Eat: El Visilto
I tend to say “this place is my favorite” a lot. But, I really mean it when I say these were the best tacos I’ve ever had. Before we left for Mexico City (CDMX), we watched Netfllix’s “The Taco Chronicles”. Each episode focuses on the history and details of a specific taco and I could not wait to get my hands on al pastor tacos when we got to Mexico.
The show focuses on one of the thousands of taquerias in CDMX, this one happens to run as a car mechanic during the day and turns into a buzzing taco spot that has a never ending queue of customers until late in the evening. My guess is that some people come to fuel up for a night of drinking while others are there because they’ve consumed copious amounts of Mezcal (consider us in the later group).
The history of an al pastor taco goes all the way back to the 1930’s when a wave of Lebanese immigrants came to Mexico. It’s a form of shawarma and the main difference is that the Lebanese used lamb instead of pork. Now, the pork is marinated and served from a vertical split. These chefs are like magicians, slicing the pineapple from the very top where it falls perfectly into the warm tortillas and polished off with cilantro and onions.
The hot sauces at El Vilsito are literally fire. See Kim’s tears after she took her first bites and sweat mustache (I get sweat mustache too when I eat hot foods). We each modestly ordered 3 tacos, ate them like they were going to be our last meal ever and immediately ordered more. I’m not going to name names but the 6 of us that went consumed close to 40 tacos in what I’m guessing was a 30 minute time frame.
I know when something is good because I continue to think about it long after I’ve eaten it. It’s been almost 5 months since our trip and I still dream about the tacos from El Visilto.
Location: Av. Universidad, Narvarte Poniente, Benito Juárez, 03020 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
Check out the pineapple on top!
