Tacos Leo - LaBrea at Venice - Current Info?

[nosh]

The Tacos Leo truck at the N/W corner of LaBrea at Venice has been lauded as having real spit-grilled and freshly sliced al pastor with pineapple tacos for a buck. The revived Great Taco Hunt blog and others have raved about this find. But when I visited on a Saturday evening three weeks ago about 8:30 I found a line and some good tacos, but they were the ruddy-red seasoned kind that looked like they were from a griddle, not a succulent spit. And the pineapple was cool, as if from a cooler, not at all caramelized or warm as if cut from the top of the big disc of rotating meat.

Here are some notices from LA Weekly:

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2010/09/food_truck_taco_pastor.php

Alas, those notices are from two years ago.

Here is the Great Taco Hunt post:

http://www.greattacohunt.com/2010/07/...

Does anyone have the current scoop?

[paprkutr]

We go a lot to Leo's. We have seen the trompo out on all different days, but usually a little later. They used to get there at 6:00p.m. but now they are there all day get there early in the morning.

[bad nono]

Their FB page has a phone # [phone] so you can try calling and ask if the trompo is out. I live nearby and often drive by in the evenings, I don't recall seeing the trompo on weekdays.

[LuluTheMagnificent]

My advice...If that guy is not cooking the food outdoors on that thingy with the pineapple on top, avoid!

[nosh]

Obvious. The issue is figuring out whether he'll be out there before investing in the drive.

[Dommy]

Agreed... I only like Leo for one thing... the El Pastor. Everything else has been 'meh' to 'bleh' If El Pastor is not your thing. The Taco Table down the street on Pico and Fairfax has really good Chicken and excellent Chorizo. As for Asada, leave that to the experts and hit up Mexicali.

--Dommy!

[LuluTheMagnificent]

Where is Mexicali?

[Mattapoisett in LA]

Mexicali Taco &Co 702 N Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90012. It's the new brick and mortar of the former 1st and Beaudrey street vendors

[LuluTheMagnificent]

Thank you. Will check it out. I love carne asada.

[cacio e pepe]

I happened upon them right as they were opening one evening. Great time for short lines, but they were clearly working through the previous day's leftovers reheated on the griddle. Ate those. Very decent, but not special. Waited for the trompo to get going. Totally different story from that point on. Worth a little of the hype when they're doing it right.

[ns1]

makes sense - good way for them to unload excess product (on the lunchtime crowd).

[Feed_me]

I went by on LaBrea today (Tuesday, 10/23/12) at 7pm and drove back going the other way around 11:15pm and no trompo. I thought it was only out there Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, but I swear I've seen it out on some Thursdays and not some weekend nights. If there is some way to contact them that might be the only way to really now if the al pastor on a trompo is actually out there. I've stopped a few times (like 3, I think), but not lately. I've found a few good sit down places, so I haven't tried a taco truck in a fair while.

[TonyC]

I've seen it (trompo) on Thursday evening as well.

But the bottom line is: don't fux with this during lunch since 1) there's definitely no trompo 2) you might be getting previous night's left overs (which, I s'pose, for the buche/etc., isn't that big of a deal).

With the clusterF that is the Leo's lines, I much prefer Tamix on Hoover/20th anyway.

[ns1]

man I got owned by Tamix once so bad. Right before we got up the samurai that's usually working the trompo took a break, so we got some n00b that could barely handle the knife.

Sad, sad tacos that day. I went to tacos leo right after (taco crawl)

[ns1]

from al retae/MTL:

tacos leo now serving lunch. trompos does not come out until sun comes down.

http://midtownlunch.com/los-angeles/2...

[bad nono]

from their FB page today "Leo's Taco Truck Fans, we regretfully inform you (again) that we are postponing our Grand Re-Opening due to unforeseen technicalities.

We will announce the new date as we lock everything in and to add to the festivities, we'll be co-celebrating our anniversary at the La Brea/Venice location.

To make it up to our loyal Fans, if you stop by today and mention Facebook, your Tacos Al Pastor are 50%.

Thank you!"

[paprkutr]

I was just there last Wednesday and the spit was there and people were buying them 6 at a time

[PeterCC]

You should be able to see the trompo right outside the truck with the taquero slicing the meat and pineapple right in front of you. So if you didn't see that, I suspect it had something to do with what bad nono posted about.

[bad nono]

They have a FB page and they created this grand re-opening event on it for this Sunday, after doing tons of repairs to their truck, so maybe that's why you had some just OK tacos when you were there https://www.facebook.com/events/14202...

[mdpilam]

Do they have special hours (or new hours in general) for Sunday? I am used to them being there starting at 8pm (granted I haven't been in LA for almost 2 yrs...). I don't have facebook either, so I can't get any more info off their faceboook site.

[bad nono]

It says 5 to 10 PM on the FB event page.