Well, he is back in force trying different tacos each day during the month of May.  Go check out his adventures, photos and taco findings at http://tacoaday.com/!

• Devilicious : 4 out of 5
• Cafe con Leche 3.5 out of 5 (delicious, but overpriced)
• Roxy’s Gourmet Grilled Choose : 4 out of 5
• The Lime Truck : 4.5 out of 5 (I didn’t try this, but my party raved over it…)

To find the trucks today, just follow @YelpUtah right here :
http://twitter.com/#!/search/%40YelpUtah

As a side note, I met Jeffrey from Yelp Utah yesterday while in line for Roxy’s Grilled Cheese.  He was a stand up dude and he knows a million times more about local food than I do.  I was in awe…

I hear that this is some sort of “competition” and that there’s a possibility of “being on television”, but I really don’t understand what that means so let’s go find out, eh?

As for Saturday, I know of the following times, locations and trucks :

———————————————————————————————————

Saturday – 11am until 7pm
(this is all according to the Twitter account for the SLC Chow Truck)
Address : Canyon Rim Center 3150 East 3300 South
The food trucks at this location are:

• Korilla BBQ (from New York)
• Hodge Podge  (from Ohio)
• Roxy’s Gourmet Grilled Cheese (from Boston)
• Chow Truck (from Salt Lake City)

———————————————————————————————————

Saturday – 11am until 2pm (according to the Torta Truck)
Address : RC Willey at 2301 S. 300 W.

• Devilicious (from San Diego)
• So Cupcake (from Salt Lake City)
• Torta Truck (from Salt Lake City)

———————————————————————————————————

Saturday (according to local legend Matt Crane)
10:30am to 8pm at Coffee Garden at 9th South and 9th East
Truck:

1. Seabirds (from San Diego)

———————————————————————————————————

Saturday (according to this flyer handed out at Frida’s Bistro today)
11am to 2:30 at Rico’s Market (779 South 500 East)
3pm to 5pm at Frida’s Bistro (545 West 700 South)
Truck:

• Cafe con Leche (from Los Angeles)

———————————————————————————————————

Saturday (According to the Salt Lake Tribune)
noon until 7pm
389 W. 1830 South (PetSmart)
Truck:

• The Lime Truck (from Orange County)

Attention!  Attention!

It’s time to call the taco army into active duty.  Polish your boots and bring your appetites because the Food Network’s Food Truck Race is arriving as we speak in our very own Salt Lake City.  What is the Food Truck Race?  It’s a great competition based around mobile food vendors traveling across the trying to serve up the best food on wheels possible.

Why should we participate in Salt Lake?  We would be promoting our food culture here which is worth celebrating.  Since this is a national broadcast, this also draws attention for how much people in this area care about good mobile food like street tacos, burgers, and such.

When does this happen?  I have some sources telling me this will start happening as early as Friday but more likely it will be Saturday or Sunday.

Where will this be?  We don’t know yet.  That is why we need the taco army to watch this page, Twitter and Facebook over the next 24- 48 hours.  As soon as we know locations, we will post them to all 3 places.  Once they post them, tell your fellow soldiers in the taco army to get out and try some of the food.

What kind of food will there be?  We already know that there will be many different kinds of food.  Some are of Mexican flavors and there will be other inventions as well.  We need to try them all.

Questions?  Let’s start the discussion!!!

Sometimes a taco journalist asks himself if all the long nights at the office are worth it.  He may wonder if he is reaching his audience and whether his hard hitting journalism might be hitting too hard or not hard enough.

If he is lucky, then on days like today a taco journalist is proud to learn that he is named the “Best Street Taco Connoisseur” in print.  City Weekly has published their annual “Best of Utah” issue and your truly has received this award.  There are hundreds if not thousands of people who deserve this award so I am humbled to have received this honor, which is only slightly lesser in grandeur compared to the coveted Congressional Medal of Tacos.

With this honor comes responsibility and I know I have work to do.  I want to extend thanks to everyone who reads this site and to everyone in the world who loves tacos.

Here is what City Weekly said here in the presenting of the award :

Best Street-Taco Connoisseur
Kelly Peterson, SLCTacos.com
We all have our food passions, but not many turn those passions into an invaluable resource for others. From a simple mission statement that he summarizes as, “I love tacos!” Kelly Peterson has set out to chronicle the restaurants and street vendors who serve up Salt Lake City’s finest collections of meat, cheese and condiments wrapped in a tortilla. Reviews and taco-related ephemera are part of the regular blog postings that have given fellow tacoficionados an invaluable way of guiding their gastronomic wanderings.

http://tacoaday.com

How did I never hear about this blog before?  Moments ago I stumbled upon this incredible treasure written by a modern day hero whose site simply reads :

this is an account of when I ate a lot of tacos.

Last year (in the face of some adversity chronicled in his “Dear Haters” post) he set off on a quest  :

in May I travelled around Salt Lake and Utah County and I ate tacos every day. now I just eat tacos most days.

These posts are hilarious.  Not only is there a 7 gnome rating scale employed, but also a percentage likelihood in returning.  So much data.  We could generate so many box and whisker plots from this.  I better go start analyzing all of these “tacometrics” as this gentleman puts it and generate some reports in R.

Gnome holding a taco from tacoaday.com

I’ve already started chewing through these posts.  Some are expected (Chunga’s) but some I have not heard of.  Such discoveries are possible when a man sets off on a vision quest.  He finds wonders that the rest have never dreamed of.

I will be posting more gems from here, but make no mistake — we want this person to write with us here on slctacos.com!

