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La Taquiza: Standing Room Only

Talking of food trucks, how come they can’t put tables and chairs beside the trucks any more? Two of my food truck faves are down where buses like the 901 and 929 terminate, at the Iris Avenue trolley stop (two up from the border). Daytime one’s mariscos, nighttime, it’s meat tacos). The nighttime one, La Taquiza de Tijuana (3171 Iris), used to set up lights, chairs and tables and a glowing charcoal grill to sear the carne asada and onions and jalapeño peppers and warm a traditional olla, a decorated brown ceramic pot, loaded with steaming beans, frijoles de la olla, outside. They made great spontaneous parking lot cafés, specially when (as happens a lot to me) you just miss a bus and have a good half hour to wait out in the chill night air. Then suddenly, no mo’ chairs! Tables gawn. Farewell grill. We’re back to standing around in the dark, holding paper plates, sodas, whatever. People spilling far more than before. “Why?” I asked the gal who used to flip the carne asada on the spit, amid the most delicious smoke you ever smelled. “The City,” she said. Health inspectors, it seems. Oh perlease. Give me a break. Someone should call the City, find out which Puritan bureaucrat’s been having a bad hair day. On the other hand, the City’s already told me the mayor has forbidden city employees from speaking to The Reader. So hey, (if this still applies) let’s put that pesky “freedom of information” thing on hold, shall we? Right now, La Taquiza’s adobada taco is still delish, but it’s all about stand and deliver.

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Talking of food trucks, how come they can’t put tables and chairs beside the trucks any more? Two of my food truck faves are down where buses like the 901 and 929 terminate, at the Iris Avenue trolley stop (two up from the border). Daytime one’s mariscos, nighttime, it’s meat tacos). The nighttime one, La Taquiza de Tijuana (3171 Iris), used to set up lights, chairs and tables and a glowing charcoal grill to sear the carne asada and onions and jalapeño peppers and warm a traditional olla, a decorated brown ceramic pot, loaded with steaming beans, frijoles de la olla, outside. They made great spontaneous parking lot cafés, specially when (as happens a lot to me) you just miss a bus and have a good half hour to wait out in the chill night air. Then suddenly, no mo’ chairs! Tables gawn. Farewell grill. We’re back to standing around in the dark, holding paper plates, sodas, whatever. People spilling far more than before. “Why?” I asked the gal who used to flip the carne asada on the spit, amid the most delicious smoke you ever smelled. “The City,” she said. Health inspectors, it seems. Oh perlease. Give me a break. Someone should call the City, find out which Puritan bureaucrat’s been having a bad hair day. On the other hand, the City’s already told me the mayor has forbidden city employees from speaking to The Reader. So hey, (if this still applies) let’s put that pesky “freedom of information” thing on hold, shall we? Right now, La Taquiza’s adobada taco is still delish, but it’s all about stand and deliver.

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