Guerrilla Tacos: Recipes from the Streets of L.A.

by Geir Gulliksen, Richard Parks

Overview

The definitive word on tacos from native Angeleno Wes Avila of Guerrilla Tacos, who draws on his Mexican heritage as well as his time in the kitchens of some of the world's best restaurants to create taco perfection. 

In a town overrun with taco trucks, Wes Avila's Guerrilla Tacos has managed to win almost every accolade there is, from being crowned Best Taco Truck by LA Weekly to being called one of the best things to eat in Los Angeles by living legend Jonathan Gold. Avila's approach stands out in a crowded field because it's unique; the 50 base recipes in this book are grounded in authenticity but never tied down to tradition. Wes uses ingredients like kurobata sausage and sea urchin, but his bestselling taco is made from the humble sweet potato. From basic building blocks to how to balance flavor and texture, with comic-inspired illustrations and stories throughout, Guerrilla Tacos is the final word on tacos from the streets of L.A.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399578632
Publisher:	Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Before WES AVILA began his life as a taquero, he was a forklift driver at a box factory for seven years. In 2003, he quit his job to go to culinary school full-time. After attending California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, California, he went to work at L'Auberge Carmel with Walter Mansk, followed by Palate, Food + Wine, Marche, and Le Comptoir with Gary Menes. In August of 2012, Wes left the world of fine dining to devote himself to running Guerrilla Tacos—at that time, a two-person street cart.

RICHARD PARKS is a writer and filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He has written for Lucky Peach, the New York Times, and McSweeneys.

Read an Excerpt

AN INTRODUCTION TO GUERRILLA TACOS 

This is not a taco book. It’s a Guerrilla Tacos book.

THE RECIPES YOU FIND HERE WILL GIVE YOU ALL YOU NEED TO MAKE THE FOOD FROM GUERRILL TACOS AT HOME TONIGHT. I DON’T PRETEND THERE’S ANY DEEP DARK SECRET TO WHAT I’M DOING. EVERYTHING ISP RESENTED IN AS STRAIGHTFORWARD A WAY AS POSSIBLE—A MIX OF FLAVORS AND TEXTURES AND COLORS PILED ON TO A FIVE-INCH TORTILLA AND SERVED ON A SMALL PAPER TRAY. WE MAKE PRETTY SIMPLE FOOD. BUT WE DO IT OUR OWN WAY. 

What is a taco? 

To me it’s a tortilla and whatever you can dream up to put on top. Savory or sweet, stewed or grilled, soft or crispy, corn or flour—you can take it in any direction, as long as you can reasonably eat it with your hands. You can even put schwarma on a tortilla and call that a taco. I haven’t done that, but now that I mention it, it doesn’t sound half bad. Maybe I’ll even try it at the truck next week. 

What is Guerrilla Tacos? 

It’s all the flavors and food I dream about, usually on a tortilla. It’s also the name of a food truck that parks in front of some of L.A.’s better coffee shops. Soon after this writing, it will become a brick-and-mortar restaurant. My wife, Tanya, came up with the name “guerrilla” because in the beginning, we were always in danger of being shut down by the cops. “You’re like a guerrilla soldier, you do it your way, underground,” she said to me. Sometimes it seems our lives resemble that of soldiers participating in unconventional warfare. With the truck, our locations, and with our tacos, everything is always changing, every single day. We keep it small, dynamic, guerrilla. 

This is not “authentic” Mexican food. It’s personal. I couldn’t give a shit about authenticity, especially when it comes to tacos. A taco isn’t just asada, pastor, and carnitas, with chopped onions and cilantro and your choice of salsa. The truth is there is no such thing as an authentic taco. Taco makers have always known this; if you look at the taqueros cooking in Mexico, there is always experimentation and a lot of “inauthentic” food. That’s the tradition I see myself as a part of—the tradition of inauthenticity. Of not being a slave to tradition. Of experimenting. Evolving. 

A taco is a blank canvas. How do you want to paint it? Let your imagination run wild. Seared cauliflower with raisins; tuna poke with furikake, uni, and habanero; Armenian beef basturma with a fried farm egg and burnt tomato salsa . . . corn tortillas go with everything. I consider anything an authentic Guerrilla Taco as long as I’m being authentic to myself and my perspective and experiences as a cook. 

