A Sonoran-style taco is only as outstanding as its flour tortilla and smoky meat. By that logic, you'll find LA's best versions at this recently opened spot in Bellflower. We're talking golden, buttery tortillas so thin they're nearly translucent but still require molars to tear into. We're talking evenly charred asada whacked with a cleaver, scorched tripas that somehow taste like fatty chicharrón, and puddles of sinus-zapping salsa verdes.

Like your hoodie after a campfire, everything at this Huntington Park taquería sops up mesquite charcoal smoke. You taste it in the juicy asada, the fatty bits clinging to the beef rib, and the frisbee-sized costras folded into cheesy "cholo tacos." In addition to serving exceptional food, Tacos Los Cholos's space stands out as a destination for lengthy taco feasts. There's plenty of seating, lots of TVs, and convenient rear parking.

Crowning the best taco in Los Angeles is like trying to explain to that one relative that he’s texting you through his email - you can’t. But for our money, there isn’t a better all-around taco-eating experience than Mariscos Jalisco in Boyle Heights. This tiny seafood truck on an industrial stretch of Olympic Blvd. only has one taco on the menu, but it is glorious. It’s the tacos de camaron, and it’s a deep-fried shell stuffed with massive shrimp and topped with salsa and fresh avocado.

From the moment you step inside Los Cinco Puntos, it’s clear you’re in for a special experience. The deli/market in Boyle Heights is a true neighborhood institution and sells everything from cheeseburgers to breakfast burritos to hard-to-find spices and chiles, but you’re here for the tacos - and so is everyone else. The carnitas is their speciality, and while it’s some of the best we’ve had in LA, the crispy chicharron is even better.

At El Ruso, everything boils down to the tortilla. Made with flour that owner Walter Soto gets monthly from his hometown of Tijuana, these are the kind of chewy, translucent tortillas that make each bite its own euphoric experience. As far as El Ruso’s excellent mesquite-grilled meats go, the smoky carne asada is definitely our go-to. Don’t leave without getting a burrito wrapped in a sobaquera, a giant Sonoran-style tortilla and the only one of its kind in town.

If you love juicy, fat-simmered carnitas as much as we do, then there’s a good chance you’ll agree that no one does it better than Carnitas El Momo. This Boyle Heights food trailer has expanded to Monterey Park with a full counter service restaurant and at both spots, you'll be greeted by the same amazing porky aroma. Though you can order tortas and quesadillas stuffed with their carmelized Michoacan-style carnitas, the best items here are the standard tacos.

Carne asada competition is tough in LA, but Sonoratown has managed to take a tiny taqueria space in Downtown and build it into a full-on institution for Sonoran-style tacos filled with smoky grilled meats. The legendary housemade flour tortillas here melt in your mouth, and the charred steak that gets tucked inside them is tender with the exact right degree of saltiness. Our move is the caramelo, which comes topped with pinot beans, jack cheese, salsa roja, avocado, and diced cabbage.

Owned by the same family as Holbox, this busy stall inside Mercado La Paloma near USC has been serving traditional Yucatan cuisine for the past twenty years and is still going strong. You're going to want to start with their flagship cochinita pibil, sweet and savory slow-roasted pork that’s been marinated in achiote and sour orange and cooked inside a banana leaf: It's the best version in the city and the one that others are measured against.

You’ll probably smell Tacos Los Poblanos before you see it. This nighttime Tijuana-style taco stand (and Tire Shop Taqueria rival) grills its carne asada over mesquite charcoal, which sends a smoky trail wafting down Slauson Ave. Our usual order goes like this: a few asada tacos, plus a cheese-lined vampiro with chorizo if we’re hungry, then a step back to watch the taqueros thwack-thwack grilled meat with a cleaver and fling spoonfuls of salsa with acrobatic precision.

To find truly outstanding al pastor, it must come from a trompo, a hypnotic vertical rotisserie where marinated pork is shaved off in thin slices like shawarma. If you head to Tacos Los Güichos, a truck in South LA that parks at a tire shop right off the 110, you’ll know immediately you’re in the presence of al pastor royalty. Charred on the edges, embarrassingly juicy, and a touch sweet, the Mexico City-style al pastor here is unmatched.

You can’t fake a great taco al vapor, more or less because there’s simply nothing to hide behind. This purist style from Jalisco involves beef parts cooked for hours over a steam bath until they practically jiggle, paired with corn tortillas that have been warmed to a custard-like texture. And we consider Tacos El Negro, with locations in South Gate and Bell Gardens, the LA al vapor specialist.

This street-cart-turned-food-truck—which relocated from Compton to an industrial stretch of North Long Beach a couple of years ago—specializes in Sinaloa-style chorreadas, a toasted corn tortilla that’s slicked with pork fat, then topped with a mound of chopped grilled steak and a rough salsa thickened with chopped cabbage. It might look a little like a standard asada taco, but your first one will be a near-religious experience.

