Most taco arguments in Los Angeles are about the meat. This one is about the tortilla, which is an unusual thing for a restaurant to be famous for and a very difficult thing to fake. Sonoratown works in the northern Mexican idiom — wheat rather than corn, flour brought in from Sonora, rolled out thin enough to be translucent — and cooks its beef over mesquite. The combination is why a small downtown counter ended up with a queue and then with branches.
The branches keep different hours and the downtown room is small enough that timing decides your lunch. Ask Karpo which one is easiest for you and when the queue thins.
The tortilla is the whole argument
A Sonoran flour tortilla is not the thick, doughy disc that the word usually summons in the United States. Rolled properly it is thin, elastic and slightly translucent, and it tastes of wheat and fat rather than of nothing.
Getting there requires the right flour and lard, and a lot of practice — which is why so few places do it and why the ones that do tend to be built around it rather than adding it as a detail.
The effect on the finished taco is out of proportion to the ingredient. A tortilla with flavour and give changes the balance of everything inside it, which is exactly the variable a chain kitchen treats as a commodity.
There is also a straightforward test you can run on any flour tortilla, which is whether it tears cleanly or stretches. A properly made one stretches, because the fat and the gluten are doing their jobs, and it holds a wet filling without going through. Most mass-produced ones fail that test immediately.
Mesquite, not gas
The beef is cooked over mesquite, a dense hardwood that burns hot and leaves a specific smoke on the meat. It is the standard fuel across northern Mexico and it is not interchangeable with a gas flat-top.
Hot, fast cooking over wood gives you a charred exterior with the interior still yielding, which is the texture the whole style is aiming for.
It also constrains the operation. Wood fires are inconvenient, and a kitchen that accepts that inconvenience for a taco that costs a few dollars is telling you something about its priorities.
Smoke is a seasoning that has to be applied during cooking and cannot be added afterwards, which is why this is a difference you can taste rather than one you have to be told about. It is also why the same recipe on a griddle produces a competent taco instead of a memorable one.
What to order first
The carne asada taco is the reference point and the thing to judge everything else against. Order it plain before you order anything loaded.
The larger burro-style items use the same tortilla at a bigger diameter, which is the clearest demonstration of how good the wheat is because there is simply more of it in play.
The chiltepin salsa carries real heat rather than decorative heat. Apply it to one item, not to everything, until you know how far it goes.
A useful ordering pattern is one plain taco, one loaded item and one of the larger wheat-forward builds between two people. That covers the tortilla at two different scales and the beef in two different states, which is the whole proposition of the place in three items.
Which branch, and when
The original is downtown on East 8th Street, in the fashion district end of the city — a small room with a queue that behaves like a lunch counter, sharpest around midday on weekdays.
There is a second location on San Vicente in the mid-city stretch, which is easier for anyone on the west side and generally less compressed at peak.
A third opened in Long Beach, the first outside Los Angeles proper, which makes the south bay version of this trip viable for the first time. Hours differ between the three, so check rather than assume.
Something worth planning around: the downtown room seats very few people, so a queue that looks short can still mean eating standing up or taking it away. If you want to sit, the mid-city branch is the more comfortable choice on a weekday at noon.
Downtown around it
The 8th Street address sits in a working part of downtown rather than a scenic one, surrounded by wholesale businesses that keep daytime hours and empty out in the evening.
That makes it a lunch destination more naturally than a dinner one, and it means street parking is contested during the day and easy after it.
It is close enough to the rail spine through downtown that arriving without a car is reasonable, which for this part of the city is worth stating explicitly.
The fashion district blocks around it also mean the character of the street changes sharply by time of day. At one in the afternoon it is loading bays and foot traffic; at seven it is shuttered and quiet, which some people find eerie and others find the easiest parking of their week.
Practical notes
Original downtown counter on East 8th Street; a second on San Vicente; a third in Long Beach.
Hours differ between branches — confirm before travelling to a specific one.
The flour tortillas are made in house from Sonoran flour. They are the reason to come.
Order the carne asada taco plain first as your reference point.
The chiltepin salsa is genuinely hot. Apply it to one item to start.
Downtown is busiest at weekday lunch and quiet in the evening.
Street parking downtown is contested by day and straightforward after the businesses close.
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Ask Karpo first
Which branch and which hour decides whether this is a ten-minute lunch or a forty-minute queue. Ask Karpo which location suits your route and when it is quietest.
