Carne Asada Is L.A.'s Most Overrated Taco. I'd Take Al Pastor.

L.A. TACO ranked 19 carne asada tacos and, in its own introduction, handed me the argument against ordering one.

L.A. TACO ranked 19 carne asada tacos and published the list on September 10, 2026. The sharpest argument in it shows up in the introduction, where Javier Cabral and the L.A. TACO staff call asada “the one taco that every single taquería menu will have.” That's the case for asada. Read it twice and it's the case against it.

You know the order. Four of you at a truck window at one in the morning in Los Angeles, nobody wants to hold up the line, and it's asada across the board, four times, before anyone has looked at the board. That's a group decision, not a preference, and this city has spent years calling it a favorite.

My take isn't close: asada is the most overrated taco in Los Angeles, and al pastor is where I'd put the money.

I came to that list expecting to call asada boring, and the introduction talked me out of it. Tijuana, Sonoran and L.A. styles all live under the same six letters. Low and slow over mesquite or hard-seared on embers. Citrus-marinated, or hit with nothing but salt. Sliced thin, or cut thick as a steak. That's real range — and it's exactly why the word on a menu board promises you nothing. The range isn't a feature when you're ordering blind.

Asada is the cheese slice of the taco menu. It's how you find out whether a kitchen can cook at all, which makes it a control, not a ceiling. And I'd bet the list is really sorting 19 kitchens rather than 19 tacos, because the meat is the one variable every shop already has — what's left to rank is the fire, the salsa and the hand on the cleaver.

Asada is the safe order for a group at 1 a.m. That's fair. Safe is also the compliment you give a floor. L.A. TACO's own framing is that every taquería carries it, which guarantees you can get asada anywhere, not that it's worth getting anywhere — the shop that lands at No. 19 on that ranking and the shop that would have landed at No. 900 are selling you the same word.

The outlet calls asada “king of meats,” and monarchy is the right metaphor. It got the throne by being there first, when you were a kid and it was the taco you were handed.

To be plain about what this is: the verdict here runs on the published record and on L.A. TACO's own argument for asada, not on a plate. I'm not naming the al pastor I'd put first, because that's the list I want L.A. TACO to publish next.

So rank 19 of those. I'll read it twice and argue about the top three.

Source: lataco.com, retrieved September 11, 2026.