The Valley is filled with quality taco options, though these days El Venado is dominating the conversation with its carne asada and thick smear of guacamole. And with multiple locations across the greater SFV, it’s easy to find a taco in any neighborhood.

Award-winning El Monte legend Burritos La Palma is everywhere these days. Their burritos (yes, burritos are tacos) come filled with birria and tucked inside pliant handmade tortillas. The ideal snack for anyone out in SGV or traveling even farther east toward Palm Springs.

This little Downtown taco shop is the restaurant that could, chugging along serving up some of the city’s finest carne asada and true handmade flour tortillas. Don’t forget about the awesome chivichanga either.

One of the busiest new-ish purveyors of birria around town is La Unica, which operates just a block away from the famed Mariscos Jalisco in Boyle Heights. The big differentiator here is the use of handmade tortillas, which add more heft to the whole plate of tacos.

After a brief few weeks away the Tacos Arabes team is back, sporting a whole new truck and the same unique Pueblan tacos as ever before. The regionally-specific creations follow a different, larger format to most street tacos, focusing on shawarma-style pork similar to al pastor, and those thick and delicious pan arabe takes on a tortilla. 

Chef Gilberto Cetina found fame thanks to his market stall Chichen Itza, but has more recently hit his new stride with Holbox. The seafood-focused casual stop still plays with Yucatanean flavors, but provides a ton of fresh fish from up and down the coastal Mexican water. It all makes for some pretty fantastic tacos, tostadas, and ceviches.

Is there a hotter stand in LA than Tacos 1986 right now? That hardly seems possible, given the group’s speedy expansion and long weekend lines at Smorgasburg in Downtown. Their new Venice nighttime parking lot spot is bringing smoky Tijuana-style tacos to the conversation out west, and there could be more locations in the future soon too.

How big does a taco truck have to get before it earns a Super Bowl commercial? Ask Teddy’s Red Tacos, the Slauson operator that has grown into multiple new locations across town, including a beach-adjacent outlet right on Windward in Venice. The speciality here is birria, served with bright red consommé and lots of cheese, as requested.