asada but the texture left much to be desired. Too rubbery and hard to chew on, finer/smaller pieces of steak may solve this issue or maybe Josh and I just got the crappy cuts of the flap meat. We both agreed on the flaws here.
The Salsa was barely there on all of these, and what I mean is that the heat did not stand out at all. Again, a good flavor but with a very mild spice.
Josh's take:
"Carnitas - probably one of the best Carnitas taco's I've had. the meat was tender, it tasted good, but I think it could have had more taste personally. This by far was the best taco I had today".
"Al Pastor - again this seems to fit with the Ventura style. Very sloppy joe bbq flavor like, I'm just not used to this style personally. No pineapple taste, the chili seems to be a different type then I'm used to and it doesn't seem to be slow cooked at all giving it that marinated flavor I'm used to".
"Carne Asada - I wanted to like this, it was tasty, it was charred well, it had great hope, but the fat was just too much in the end. The meat had too much chunky fat and ligaments making i really chewy like beef jerky".
"The salsa had a good flavor, but was kind of lost in the taco. It was good, but I like some kick, it wasn't hot at all".
One of the things that Josh and I talked about after lunch is that even though I shouldn't "water down" my review or adjust my rating system (entirely in my head by the way) I should maybe give extra credit for a job well done? I don't know.
The thing is, I liked Lalo's and I know that Josh did too, its just that we have not been blown away by anyone (Well, for me Don Gabys is still pretty fracking awesome and pretty much the standard around these parts) and its getting to be a bit of a grind to keep writing the same thing as far the common theme among many of these taquerias. That is that alot of these tacos are starting to resemble one another in their flaws, the same screw ups for the same tacos keeps happening. I've had some good stuff but not across the board kick ass-ness. I know, I know, I sound like a broken record.
Like I've written in the past, Don Gabys truck is still the best around, no one has knocked that guy off of his perch yet.
But again, myself (and Josh) do this because we love tacos, dammit. So, we must continue.
Lalo's is pretty good by the way. 3/5 stars
Lalo's
1580 North Ventura Avenue
Ventura, Ca 93001
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