Los Gallos Philadelphia, mi amor

My Memorial Day weekend started off SO RIGHT with a late lunch at Los Gallos in South Philly. Over the past few months, we have been on somewhat of an unofficial quest to find great tacos. We did manage to find some awesome ones during our NYC Fat Tour, but New York is probably just a bit too far to trek on a whim. CLEARLY, I have also been slacking in the blogging dept since we also tried Jose's Tacos and Distrito's Tacos and I have yet to write about them (coming soon, I swear). 


At any rate, at the behest of my friend Geo, last Friday afternoon we journeyed over to South Philly for a new taco adventure. 


:: Los Gallos Mexican Taqueria :: 
address: 951 Wolf St, Philly 
what we ate: tacos, of the beef, pork belly, chicken and chorizo varieties
The first thing you see when you walk into Los Gallos is a few aisles of food, snacks and sauces - at first glance, this seems to be merely a Mexican grocery store. As you walk further into the store, you realize it is certainly more than that; there are a few tables set up for diners, the tantalizing aromas authentic Mexican cuisine, and a counter at the very back where you can place your order. The second thing you notice is that the place is PRISTINE. I have rarely encountered a small proprietorship in Philly, be it restaurant or grocery store, that seemed as clean and bright. 

Geo and I ordered 3 tacos each. The menu had a selection of 6 different kinds you could select for the price of $5.50 (each taco is $2).


All tacos are topped with cheese + raw onions + cilantro and served with a spicy creamy green sauce and a spicier red sauce with more heat.

I ordered (starting from the left above) the chorizo, grilled chicken, and spicy pork with pineapple tacos. The chorizo was surprisingly spicy, and definitely had the strongest flavor of the three tacos. Of the three, I think my favorite was the spicy pork, because of the way the pineapple refreshingly added sweetness and citrusy-ness to complement the heat of the pork belly. It only won by a small margin since the chorizo really was stellar. Anyway, my only criticism of the spicy pork is that I wish the pineapple had been cut up into smaller chunks, rather than one large piece, but still, I'm really nitpicking here.

Geo had the chorizo, spicy pork and beef tacos.

The beef taco was also excellent, but we definitely enjoyed the flavors of the pork and chorizo tacos more.

We had a chance to speak with Luz (sp?), the owner of Los Gallos, for a few minutes after our meal and found him to be extremely likeable.He explained to us that he had started in on the Philly restaurant scene by working as a line chef for the popular dessert and cafe chain, Bonte's Waffles. Once he realized he wanted to really start something of his own, he decided the critical factors of his success would be authenticity of flavors and cooking styles, and the use of quality ingredients. You can see from the service, preparation of the dishes, the presentation and even from the store inventory, that these ideas dominate every aspect of food at Los Gallos.

Interestingly, Luz mentioned that he was starting to get noticed by the locals and other Philly media. Apparently, someone from Philly Weekly had been in a few weeks ago to review the shop. MORE interestingly, it turns out Marc Vetri, [EDIT: oops, apparently it was Amis' Brad Spence, not Marc himself!] culinary genius, is a fan! He had been in a few times to gobble up the tacos and had enjoyed them so much that he had recently put in a catering order of 80 tacos for a private event he was hosting.