LA Weekly throws two food events during the summer that are focused on a single food item each: tacos and burgers. Tacolandia 2016, in its 4th year, continues to grow, with something like 120 taco purveyors taking over El Pueblo de Los Angeles across from Union Station. With that many options, its basically impossible to try everything. I ended up trying about two dozen different tacos (plus some repeats), and I counted down my top ten bites for LA TACO back in June.
I was wary that the size of the event would become too cumbersome, but I think this may have been the best Tacolandia yet. One major factor for the success was serendipitous, and that was the weather. The day was completely overcast (it had rained earlier in the day) and was probably 20 degrees cooler than it had been that week. I don’t know about you, but being out in the hot sun is not conducive to consuming lots of food. So that was a big help.
With the event taking expanding in physical space as well, the queues for most booths had room to stretch and not bump into each other, another problem in past events. I still wish the event had a water sponsor for free agua, but there were plenty of bar stations selling drinks, and Jarritos were on hand with their sodas too. I couldn’t imagine the event growing bigger, but they managed to pull it off. As always, looking forward to next year!
While Tacolandia had the good fortune of a cool day and a huge variety of dishes, Burgers & Beer took place on a hot Saturday afternoon at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The event seemed a little light compared to last year, possibly due to them expanding the physical space a bit, but still well attended. Unlike with tacos, where the filling can be almost anything, unless a chef got too creative, a burger still consists of meat and bun, and they fill you up quick. I tried maybe a dozen burgers and only a handful of beers and below are my highlights for the event:
Maybe I missed the stranger ones, but the burgers this year seemed not as “out there” as last year. They were, for the most part, well done, but, again, it’s hard to eat more than a few of them. Maybe the theme is just a little too narrow? The variety was there with the beers, and for anyone who’s really into beer, this was a great way to sample what breweries big and small are doing.
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