Wednesday, October 5, 2011

gnat celebrates national taco day

it's no secret that i am basically obsessed with tacos. i wish i could remember exactly when my love for them began - my best guess is that it was senior year in high school, before my move to LA and before i learned that there was so much better out there than rubio's fish tacos. in any case, they now occupy a large, delicious place in my heart (and probably also my coronary arteries). for the last four years, taco tuesday has, in some form, been a weekly staple, and longtime readers may remember my experiments with duck tacos, greek tacos, and spaghetti tacos... yeah, that last one was a mistake.

in light of this, i'm ashamed to admit that until about 10am yesterday i was totally unaware that it was national taco day (or that national taco day was a thing to begin with), and on a tuesday of all days! evidently it's on october 4 every year. luckily eileen alerted me to the oversight and we scrambled to make taco related dinner plans. after an extensive google search of hole-in-the-wall taco joints in the area, we settled on taco and burrito palace #2, mostly by virtue of its name:


i wish i had been hungrier so i could have eaten one of each type. as it was i managed one chicken, one carne asada, and one al pastor.


by the time eileen and i got our food i had been anticipating the first bite for over nine hours. that may explain the strange giddy expression i'm wearing below... the delicious horchata on the right probably helped.


because national taco day is an important holiday to be celebrated with loved ones, i texted friends and family early in the day to go out and eat tacos and send me photographic evidence of their feasts. this turned out to be completely agonizing as pictures started pouring in long before it was time for dinner.

jalees and his coworkers visited el taco llama in the valley (and sent me several more spectacular hunger inducing photos that are not shown below):

lily, liz, and jason ate at taqueria guadalajara in davis:


sarge and my sister alex narrowly missed each other at acapulco in westwood:


my cousin neil and his girlfriend leah went for tacos (but no hot dogs) at la chiquita y el chiquilin street tacos and hot dogs in sylmar:

kieng had don antonio's in west LA:


kelly got takeout from pili's tacos, also in west LA:


taylor, who is new to southern california and was not sure she could find tacos in orange county (cute) ended up at trejo's in huntington beach:


and joey in tuscon chose to celebrate with double-deckers from taco bell:


some chose to make tacos at home. jimmy in new york:


becky and jeff in new orleans:


and my parents (who are sort of adorable) in nor cal:


we may have all been miles and miles from each other, but i feel like every one of them celebrated this, the holiest of taco tuesdays with me. national taco day - the holiday that brings people together!

7 comments:

  1. Disclaimer: I knew I could find tacos, I was unsure if I could find the requested "dirty street tacos." However, mission accomplished.

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  2. Seriously awesome!! Haha! I as well celebrated, but with quesadillas (didn't feel like tacos). Haha!

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  3. I tried to make tacos earlier this week for my mom only to discover that England has no corn tortillas! So we had Nachos instead.

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  4. I didn't know this was a thing, but I celebrated inadvertently! I made fish tacos in Dublin as part of my weekly "bring taco tuesday to Ireland" campaign.

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  5. quesadillas and nachos - count 'em!

    cheex i'm so happy you're able to find taco materials in ireland! so glad you're taking taco tuesday to a new continent. i wonder what irish tacos would look like? corned beef with potatoes and stewed cabbage?

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  6. Oh man. I would totally eat corned beef and cabbage tacos.

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