Who am I? A fat kid from Pico Rivera, turned DJ, turned teamster, turned fine-dining cook, turned DIY food-truck chef. I am sleeved in tattoos and I have a season-pass to Disneyland. I love my wife and my dog and my family. And I love what I cook. The story of Guerrilla Tacos is also my story, told one taco at a time. 

It’s the story of my childhood in Pico where the house would fill with the aroma that came when my mother fried ground beef in lard with Lawry’s taco seasoning on the stove top. It’s a trip to Baja with my dad, where I tasted my first lobster, and to his hometown in a rural part of Durango, Mexico, where I sampled the most amazing wild anise. It’s a mind-blowing tapas bar in Spain that serves nothing but wine and different kinds of mushrooms. It’s learning the basics at culinary school, getting my fine-dining chops at L’Auberge Carmel with Walter Manzke, and slanging prime rib and liver and onions at a country club in Pacific Palisades. 

I started Guerrilla Tacos on a whim in 2012 with a $300 cart I found in downtown L.A. and a hibachi grill. Only two kinds of tacos were served that day—chicken and steak. I had no idea what the following morning would bring. Since then, everything has changed. But I still can’t tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow. 

In the few years since Guerrilla Tacos opened, I’ve gotten shingles from stress, been shut down by the police, and landed near the top of Jonathan Gold’s best restaurants list—and the crazy thing is, we still don’t even have a restaurant. Guerrilla Tacos is still very young. As we write this book, we’re looking to open our first brick-and-mortar restaurant with a real grill and an open fire, things that weren’t available at first as I cooked out of the cart or now out of the kitchen of the food truck. And soon, the truck will go away and Guerrilla Tacos will change into something new. 

So this book is a snapshot of my cooking at a moment in time, and it is the story of how I got here, told through my life in food. As I have from day one, I’m going to keep moving from here, keep evolving, keep doing it guerrilla style.

Table of Contents

I AN INTRODUCTION TO GUERRILLA TACOS 12

II PICO RIVERA 18
SWEET POTATO TACO 30
CHUBBS TACO 34
POCHO TACO 38
FRIED BAJA TACO 42
LOBSTER TACO 47
GREEN BEAN AND EGG TACO 51
BREAKFAST BURRITO 54
CHILE COLORADO 57
MEXICAN-STYLE GUACAMOLE 58

III FORKLIFT FOOD 60
SUNCHOKE TACO 71
BRISKET TACO 72
SWORDFISH TACO 75
FRIED POTATO TAQUITO 76
CARNITAS 79
TACO PASTA 81
CRAB AND SPIGARELLO TOSTADA 83
RAZOR CLAMS À LA PLANCHA 84
SHRIMP AGUACHILE 89
ALBONDIGAS 90
POZOLE 94
MENUDO 96

IV A CHEF’S JOURNEY 98
EGGPLANT TACO 114
MUSHROOM TACO 117
MUSHROOM ESCABECHE TACO 121
STUFFED SQUASH BLOSSOM TACO 123
CAULIFLOWER TACO 124
CHICKEN ADOBO TACO 126
GROUPER TACO 127
SHRIMP AND CHORIZO TACO 130
TUNA POKE AND SEA URCHIN TOSTADA 133
MUSSEL QUESADILLA 137
ARTICHOKE QUESADILLA 139
BOUILLABAISSE 142

V THE CART + THE TRUCK 144
CHICKEN TACO 160
PORK SPARERIB TACO 162
PERRON-STYLE TACO 165
BEEF TENDON TACO 167
MUSHROOM AND FIDEO TACO 168
SHISHITO PEPPER TACO 171
PIG HEAD TACO 173
GRILLED SHRIMP TACO 176
CALAMARI TACO 179
AJO BLANCO 181
SQUASH SOUP 182
SANTA BARBARA SEA URCHIN SCRAMBLE 185
WAFFLES 189

