the puffy taco you've been waiting for
We're still getting cool mornings in Los Angeles. May Gray, we tell each other, reminding ourselves that this is how it always is. And now, June Gloom. I've been craving sun. I slink out on the porch and find that beam that hits the chair right around noon, when the marine layer burns off. If it burns off.
I should buy a sun hat. Shouldn't let that high noon hit my face.
Is there such thing as a cool sun hat? Not on me. I had a hat, a floppy straw one I found for that cross-country shoot three years ago, after much ordering and returning and hand-wringing. I wore it dutifully in Arizona, up into Utah, and for ten straight days in Mississippi, but I kept getting icky compliments from the crew. "Cute hat!" someone would say every day, in that, like, you-look-adorable tone. (Honestly, if you tell me anything I'm wearing is cute, I will second-guess it for the rest of time. Don't. Wanna. Look. CUTE.) And so one day in Vermont, I very roughly smashed my cute hat into my backpack and oops I ruined it.
☀️🙄
But what am I even. You're here for the taco!
On a blustery Tuesday last week, R took me to Bar Ama for lunch. We had the place to ourselves. I'd been there for dinner a few years before, and I remembered it being delicious. Crowded. Good cocktails. I guess I didn't have a taco, because it never landed on the map. But then, recently, I happened to hear a rumor about Bar Ama's off-menu puffy taco, and I got obsessed.
First of all, try saying that out loud without smiling. PUFFY TACO.* It sounds like pure joy. It sounds like a sticker from the 80s. It sounds like fluffy clouds and rainbows and umami. Crunchy and just the tiniest bit greasy?
Reader, it was all that.
Like I said, this taco isn't on the menu. But they're prepared to serve it any time, with rotating choices of filling. I ordered the shrimp, which was succulent and just exactly right with the crunchy chewy cloud of corn tortilla and the tangy, slightly Thai-inspired slaw. R got the cochinita pibil, which was also good, though not as perfect a pairing with the slaw. Sidebar, speaking of Thai-inspired: the jicama salad, with cucumber, papaya, fish sauce, and pickled serrano, is also terrific. We scraped every last shred off the plate.
*Note, if you are reading on your phone: I am not intentionally linking to Arturo's Puffy Taco. I've never been to Arturo's Puffy Taco. Omigod there it goes again. Yikes.
*****
This month on Amazon Prime: Season two of Fleabag SLAYS. If you haven't watched the first season, catch up now. Binge them all, they go by fast. (Most ringing endorsement I've read was this tweet from Hannah Goldfield who admitted to watching while in labor.) (And yes, the Hot Priest is that hot. He's almost like an In the Cut-era Mark Ruffalo, if that will convince you to watch.)
xoxo,
Laramie
p.s. Let me know if you have recs for tacos in Boston. I'm coming out for a shoot and I'm determined to put that city on the map.
p.p.s. Have I mentioned my taco map?? Bookmark it, baby. So far it's a whole lot of LA, but it also includes San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Nashville, Austin, Houston, NYC, Stockholm, and Cumberland, BC.
I should buy a sun hat. Shouldn't let that high noon hit my face.
Is there such thing as a cool sun hat? Not on me. I had a hat, a floppy straw one I found for that cross-country shoot three years ago, after much ordering and returning and hand-wringing. I wore it dutifully in Arizona, up into Utah, and for ten straight days in Mississippi, but I kept getting icky compliments from the crew. "Cute hat!" someone would say every day, in that, like, you-look-adorable tone. (Honestly, if you tell me anything I'm wearing is cute, I will second-guess it for the rest of time. Don't. Wanna. Look. CUTE.) And so one day in Vermont, I very roughly smashed my cute hat into my backpack and oops I ruined it.
☀️🙄
But what am I even. You're here for the taco!
On a blustery Tuesday last week, R took me to Bar Ama for lunch. We had the place to ourselves. I'd been there for dinner a few years before, and I remembered it being delicious. Crowded. Good cocktails. I guess I didn't have a taco, because it never landed on the map. But then, recently, I happened to hear a rumor about Bar Ama's off-menu puffy taco, and I got obsessed.
First of all, try saying that out loud without smiling. PUFFY TACO.* It sounds like pure joy. It sounds like a sticker from the 80s. It sounds like fluffy clouds and rainbows and umami. Crunchy and just the tiniest bit greasy?
Reader, it was all that.
Like I said, this taco isn't on the menu. But they're prepared to serve it any time, with rotating choices of filling. I ordered the shrimp, which was succulent and just exactly right with the crunchy chewy cloud of corn tortilla and the tangy, slightly Thai-inspired slaw. R got the cochinita pibil, which was also good, though not as perfect a pairing with the slaw. Sidebar, speaking of Thai-inspired: the jicama salad, with cucumber, papaya, fish sauce, and pickled serrano, is also terrific. We scraped every last shred off the plate.
*Note, if you are reading on your phone: I am not intentionally linking to Arturo's Puffy Taco. I've never been to Arturo's Puffy Taco. Omigod there it goes again. Yikes.
*****
This month on Amazon Prime: Season two of Fleabag SLAYS. If you haven't watched the first season, catch up now. Binge them all, they go by fast. (Most ringing endorsement I've read was this tweet from Hannah Goldfield who admitted to watching while in labor.) (And yes, the Hot Priest is that hot. He's almost like an In the Cut-era Mark Ruffalo, if that will convince you to watch.)
xoxo,
Laramie
p.s. Let me know if you have recs for tacos in Boston. I'm coming out for a shoot and I'm determined to put that city on the map.
p.p.s. Have I mentioned my taco map?? Bookmark it, baby. So far it's a whole lot of LA, but it also includes San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Nashville, Austin, Houston, NYC, Stockholm, and Cumberland, BC.
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