Karanchos Tacos Al Pastor

Parking lot at Karanchos

 Karanchos Kitchen

Trompo Tacos Al Pastor

 Tacos al pastor

 Grilling Whole Chickens

Saturday and Sundays outside pit

Grilled Chicken Dinner

Having been in the restaurant and wholesale seafood business for over 40 years  has given me the opportunity to experience so many fine and interesting  places.   I have so many wonderful food and restaurant memories but I am always looking for the next place that excites me.  Tonight Karanchos was one of those places.

Diane and I decided to have supper at Karanchos on Sheldon road last night and the minute we drove up we both looked at each other and knew that we had come to the right place. 

The place has two trailers for kitchens and the dining room is located on top of a concrete parking lot with tables, umbrellas and an open metal covered area with ceiling fans.  There are planters all around with agave plants  and  queen palms planted out front giving the place a very comfortable feeling.  The employees were wearing bright orange uniform shirts and were accommodating, helpful and friendly.  They even let me go into the kitchen to take pictures of the trumpo al pastor.   I asked to take photos of them grilling and seasoning the chickens and was invited into the trailer to capture images of their wonderful grilled chicken.

We ordered tacos al pastor, a whole grilled chicken, charro beans, grilled onions, jalapenos, sliced avocados and tomatoes, sat back and enjoyed the festive atmosphere.

All the food arrived at once, tacos were freshly carved off of the trompo (spinning top), crispy ends, chickens were hot off the pit, crispy and juicy .  We filled our corn tortillas with all the trimmings and added a fresh squeeze of lime juice and hot sauce.  As we both bit into our first taco al pastor we glanced at each other with our eyes sparkling, mouths full, bobbing our heads up and down thinking yes, yes, we have hit taco gold.  

The grilled chicken was just as good, smokey from the charcoal succulent and crispy.  This chicken I thought to myself  is better than I could ever do at home and I think of myself as a pretty decent home grill man.  

I started this blog so that I could journal my favorite food finds and memorable meals with family and friends and this was indeed one of the remarkable ones.  Eating at a taco stand you always run the risk of being unimpressed, last night left me very impressed and longing to return.

I want to thank Jay Roscoe @gunsandtacos (twitter account) for his guidance and you would do yourself a favor by going to his blog at  www.gunsandtacos.com