Tacos Y Birria La Unica is the food truck we head to for all things birria. With both beef and goat versions on the menu, you can enjoy the spicy chile-braised meat in a taco, quesataco, mulita, or even in a cup of ramen when visiting this Boyle Heights destination. The goat is delicious, and the cash-only truck’s rich consommé does an excellent job of enhacing the meat’s natural gaminess. Go for their holy trinity: a goat birria taco, a beef birria taco, and a goat birria quesataco.

Cacao doesn’t just have one of the most phonetically satisfying words in the English language in its name (Mexicatessen), it’s also home to some of our favorite tacos in Northeast LA. The famed duck carnitas here are a must-order, which has much to do with how the sweet fattiness of the meat soaks perfectly into the warm blue corn tortilla. We also love the Ensendas fish tacos, which come with a giant piece of golden fried fish topped with cabbage, crema, and pickled onions.

Plain and simple, the tacos at this East LA truck are unlike anything else in the city. Made with marinated roast pork and smoky chipotle salsa wrapped in a thick, soft flour tortilla that almost resembles a pita, the signature tacos arabes here can be traced back to the Mexican city of Puebla, where 19th-century Arab immigrants intertwined kebabs and shwarma with central Mexican cuisine. Our favorite order here is the Especiale.

Guerrilla Tacos used to be one of LA’s best taco trucks, and before that one of LA’s best taco carts, and ever since it moved into a permanent space in the Arts District a few years ago, it’s been one of LA’s best taquerias, too. The menu changes fairly often, which means you might find wackier options like a fried “fish & chips” taco topped with mashed pea guacamole. That said, the menu staples—like the sweet potato taco with feta, or the fantastic pork belly one—still hold their own.

While most of the city is either sleeping or suffering through some 7am workout class they pretend to like, Asadero Chikali is busy preparing a variety of warm stews for breakfast tacos. Mornings at this East LA food truck consist of delicious tacos de guisado. These perfect morning tacos come with the truck’s handmade flour tortillas and include fillings like shredded beef with roasted potatoes, chicharron cooked in tangy salsa, and spicy Mexican chorizo with scrambled eggs.

If taco stands were judged the same way as baseball prospects, Angel’s Tijuana Tacos would be what coaches call a five-tool player. Not only does this taco stand with locations all over LA County excel at juicy al pastor with a flick of pineapple, they also serve smoky grilled asada and flavorful braised meats like cabeza, too. In fact, from the bright salsas to the pressed-to-order tortillas, we’ve yet to encounter anything Angel’s doesn’t do well (dry cleaning? tax services?).

Los Dorados is a tiny food trailer that only makes one thing: taco dorados. And, as you might expect from a place that sells just one item, they do crispy, deep-fried rolled tacos really, really well here. Doused in housemade salsa roja, spicy mole sauce, or avocado salsa verde, then finished with a heavy sprinkle of cotija cheese—there’s absolutely nothing subtle about these crunchy, extra-long beauties and that’s exactly why we love them.

If you take one bite of a taco from Villa's Tacos and think, “I’ve never really had anything like this before,” it’s because you probably haven’t. This Highland Park taco stand is home to fully loaded tacos that come on Dodger-blue corn tortillas layered with crispy griddled cheese, diced onions, cilantro, crema, cotija, guacamole, and a mesquite-grilled protein of your choice. Oh, and did we mention they have seven different salsa and hibiscus-pickled onions, too?

You might have noticed that Macheen, which serves out of Milpa Grille in Boyle Heights on weekdays and at Smorgasburg on Sundays, also makes one of our favorite breakfast burritos in LA. Well, we’re here to tell you that they are just as skilled at putting things on heirloom blue corn tortillas as they are stuffing things inside big flour tortillas. Macheen usually offers a handful of inventive and colorful fillings, like fried chicken tossed in salsa macha as well as solid vegetarian options.

The name of the game at Carnitas El Artista in Inglewood is the Michoacan-style carnitas —tender, slow-fried chunks of pork that are beautifully crisp and bronzed along the edges. You’ll find excellent pork shoulder carnitas at this father-and-son operation, but El Artista also goes whole hog by mixing in other cuts, from pork ribs and chicharron to lengua and cabeza. For our money, you won’t find a more memorable carnitas experience west of the 110.

Conveniently located at the corner of National and Sawtelle just off the 405, Brothers Cousins is the late-night taco kingpin of the Westside. Lines begin to form around 6pm for the main attraction, a wide, bubbling pan of tender meats that have been braised into absolute submission. Choose your cut of choice—asada, carnitas, chorizo, lengua, suadero, among others—and the taquero plucks the meat from the pan and chops it to order, scooping it into a warm tortilla in one swift motion.

The family behind Taco Nazo is originally from Ensenada—the supposed birthplace of the Baja-style fish taco—and since opening their first location in La Puente four decades ago, they’ve managed to turn delicious beer-battered fish into a mini-empire. Nazo now has six locations across greater East LA, each serving flakey fish on warm corn tortillas with fresh cabbage, pico de gallo, and a big dollop of rich crema that tastes like tangy tartar sauce.