Top tacos on wheels

   Last week, Los Angeles made it a crime for taco trucks to park in one spot for more than an hour. Apparently, the brightly painted roaming restaurants, which serve cheap Mexican lunches in working-class sections of most cities in the West, were becoming a nuisance, unfairly undercutting nearby restaurants and creating trash problems.

   At least, that's the story the county board of supervisors gave when it made it a misdemeanor for the trucks to idle.

   In Colorado Springs, the crime of the loncheras is not that they linger too long, but that they disappear too quickly. Most of them, anyway.

   There was a divine little truck that parked between two sad office buildings on Academy Boulevard near Pikes Peak Avenue for a few months, selling fabulous shrimp ceviche in Styrofoam cups and fresh raw oysters with lime and hot sauce. Order a dozen and you could hear the chef/owner/counter man fish them out of the ice and shuck them on the steel counter. They were some of the best in town. But one day the truck was gone.

   There was a converted school bus that did swift business in another weathered parking lot. The kitchen was in the back. Four tiny tables were bolted to the floor in the front, where you could get spicy beef cheek and tomatillo tacos for a dollar a pop and watch fuzzy telenovelas on a TV strapped above the driver's seat. But that one's gone, too.

   A few weeks ago I spotted a new one. I was on my way somewhere and couldn't stop, so I went back but couldn't find it. I quizzed everyone who had been in the car to make sure I was looking in the right place.

   Some said North Academy. Some said North Nevada. I never found it. And so I drove around aimlessly until I ended up at the place I probably should have been heading all along: La Flor de Jalisco.

   The shiny steel truck with its menu hand-painted on the side has parked in the same place for five years, serving delicious tacos and other simple Mexican lunches at a price that's hard to beat.

   Like most longtime taco trucks, it makes its home in a cracked and knobby parking lot in a decaying corner of town from which many businesses have fled, leaving plenty of extra asphalt.

   All day, trucks of workers pull up for a quick bite.

   When I arrived, owner Mario Jimenez was waiting, as always, at a rare slot in the side where the windows aren't obscured by Mexican calling-card fliers. I'd visited countless times before, but this time, I asked to come in and look around. He swung open the driver's door.

   The narrow galley is all shiny steel -a hot griddle at the back, steam trays and lowboy coolers along the side, trays of chopped onion, cilantro and fresh tomatillo salsa on the counter for quick access.

   "Everything is ... How you say? Fresh," he said. "No cans anywhere."

   Things that need to cook for hours, such as the slow-roasted, marinated pastor (pork) and birria (goat) get the start at the truck's sister restaurant of the same name in Fountain.

   I ordered the lunch deal - three tacos and a drink for $5 - and instead of my usual, the crispy chopped skirt steak asada tacos, I went with one chicken, one goat and one tripa (small intestine, but I'm not sure from what animal).

   A flurry of soft corn tortillas hit the grill, then palm-size piles of each meat. A minute later, I was handed the steaming tacos, dressed in salsa on a Styrofoam plate with a wedge of lime on top.

   Jimenez cracked the cap off a thick glass bottle of Mexican Coke (made with sucrose, not dextrose) and handed it through the window to the narrow outdoor counter, where I dug in.

   The tripa was the best. The shredded chicken was perfectly fine, but a bit too moist for tacos. The birria was a bit bland compared with some other versions I've had, which were so spicy and savory they tasted almost like jerk.

   The little chopped rings of tripa, though, were made for street tacos - if you can get over thinking about what you're eating, the strong, musky flavor and chewy bite go perfectly with the tangy tomatillos and onion on the tortilla. The guy next to me in line said the same was true of the tongue tacos ($4 for four), but I had to take his word for it.

   Jimenez hails from the coastal Mexican state Jalisco, so of course the truck serves ceviche. A tangy jumble of cold chopped shrimp, onion and cilantro cured in lime juice ($3) comes on brittle tostada. It's heaven on a hot day.

   The burritos ($4.50) and quesadillas ($4) are also good, but the reason to come is the quick, simple tacos.

   Order them one at a time so the twin tortillas don't loose their crispness under the moist pile of meat. Squeeze a spritz of lime over the golden crown of tomatillo salsa, add a dash of the hot sauce from the counter for an added kick. Do not return with this dripping mess to your car. Lean slightly forward over the hot asphalt and eat. Repeat as many times as necessary.

details

LA FLOR DE JALISCO
3 stars (out of 5) - Good tacos cheap

Address: 1801 N. Union Blvd. in the parking lot of Rampart Plumbing and Heating

Phone: 392-4571

Hours: 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. daily (usually)

Entrees: $1.25-$4

Vegetarian: No

Liquor: No

Plastic: No