SerpApi.Org
After working for years as a cook at various mom and pop Mexican restaurants, 25-year-old Adan Lopez-Guzman decided it was time to make his move. And that move has brought him to a San Fernando Valley parking lot near a car wash and smog shop where he’s been inspired by his roots to create tacos that he hopes will make him stand out in the busy street food scene.
“We wanted to do something different. Around here we have the typical tacos and you don’t see this much so we wanted to be different,” said Adan Lopez-Guzman, who opened the Tacox Al Vapor taco truck, well actually an approximately 30-foot-long trailer that he tows with his truck, in mid-July.
Instead of grilling or slow cooking meats, Lopez-Guzman relies on recipes from his home town of Guadalajara, Mexico, where steamed tacos are a specialty.
“We’re hoping people to come try it and taste how good it is,” he said in Spanish.
His motto, found on the truck’s Instagram page, reads “Not the Cheapest. Just worth it,”
Lopez-Guzman parks from 11 a.m. to midnight daily and has been steadily gaining attention with locals and Instagram followers lining up in the afternoons and evenings to grub at the tables and chairs he has set up.
The specialty here are lengua and cabeza tacos, which of course are steamed to give them the texture and moistness of a meat that has been slowly cooked in a stew. The meat is soft, falls apart with every bite and requires very little seasoning or even salsa since the steam soaks the flavor into the meat and then it pops out like an explosion of savory juice with every bite.
“It’s a meat that’s much more tender and delicious than other meats,” said Lopez-Guzman, who is one of 17 siblings born in Mexico.
“Yeah, in my family you had to learn how to cook,” he said with a chuckle during a recent weekday morning where he prepared the meat just ahead of the lunch rush.
Other items on the menu include Al Pastor, steak, chicken and birria, which all run between $3.50-$5 per taco. And with his unique steam method, Lopez-Guzman hopes to become one of the hottest taco vendors in the Valley.
“Luckily, people seem to like our food; they’ve been coming here a lot,” he said.
Tacox Al Vapor is at 7601 Reseda Blvd. (at Saticoy Street) and on Instagram at instagram.com/tacox_la
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