Tacos El Unico

I grew up eating Tacos el Unico in L.A. My favs were the lengua and carne asada with the red salsa. They have the best red salsa. However, this location is only good if the young girl is the cook. She is short and slicks her hair straight back in a short pony tail. I wish I knew her name because she’s super nice and makes delicious tacos. If you see her cooking, you are good to go. If not, run away. Run far away! The rest of the people have no idea what they are doing or they put a small spoonful of meat. Sometimes the meat is overcooked or just prepared wrong. NOT GOOD when paying $ 1.50 for a taco!
So my review is a 4 ONLY if the taco chef woman is there. Otherwise, it would be 2 stars.
Parking is tight and there are quite a few weirdos hanging around.

i love this place!!! just cause of the tortas de asada with added cheese cotija :)

Was in a rush and this place was in my way… got the taco combo, half carne asada and half carnitas. Asked for no salsa and when I got to work to eat, guess what… drenched in salsa. The salsa on the carne was too hot, but the carnitas tasted much better.
Sadly, nothing special about this place. If it doesn’t get in my way, I will not be going back.

Little place right in the heart of Norwalk.
One lady working there, she took our money and then washed her hands in a sink in the back before making our tacos, so it obviously isn’t the cleanliest place, but good enough for me.
They have a little salsa bar there with stuff like carrots, cilantro, onions, red/​green sauce (btw the green sauce is hot and very good).
Got 4 Carne Asada tacos with everything on them (red sauce, onions, cilantro) and a Horchata drink for around $ 5.50.
Tacos we’re great. Horchata wasn’t as good as it could have been (seemed like it was missing some cinnamon).
I’ll definitely go back here for lunch sometime. Really enjoyed the tacos.

This is one of my very few times I tried out a chain place for my taco. For your information, I left out the Americanized fusion place we like to called Del Taco and Taco Bell. The chain places like this Tacos El Unico or King’s Taco have been a fascination of mine because I wondered if they would live up to the original shop.
The brief history about Taco El Unico was that the place was started by a family who run their taco shop out of their traveling Taco Truck in 1981 between Rosecrans Ave and Atlantic Blvd. They have since 10 different locations around the southland.
Tacos El Unico looks like a place that doesn’t different as if they were operating outside with a taco truck. The tables are picnic benches with a very minimal to offer in whatever surroundings for an ambiance. I’m getting the hint that low maintenance is the way to go to keep the price down.
Oh man, from $ 1.05 (Tacos El Guero) to $ 1.30 (Tacos San Julian), and now up to $ 1.50 each taco for this location, I’m breaking the bank for this place. How does their tacos compared?
There was about 7 different meat for their tacos, but I was bummed out when they told me that they don’t have Cabeza (cow’s head) or Lengue (cow’s tongue) for servings. It’s like having my heart pulled out and left me numb. I was looking over the menu and realized that the rest of the choices are very safe and not much of a variety.
I decided to make the best out of it.
*Carnitas (pork)
. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the carnitas. This is probably the best one I have tasted compared to the other shops for Carnitas. It’s crunchy and very tasty with a skin on the meat. I usually don’t have high hopes for Carnitas tacos because most places would just doled out a shredded dry pieces of pork on the taco, but this place does it right.
*Al Pastor (pork)
. Right after they did it right with Carnitas, they come back with a so-​so Al Pastor. I think the meat was tender, but I was a bit turned off by the lathering of the salsa on the meat. It made it unbearable to finish because it was a tad too wet and was overpowering on the spiciness. I wish they hold off the sauce just a tad bit to let the quality of the meat determine the taste.
*Carne Asada (Beef Steak)
. But it did rebounded with a savory taste of the beef steak taco. As the picture show, it has less sauce than the Al Pastor and this time let the meat determine the course of the quality. I’m more appreciated of that as it wasn’t too soggy when I hold up this taco compared to Al Pastor. This taco is definitely more delicious because of less sauce.
My impression of the quality of the taco was that they didn’t put in the onions or cilantro as the spiciness was coming out of the sauce. I just they offered a bit more on the overall of the taco.
It was a good find and a good experience at this taco joint. A little lacking of variety compares to their neighboring taco competitors. I think they are still offering the same things as if they still operating a taco truck. Not bad of a feel from a low key place.
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Cash Only!