Tacos at Chevron! A true Christmas miracle. Que vista de milagros!

Taqueria Lupitas
500 S West Temple (southwest corner, at the Chevron gas station)
4 out of 5 stars
Tacos are $1 each

My Christmas gift came early this year.  One week before Christmas I got a voicemail from taco enthusiast Tyler.  He told me of a miracle I could not believe.  There are prophecies and tales of future events, but when it comes to tacos I take them very seriously.  They are sacred.  But Tyler knows that tacos are sacred so this could be no prank.  This was serious business.

He told me that there was a brand new taco stand right across the street from where he and I work.  What?  Really?  A taco stand visible from our office?  Seconds away?  If this were true, then a true Christmas miracle was about to unfold.

I hadn’t been in the office much due to Finals week so I decided to try the stand (if this miracle truly existed) the next time I was in the office.  This week as I walked into work I saw the glorious vista featured above.  A taco stand at the Chevron station.  You bet I heard angels singing.

Taqueria Lupitas has been open for two weeks now. It is named after the cuñada of the two owners.

I arrived at the taco stand the same time as two other women who work at the hotel near my work.  I knew I had to get an al pastor like I do at each taco stand.  And I can’t say no to barbacoa either.  Still, I wanted some expert opinions.  Were these women veterans of the 2-week-old Taqueria Lupitas stand? I slapped on my taco journalist hat… BECAUSE I WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT!

I haven’t spoken Spanish in months, so my words tumbled out in a mess, but I was still able to find out that the women had been coming t0 the taco stand since its opening.  If I had one more taco to be allotted, they suggested I try the asada.  Not to be missed, they said.  They also laughed at my Spanish because I sound super gringo these days.

I walked up, ordered and set in on some intense taco journalism to find out how this Christmas miracle came to be.

As you can see, I was hungy and already took a bite of the asada. Also featured : al pastor and barbacoa.

I spoke to Antonio and his brother who are from Michoacán, Mexico.  They told me while cooking that the stand has been open for 2 weeks now.  When asked if they had any difficulty opening up a taco stand on the property of the gas station, they laughed and said that was the easy part.  In fact, the gas station is very glad to have them but getting the license from the city was not a fun process.  They told me that it went on for such a long time that they were losing hope that it was going to happen, but finally they got it and they are fully licensed by the city.  I should add that their stand is one of the cleanest I have seen in SLC.

I asked about the clientele they have since they are on a busy road (500 S) which is a main route to leave downtown SLC and jump onto I-15.  They told me that much of the business comes on foot, especially from my office building and from nearby hotels.  Still, they told me that they’ve laughed because there are other taco fanáticos who come rushing over.  In fact, they have many customers who have slammed on their brakes upon noticing the stand and screeched into the parking lot to snag a load of tacos for their commute home.  Business, they tell me, is going very well so far.

Antonio said he had to laugh when I ordered the barbacoa.  He said that their gringo customers can’t get enough of the barbacoa which is a sentiment not shared by their latino clientele.  Antonio mentions that he loves that the stand is well frequented by gringos and latinos alike.

A listing of the items offered at Taqueria Lupitas

As my tacos arrived, I was  nervous.  What if they weren’t good?  What good would a taco stand be across from my work building if they were not super bien rico?  Luckily, they were very delicious as were the salsas and fixins.  My new amigas were right to recommend the asada.  It was savory, juicy and my favorite of the bunch.  The barbacoa was good as well.  Not as good as other taco stands, but very tasty.  The al pastor was honestly nothing to write home about.  Not nearly enough flavor.  Not as spicy as what I was expecting. Maybe I caught them on a bad day and of course since I am so close I will definitely be trying it again.  I will keep you posted.

As I left, I told them how happy I was to have a taco stand so close to work.  In fact, I had to tell them, “En verdad, este carrito es mi regalito de Navidad.” (Truly, this taco stand is my Christmas present).  My new amigas burst into laughter as did Antonio and his brother working the grill.  They laughed, but they also new my sincerity.

As I left after we had a good laugh, Antonio asked me “Pues, nos vemos pronto?”

Yes, Antonio, I will be back very soon.

Sorry things have been so quiet here at SLCTacos lately, but it was all in the name of science.  Unfortunately it was not taco science but rather towards my Master’s degree in my first full-time quarter of graduate school.  I’ve got a few weeks off now so expect at least one review.

In the meantime, we have received news of a very cool documentary about taco stands in Austin, Texas by a Mr. Robert Lemon working towards his Ph.D.  Dr. Lemon (as I will start referring to him) is also a food geographer and he brings us this very cool documentary about what the taco scene is like in Austin.

What do you think?

Sorry it has been so long since our last reviews.  I have been very busy with graduate school and so far I have been unable to finish a few reviews sitting on my plate.  However, we have some great reviews and stories in the works for slctacos.com which I will be sharing with you soon.

In the meantime, several people often contact me for phone numbers at the taco stands we review for catering, pick up orders, etc.

The phone number for Tacos Don Martin in Sugarhouse has recently changed, so take this opportunity to call Juanita to order some tacos or walk down there in person and try them out.  They are delicious.  Her tacos and cebollas are not to be missed.  Here is her new phone number : 801-414-6182

Thanks for your patience on the next round of reviews!!!

As promised I have posted Nick’s recipes for his tacos recently reviewed on this site.  I posted them late, but they are here nonetheless :

Pork Taco Recipe

Chicken Taco Recipe

Pico de Gallo, Guacamole and Chipotle Mayo Recipes