The press comes down on a ball of masa, and a pale disk the size of a saucer goes onto the griddle. It puffs, blisters, gets flipped with bare fingers, and a minute later it is under a spoonful of grilled meat and a line of green salsa. That is the whole performance, and in Santa Barbara you can watch it at counters across the city.
The city's Mexican roots are older than the city itself. The pueblo grew up around the Presidio and the Mission, and Mexican and Mexican-American families have shaped its food ever since. A taco crawl is the easiest way to taste that history. Here is how to do one: styles, streets and a few rules of the road. Taquerías come and go, so we name only the longest-standing and describe the rest by what to look for.
Milpas Street
Milpas Street is the spine of the Eastside, running inland from East Beach past markets, panaderías, carnicerías and taquerías toward the Santa Barbara Bowl. This is the city's traditional Mexican-American neighborhood, and it is where a crawl should begin. Within a few blocks you can find a counter with a hand-painted menu, a bakery with trays of pan dulce, and a butcher selling marinated meat for the weekend grill.
Walk it rather than drive. Parking is tight and the street is best taken slowly, one order at a time. Most places are small and casual: order at the counter, take a number, find a seat or a curb.
La Super-Rica
The most famous taquería in Santa Barbara is a small stand on Milpas with a modest patio and a line that often reaches the sidewalk. La Super-Rica has been serving for more than four decades, and its reputation grew far beyond the Eastside after Julia Child, who lived in Montecito in her later years, made no secret of loving it.
What draws people is the tortillas, pressed and cooked to order, and a short menu of grilled meats, roasted peppers, cheese and beans. The patio is simple and the line is part of the ritual. Go at an off hour, be patient, and order more than you think.
Handmade tortillas
The single best sign of a good taquería is a tortilla press and a person standing at it. Corn tortillas made from fresh masa are softer, thicker and more fragrant than anything from a bag, with a toasted, sweet corn flavor that makes the filling almost secondary.
Several places in Santa Barbara make them this way, and you can usually tell from the street: watch for the comal, the flat griddle, and the steady rhythm of hands at work. Flour tortillas, more common in northern Mexico, turn up too, especially wrapped around breakfast burritos. Ask which tortillas are made in house and order those.
Al pastor
Tacos al pastor come from Mexico City, where Lebanese immigrants brought the vertical spit used for shawarma and cooks adapted it to pork. The meat is marinated in chiles and achiote, stacked on the spit, and roasted until the edges crisp. Shaved thin, it goes onto small tortillas with onion, cilantro and often a sliver of pineapple.
In Santa Barbara you will find al pastor both from a proper spit, the trompo, and cooked on the flat griddle. The spit is worth seeking out. Look for the cone of red meat turning by the grill, usually lit up in the evening, when al pastor is at its best.
Carnitas and the weekend
Carnitas, pork slowly cooked in its own fat until tender and then crisped, belong to the weekend. Many markets and carnicerías make them in large copper pots on Saturday and Sunday mornings and sell them by the pound until they run out.
Buy a pound, a stack of warm tortillas, a container of salsa verde and some pickled jalapeños, and you have lunch for a group. Ask for a mix of lean and fatty pieces, and a little of the crisp bits from the bottom of the pot. Barbacoa, birria and menudo are also weekend foods in many Mexican households, and Eastside counters follow the same calendar.
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Fish tacos by the sea
A coastal city should have fish tacos, and Santa Barbara does. The classic is the Baja California style: a strip of white fish battered and fried, folded into a corn tortilla with shredded cabbage, a thin creamy sauce and a squeeze of lime. Grilled versions with fresh salsa are lighter.
The best are made with local fish. Rockfish, halibut or sheephead from the channel work well, and some cooks buy at the Saturday fishermen's market for exactly this. Shrimp tacos, crisp or grilled, are the other coastal staple. Look near the harbor and along the beach, but do not assume the waterfront has the best ones; some of the finest come from inland counters.
The Westside
Across town, the Westside has its own long-standing Mexican-American community, with small markets and taquerías along San Andres Street and the blocks around it. It sees fewer visitors than Milpas, and that is part of its appeal: these are neighborhood places, where the regulars order without looking at the menu.
A Westside stop makes the crawl a tour of the city rather than a single street. Pick up a torta or a few tacos de asada, then walk a block for an agua fresca or a paleta. A short drive or bus ride from downtown connects the two sides of town.
Trucks and late nights
Taco trucks fill a gap the brick-and-mortar places leave. Some park in the same spot every evening for years, and the regulars know where to find them. They tend to be at their best late, with a griddle of asada, a few salsas in squeeze bottles, and radishes and grilled onions on the side.
Trucks move, so ask locally or simply keep your eyes open on the Eastside and in Goleta. A clean truck with a crowd around it is a safe bet. Cash used to be essential and is still useful, although many trucks now take cards.
Salsas, drinks and manners
The salsa bar is part of the meal. A good one offers a red salsa, a green one, a smoky chipotle, pico de gallo, pickled carrots and jalapeños, radishes and lime. Taste each one on its own before loading up; heat levels vary wildly from place to place.
To drink, try horchata, the sweet rice drink with cinnamon, or an agua fresca of jamaica or tamarind. Mexican sodas in glass bottles are traditional. Order a few tacos at a time, eat them hot, and order again if you are still hungry. Tacos do not wait well.
The Fiesta mercados
Once a year, in early August, the whole city goes on a taco crawl at once. During Old Spanish Days, the Fiesta mercados set up food stalls in De la Guerra Plaza downtown and at MacKenzie Park, where church groups, schools and community organizations sell tacos, tamales, churros and aguas frescas. Many of the cooks are volunteers raising money for a cause.
The lines are long, the music is loud, and children crack confetti-filled eggshells, cascarones, over one another's heads. It is the most crowded taco crawl of the year, and the most cheerful. Bring small bills and patience, and save room for a churro.
