Javier Cabral

1 month ago | lataco.com | Javier Cabral

Drive a little more than two hours into Baja California from downtown San Diego and you'll hit one of Mexico's seafood powerhouses: Ensenada. It’s the home to Mexico's most crucial port city that supplies the majority of pristine seafood to the rest of the country (and even bluefin tuna to Japan), but it’s also a laid-back destination where many flock, to hunt for the perfect battered fish taco at the place where that beloved style was created.

1 month ago | lataco.com | Javier Cabral

Shawn Stern, the frontman of Youth Brigade and co-founder of BYO Records, is a pivotal figure in the L.A. punk scene. Not only for the time he played a backyard show with Jonathan Gold in 1978, but for weathering more than four decades of punk rock in Los Angeles. In 1999, Shawn and his brother, Mark Stern, launched Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas, initially a casual bowling tournament for punk musicians, other labels, and fans.

1 month ago | lataco.com | Javier Cabral

The mezcal world is mourning the loss of Hildegardo “Japo” Joya this morning as a raicilla luminary whose coastal Jalisco blood ran thick with agave amarillo and whose body was fortified by nine decades of working the earth. His masterful distilling style was renowned for its earthy and ocean breeze flavors. The mezcal maestro paved the way for raicilla to become the counterculture agave spirit of choice, beyond commercially sold mezcal.

2 months ago | lataco.com | Javier Cabral

Thirteen years after Wes Avila first turned the classic taco de papa on its head by using in-season, local sweet potatoes, he continues to evolve his iconic, accidentally vegetarian taco. Five iterations of that iconic taco later, it now comes in a superlatively crunchy flauta filled with fluffy steamed Okinawan sweet potato and fried in rice bran oil, a best-seller at MXO by Wes Avila, his Mexican steakhouse on La Cienega.

2 months ago | lataco.com | Javier Cabral

Often in food media, we tend to focus on the success of a chef or restaurant. But what about their life before that? Daniel Castillo opened up to L.A. TACO Editor-in-Chief Javier Cabral about everything he had to overcome to become the current James Beard Award finalist, and how sometimes “the only journey is the one within (Rainer Mmaria Rilke).” Growing up, I never quite felt like I fit in.