VI GUERRILLA FOOD STYLE 190
ROASTED PUMPKIN TACO 204
CELERY ROOT TACO 208
CORN TACO 210
WILD BOAR TACO 212
OXTAIL TACO 214
DUCK HEART TACO 218
PORK BELLY AND CAVIAR TACO 220
OCTOPUS AND CHORIZO TACO 223
FRIED CLAM TACO 224
PUERTO VALLARTA–STYLE CRAB TAQUITO 226
TURKEY NECK CONFIT BURRITO 230
GOLDEN BEET POKE TOSTADA 237
RAZOR CLAM TOSTADA 238
SALMON TOSTADA 242
FRIED CHICKEN TORTA 245
CHILAQUILES TORTA 249
STREET TATERS 253
AGUA FRESCA 254

Editorial Reviews

10/02/2017
This classically trained street chef’s first book is a vital exhibition of culinary artistry done the L.A. way. “A taco is a blank canvas,” writes Avila, who drives a food truck and serves five-inch tortillas with a vast assortment of creative toppings. The grilled-shrimp taco has a Thai peanut sauce and a carrot and cucumber slaw. Battered squash blossoms, two per tortilla, are stuffed with ricotta and topped with heirloom-tomato salsa. The roasted pumpkin taco boasts a pear vinaigrette, crushed pecans, and a hint of mescal. And there are even duck-heart tacos that presuppose access to the 32 duck hearts needed to cook up the recipe for a party of eight. There are a smattering of plated offerings as well, including a rigatoni-and-meat-sauce dish called taco pasta, which is what “Mexican moms give you when you ask for mac and cheese.” Avila, in collaboration with Parks, also proves himself to be a gifted memoirist, narrating his life story amid the recipes. Readers follow his career from forklift operator at a cardboard-box factory to culinary-school student to food-truck phenom. Those stories add nuance to the compilation of flavorful recipes. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

The reason I love Guerrilla Tacos so much is because it has that authentic, Mexican, East L.A. taco vibe. But it also just screams innovation. The flavors and imagination that Wes has put into the tacos is what really makes it stand out. It has that thing that feels like a taco but it’s so much more than a taco.”
—Skrillex
 
“Don’t presume Wesley Avila’s terrific Guerrilla Tacos is a book just about tacos. You’d be mistaken, because this is story, a wonderfully told narrative about a man, his struggles, and his dream. Thankfully for him—and for us—it’s a story with a happy ending and a slew of delicious recipes.”
—Nancy Silverton, co-owner of Mozza Restaurant Group
 
“Wes Avila is a great chef, period. He's also a folk hero and a personal hero, and here is a book filled with his brilliant recipes and stories. All I can say is, if you're like me, you're going look at every photo in this book and say, ‘I want that one, I want that one, I want that one, I want that one...’"
—Philip Rosenthal, creator of Everybody Loves Raymond and I'll Have What Phil's Having

"There are cookbooks you can't wait to actually cook out of, cookbooks you display on your coffee table to remind yourself how cool you are, and cookbooks you read every sentence of because they've somehow nailed storytelling and recipe writing. Well, that last one is a rare unicorn. The new Guerrilla Tacos cookbook is one of those."
—Alex Beggs, BonAppetit.com 

"Narrated in Avila’s relaxed, conversational style, that story pulls you in, as do the 50 recipes. [...] Avila also includes more than two dozen of his fantastic salsas, plus illustrations, comics and helpful advice (on tortillas, on tostadas)."
—Tien Nguyen, The Los Angeles Times 

“[...] the brilliant mashup that is Guerrilla Tacos feels personal, not gimmicky. With offerings like pork belly and caviar tacos alongside adobo, pastor, carnitas and the gang, there’s a reason that Jonathan Gold deemed it L.A.’s Best Taco Truck. In Guerrilla Tacos: Recipes from the Streets of LA (Ten Speed), with writer Richard Parks III, Avila tells his underdog story with endearing charm.”
—Christine Muhlke, Bon Appetit

"Avila is leading a new wave of LA chefs — children of immigrants, classically trained in French cuisine — who blur the lines between high and low and, in his case, leaving upscale restaurants to serve street food."
—Mandalit Del Barco, National Public Radio

From the Publisher