Daily Loaf

Two years ago, CL challenged 64 pizzerias to enter tournament-style culinary combat, slice versus slice, the deserving winner crowned best pie in the Bay area. Last year, burgers took center-stage in our quest for gustatory greatness, one patty reigning supreme. This year, the tradition continues.

It’s Taco Time, baby!

Like pizza and burgers, the fundamentals are simple: tortilla stuffed with meat, vegetables and sauce. But, as with CL’s tournaments of years past, taco success is more elusive than that basic combination would indicate. One misstep and the entire thing can literally fall apart in your hands.

Tacos also defy easy definitions. How do you compare the fried fish tacos of Baja California with the chopped, stewed tripe of Central Mexico? Or pork pastor slathered in adobo versus simple ground beef seasoned with chili and vinegar? Not to mention the litany of meats that rarely cross American palates, like cabeza (head), lengua (tongue), buche (esophagus) and sesos (brains). Can finely chopped tongue stack up against simple carne asada?

But there are similarities across the taco world. The foundation of the feast is always the toasty corn of the tortilla. It ties the package together, physically and philosophically, and needs a pronounced flavor and an elastic, fresh texture that is often lacking in the also-ran joints. Fry it if you must, or simply stuff it with fixings, but the tortilla is the bellwether for a good taco.

Veggies are welcome, from diced tomatoes to slivered onions, but there are two taco ingredients that are as necessary as oxygen and water for survival: acid and herb. Normally, that’s easily accomplished by a sprinkling of cilantro and a wedge of lime, but some try for more. Pickled cabbage. Meat laced with bright cider vinegar. Pesto-like salsas blended with mint or basil.

Unlike past years, this tournament also presented a difficult task for us here at CL. Pizza and burgers are ubiquitous, with everyone from humble diners to chic eateries jumping into the fray. Finding the savants of the taco arts is more difficult. Many of the best don’t advertise and rarely have impact outside of their neighborhoods. These hand-held treats often come from the back corners of anonymous bodegas, or out the windows of semi-mobile trailers, uncharted territory far from the comfort of Google searches.

But to the seekers come great rewards, as saucy pork pastor, cilantro and toasty corn mesh into true taco bliss.

With your help, we narrowed it down to 32 of the Bay area’s best joints and pitted them against one another, taco-a-taco, in a titanic, tortilla-wrapped tournament the likes of which has never been seen in these parts. But your job isn’t done yet.

Every day on the Tournament of Tacos site we’ll present (starting March 11) a featured match between two tacos and give you an opportunity to vote for your favorite. The next day, you’ll find out my pick as well as the winner of the readers’ poll. And we’ll randomly give out prizes to voters to thank you for participating

Next week, we’ll cut the list to the Savory Sixteen. Two weeks from now it’ll drop to the final four.

On April 1, we’ll announce the winner of CL’s Tournament of Tacos – picked by me, of course – along with the readers’ poll favorite picked through the daily voting. May the best taco win!

Click on image for larger bracket.

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