Denver al Pastor Take 16: North County

It would not be an overstatement for me to say that tacos al pastor are a fundamental part of my being. This is true figuratively, as it has been the inspiration for this blog (from the logo to the name, and to the exhaustive and exhausting list that I once compiled annually). It is also true literally, as for better or worse, marinated pork has surely come to permanently line my intestinal tract (I think 9 out of 10 physicians would think that to be for the worse). And although I have not posted on Denver pastor for about two years now, my passion for pastor has not waned. It is rather that, as far as I can tell, I have combed the city so thoroughly that there just aren't any new pastor spits to write about. That is, until just recently.

I have stopped being surprised about where I find pastor ever since I had a taco al pastor from a spit in the posh mountain town of Telluride. Nevertheless, I was taken aback when I got a text from my friend Brian a couple months ago with this picture taken in the Lowry residential neighborhood of East Denver:

Brian knows well of my love for pastor because, as I have related before, when we were roommates in Chicago, we could have these fine tacos delivered to our apartment door at any hour of the night or day. In fact, if our lives had just gone slightly different, I might be still adrift at sea with Brian (and our other roommate Michael) on a yacht named: "The El Pastor". But that is a story for another post. Suffice to say, that Brian knows a good spit of meat when he sees one.

The Lowry pastor spit, located in the relatively new North County, as you might have guessed, is a modest one. But as I have posted before and will remind my readers, the size of a pastor spit matters little.  (The spit, of course, is still the only real requirement I have of whether I will consider a taco al pastor worth having. No matter how good the marinade, a non-spit roasted version just won't do.)

North County apparently is a very specific part of San Diego, where the words "North Country" seemingly generate great pride in people who care about those kinds of things. San Diego, I believe, is somewhere in California. You might be familiar with California as the northern and western-most region of the once-great Spanish-then-Mexican empire. It shouldn't be surprising then, I suppose, after all these years that Californianos still know a thing or two about tacos.

The North County al pastor taco was, I must admit, very good. I am now used to pastor tacos being sliced a little thicker than they are in Mexico City, and while I still prefer the thin-sliced and charred bacon-like cuts in the Federal District, I am coming to appreciate the thicker cut as it can also be quite moist and tender. North County did well, however, to impart a little char on its pastor, which is crucial, and what's more, the flavor of their marinade was spot-on. The fresh, house made corn tortillas, chunks of grilled pineapple, and a solid, spicy red salsa rounded out this all-round solid taco.

I've written before about how much I loathe taco stores that try to dress up their tacos (and give them gimmicky names) so much that they become small hors d'oeuvres that just happen to be served on tortillas. Maybe the best part of North County --  a restaurant that had all the external appearances of a place that would try to fancy-up their tacos-- is that their taco al pastor remained refreshingly simple: meat, tortilla, cilantro, onion.

I also tried a fish taco (with my second round of pastor) which was a little more dressed up, but that is typical. Still, the battered slab of fish was not lost under the simple slaw and bright mango salsa. It was also good enough that I would be happy to return to North County to see what else they have to offer.

There are tacos al pastor on a spit all up and down East Denver and Aurora, but unfortunately many people are not ready for the East Colfax taco experience. For this reason the spit of pastor at North County fills a niche and fills it well. You can now enjoy a decent taco al pastor while you sit on expensive patio furniture surrounded by suburban-looking families while sipping a "craft" cocktail instead of sitting on a plastic chair in a greasy taqueria with a can of Modelo in a paper bag. Not sure if that is really an improvement, but hey, it takes "all kinds of people", as they say. And now all those people can find a little more common ground with a mouthful of pastor.