It's unusual for me to be excited by the opening of a food truck–so jaded!–but this one is a little bit different–literally a luxe lonchera, with high-end Mexican food being peddled from a catering truck.
A few months ago, we informed you that Carlos Salgado, the former pastry chef at Commis, Oakland's own temple of haute cuisine, had returned home to his native Orange to open Taco Maria. We all thought it was going to be a restaurant, perhaps a reinvention of his family's Batavia Street restaurant, La Siesta; it turns out it's actually a truck named Frida.
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It's a little unexpected to see alta cocina dishes such as bone marrow
coming from a truck; the menu is a list of dishes that wouldn't be out
of place in a nice sit-down restaurant, and Salgado is paying close
attention to where his ingredients are coming from, which will be
crucial to convincing the Orange County public that good Mexican food is
worth the premium.
I'm looking forward to the pescado al pastor, which sounds like it'll be
a riff on the excellent coastal dish pescado adobado en hojas de maíz
(chile-rubbed fish in corn husks), and to the bone marrow quesadillas.
The truck launches today at the Orange Vans Outlet (485 N. Tustin St., Orange), and
this evening at La Siesta (1010 N. Batavia St., Orange); it'll be at the
SoCo Collection clustertruck (3313 Hyland Ave., Costa Mesa) tomorrow
for lunch. It'd be nice to see this sort of food rotated in at the
pop-up seating in the SoCo building.
We'll hit up the truck soon–in the meantime, see the menu at tacomaria.com or follow the truck on Twitter @tacomaria.
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