Great, thanks. On the hunt for spicy dishes and noticed your comment on their orange sauce.
Glad you enjoyed the abalone story! I need to spend some serious time getting to all the taco trucks…a story like that is definitely on my to-write list. What are your favorites?
That’s the one, went there this afternoon. Delicious, had Al Pastor tacos and gorditos. So good. They let me step in for a quick photo of the meat on the “spit.”
The tacos featured the crunchy pieces and the gorditos seemed more succulent. I’m no expert, but, I’m guessing if you like Al Pastor, you’ll be happy with El Taco Ranchero.
Thanks for the report and pics. Their website lists their hours as Monday - Friday 11am to 3pm,
Saturday - Sunday Closed. Do you know if that is accurate? Unfortunately will be pretty difficult for me to go there for lunch on a weekday.
Yes, all that true.
You see that orange sauce in the picture, the left most one, that’s the nuclear one. The truck serves the local offices ( like the one I worked at ) so it’s weekdays, sorry, and it’s pretty hard to get there except by driving… caltrain is very slow and only once per hour mid-day.
I still haven’t had a chance to make it down there. But a few months ago I was chatting with someone who grew up in D.F. and now live around Stanford. His recommendation? Metro Balderas. That’s his only place for Al Pastor around here.
Has any one tried their other location/ trucks?
Finally made it to Metro Balderas earlier this year. Its decent, and probably because I was so looking forward to finally having a place that measures up to the al pastor places in Mexico City, I ended up feeling a little disappointed. Not because they are bad, but I think its just tough for places in the Bay Area to match those from the capitol…
It is definitely a situation where you have to compare it locally only. Also, I imagine its a place that has good and better days. I believe the outdoor trompo is only used on the weekends. Not sure if that’s still true.
Yeah, here’s my take. DF style goes long on the pineapple, which is unlikely around here. Sometimes you can get a few slices at just that time when the juice has dripped over, but it’s rare there’s even a pineapple on top. Since they don’t give you a slice of pineapple fresh off the trompo, you’ve got no real hope of pineapple taste. But, I really like the slightly seared crispy nature of the al pastor, and that style - which I might say is almost a different beast - when you get a bit of al pastor with nice crispy bits, but still juicy in every morsel, and a solid dose of the al pastor spice mixture, that’s pretty good eatin’.
