Wicker Park Taco Crawl

Here in Chicago, we are no strangers to Mexican food. With neighborhoods like Pilsen doling out authentic tacos and high-end culinary masters like Rick Bayless serving gourmet, regional Mexican specialties, we know and love every iteration of south-of-the-border cuisine. And with this abundance of tacos, it only seems right to systematically find the best taco in town—thus, the taco crawl was born.

I gathered a group of friends, mapped out five taquerias, and conducted a highly scientific survey with the goal of finding the best taco in Wicker Park.

Methodology

Pardon the engineering—I’m an engineer by day—but below is the breakdown. The five restaurants were rated based on quality, flavor, authenticity, and overall awesomeness, with 5 being the best and 1 being the worst in each case. Tallies were taken for each category for each restaurant; the sum was weighted by the rating number (for example, the total score for quality at Taco Burrito Express was calculated this way: T=(1∙0)+(2∙0)+(3∙1)+(4∙3)+(5∙3)=30). The grand total column is the sum of scores for all four categories. Considering that the first taco probably tasted the best given that we were all famished, I included a column in the end to normalize by the level of hunger, basically taking the grand total score divided by the hunger score.

Results

Now that we have the numbers out of the way, here’s how the tacos looked.

Taco Burrito Express Chorizo Taco and Carnicerias Guanajuato Lenuga Taco

 Tierra Caliente Carnitas and La Pasadita's Chorizo

Big Star's Pork Shoulder Tacos and Seafood Tostadas

Big Star won out on all fronts, which was expected, and hardly fair that we included them in this crawl in the first place. Even when most of us could barely fit another shred of cilantro in, we devoured the gourmet pork shoulder tacos served out of a walk-up window. If any points could be deducted, they would be for the sheer number of bodies they let in to the bar. It’s crowded, and rightfully so, but the other taquerias were considerably more comfortable and accessible.

Taco Burrito Express (TBE), we all agreed, came in a close second place. The meats were flavorful and tasty (the group ordered everything from chorizo to carne asada to chicken), though the toppings were Americano style with shredded iceberg lettuce, tomato, and sour cream. Still, TBE is a quick, tasty, and cheap option in Wicker Park.

Everything in between was about as authentic as it gets (though really, who are we to judge authenticity?), but the quality of the ingredients led to the sub-par scores. What’s interesting is that La Pasadita (the one at 1132 N. Ashland) rated fairly well when normalized by hunger – basically, even though we were swollen with tacos, as a group we ranked them high enough in the other categories to beat out the two grocery store taco bars – Carnicerias Guanajuato and Tierra Caliente. Unless you need some avocados or Mexican cheeses to take home, I’d recommend crawling just a few blocks down the street to curb that taco craving.

April is a member of Rapid Rewards Dining^TM