For July 4th, I’m looking to grill, but feeling a little lazy about doing the marinade myself. Does anyone have go-to places in LA for pre-marinated carne asada that you can take home and grill? Thanks!
Ziggy’s in SFV
La Carniceria Meat Market - southgate//bell gardens
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On the Westside, Sanchez Carniceria.
Interested in this as well.
Northgate market in either mar vista or corridor between ktown and downtown.
They generally have super high turnover on the carne asada.
Or you could go to marcondas at the farmers market and buy skirt steak and sprinkle some salt and lime after cooking! My personal fav for carne asada style tacos.
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IMO, pre Covid, Sanchez across the street from Northgate the marinated carne asada was better. So was the carnitas and chicharron from the hot case.
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Never bought the meat from Sanchez only had tacos there and they were ok.
I go to northgate sometimes when I need specific types of meat because I’ve had very hit or miss experiences at local carnicerias. I think it has to do a lot with how high of volume/turnover of the meat being sold. Northgate for popular cuts/sale items there are always people buying at the meat counter, with that being said I’ve also bought some bad chicken at Northgate (stick to the high turnover items).
Will try Sanchez next time I’m in the area!
They’ve gotten very inconsistent over the years. When I first moved into the area in 2006, the shrimp taco and the asada was consistently good, the salsa rojo was also excellent. This was also consistent with their other location on Centinela. They then expanded to include the nice sit down restaurant and about a year after that opened, I felt that’s when the decline started happening. Prices crept up, quality was inconsistent.
Possibly the landscape changed and there was also more competition with the rise of much better street vendors. Trucks and stands like Tacos Tamix or Brother’s Cousins were putting out much superior product on the Westside whereas Sanchez used to be one of the few. I haven’t had a taco from Sanchez for easily 3-4 years.
The carne asada at the meat market was good though especially if you just wanted to be able to pick up something quickly, but I hadn’t had it in a while that’s why I threw in the caveat about pre-Covid. Not sure what their turn is like.
Their chicharron, fried belly with meat and other fried items in the hot case was definitely far better than what Northgate’s hot bar had, I used to get it regularly. However, the last time I went into Sanchez couple of weeks ago, even though they had plexiglass set up and proper handling for behind the meat case, the hot counter hadn’t changed and it was worrisome.
The case still was at face height with items in bulk and opened up by customer. Tongs and paper bags stacked up on side with no sanitation for in between customers. You’re just expected to grab a tong and bag, open it up with no face guard of any sort and pick out what you wanted. Pre-covid, I was fine with that set up. Under current conditions, seeing how many people don’t wear masks properly or sanitize hands, I’m not taking a chance on someone breathing on the food, bag or utensils that are used for ready to eat food.
I’m a big fan of that Northgate. It’s one of my regular grocery stops. After some hiccups when pandemic started in March, they’ve seem to have done a much better job with safety procedures.
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The only answer to this is Vallarta.
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Yikes thanks for the heads up about Sanchez!
Is this thread mostly westside and mid-city oriented? I was curious about the below place but please disregard if it’s beyond the scope.
I was thinking of checking out this place in Rosemead:
https://www.yelp.com/biz/los-toros-meat-market-rosemead?osq=carniceria
I don’t have any specific recommendations, I just did a little light yelping when we were considering buying more prepared/marinated meat to supplement what we already make from scratch.
No, I don’t think so. I imagine posters were just listing places that were close to where they do/did live.
Perhaps @secretasianman or @chewchow might know of SGV places?
Thanks, I’d love @secretasianman’s and @chewchow’s input if they have any!
Also, I just realized this isn’t true. Los Toros is pretty near Pho Filet 2 and a few other places we like to visit so it has that going for it.
I’ve never had the carne asada there, but thumbs up here for the carnitas and chicharron. They’re not too far from my parents and periodically I’d swing by there if visiting parents. I liked the different cuts they had available at the hot counter. IMO, it’s worth a stop to check it out.
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Nice, thank you! If you’ve tried any other places in the area I’d be down to hear about them, too!
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In Pomona I like La Cachanilla. Seriously though: Vallarta or just marinate your own.
Well, now that’s a good idea (haven’t been, but I imagine they’d have pretty good stuff). And you can get some menudo, too (Sunday only?).
Add: I used to work in the SFV, so I’m used to Vallarta being… everywhere. There appear to only be 3 in the entire SGV (!!!). Holy cow.
vallarta is to carne asada what stater brothers is to steak
I loved shopping at Stater when we lived in OC. Sadly being on the westside, there is no Stater, Vallarta or Jons nearby.
I’ve had some OC friends tell me Stater’s meat quality has gone down some the past few years, still better than your average grocery chain, but just not as good as before. What’s your experience?
We still drop into one periodically when visiting friends in the OC, we find some of their house brand paper products and other random house brand items very good QPR.
it’s a lazy reply when seeking something greater than par.