The Taco Master of East LA - Street Food Icons

-It gives me pleasure to see people eat carnitas. Her first expression is like, wow, you know? -It transports me all the time to my hometown, the best

taco

s in Los Angeles. -That's a mule right there. -We are all family, friend. This is just the beginning, friend. You guys are about to experience some... some neighborhood. ♪♪ -My name is Juancarlos Acosta. Everyone knows me as Billy. To my right is my mother, Inocencia Acosta. To my left is Rómulo Acosta. -The Momo. -The Momo. The name of our restaurant is Carnitas El Momo. It is named after my dad's nickname.

It's a family business. We specialize in carnitas, which is pork. It is candied in lard. The three meats we use are loin, with bone, tripe, which are the crops, and the skins, the cueritos. One of my friends, Chuy, when he first came, said, "Dude, this is the damn aporcalypse," so he stayed there, like the aporcalypse. We are currently in Boyle Heights, California. In fact, we are at his house. This is where I grew up. This is pretty much our home base, so we do everything here as far as prep and then it's sent out to the truck.

It costs $2.50 for a fairly loaded

taco

. It's not your average taco. They're loaded, buddy. I'm going to start. We have to make the lard bubble. That's all butter, friend. This one here is like, I mean, between 17 and 18 years old. So once the lard is at the right temperature, we'll first add the pork butt. After having the pork butt for about an hour, we add the pork stomach. The skins come in last. In Michoacán they don't do this. No, we don't use any of that. It's just... This gives it that brown color and a little bit of a sweet flavor.

I don't want to fool anyone, but I knew from a young age that my dad was doing something special. I just... Even when I was 6 or 7, man, I was like, "Man, this is a really good thing, you know?" Right now I'm going to poke it so that the stomachs cook inside, poke them gently. ♪♪ -My dad, when he first came here, his job was welding, but he got injured, so because of the injury he had to go back to his roots, you know? Carnitas El Momo has been around for about five years. Before that, my dad cooked carnitas for 50 years.

I'm learning everything they taught me, you know? I'm just trying to take it to another level. For me it's not about Instagram. It's not about any of that. I'm here to work. I told him too. Hey, we're on a mission right now, you know? So I used to go west to Los Angeles, to some apartment complexes. He says that he was already a little drunk and was still selling carnitas. So my job was to clean the pots after he finished cooking, and then I went from washing dishes to cutting the meat, preparing it, slicing it and going with him, starting loading and then packing the

food

and cooking.

That's how I rose through the ranks. That's another cousin, Chris. He works with us. Yes, that's the mulita king over there. Right now I'm about to start pulling out the pig's butt. We ended up entering Taco Madness. That was our first competition. We ended up winning best show, so from there, we went to another level. I studied how my dad did it and improved on the areas where he was lacking, and now with all the stuff on the Internet, you can advertise for practically free, you know? My little nieces trip because they look at Instagram. They're like, "Damn, Dude, you have 14,000 followers?

How do you do that?" I say, "I work hard." You know, I look at other people, yeah, they have like 80,000 followers, you know, but my thing is I prefer people to come and try our tacos and then follow us. That way we know if we're doing a good job or not, but I think we're at another level where we've reached out to all ethnicities, you know? Asians, whites, blacks, they're all coming now. So this here is the burnt ends of the pork butt. It has a little skin, some of the mixture, but since the flavor everything falls to the bottom of the pot, all the flavors are there, friend.

This is the crème de la crème. I get here around 6:00. Sometimes I don't get home until 12:00 at night. A lot of work, sometimes 20 hours. If we have a concert, you're talking about a 24-hour shift. Imagine my dad. He worked alone with my mother for a long time. So this is my favorite taco. These are the crumbs. My dad's a teacher for sure, man, and then I learned from a teacher, so that's... that's the cool thing. -Okay, so the customer here ordered two mixed tacos. I always like to start with the pork shoulder. I like to put that as the first layer, pork belly, or what we call maw.

It's nice, tender, a little crunchy, not so much. Then we complete it with the leathers here. Onion, cilantro and green sauce with lemon garnishes. It's an incredible combination. Traditionally, we would just put a jalapeño garnish, but that has faded a bit. People love the toppings on it. -Oh, which one, eenie, meenie, miney... I'll take the crumbs because this one is always my favorite. I've bought from them for years since 2011 when they posted there next to my house on Sixth East First and Avalon, and since I worked around the corner, it's easy and convenient for me to come here and sneak away for a good 20 minutes.

Oh, I hope my boss doesn't get angry. He won't see this. -It's like pure delight, that's all. -The carnitas are soft. The tortillas are delicious. I'm very full right now. -Super delicious, man, I finished it in less than, like, 2 minutes, mmm. -Two more. Actually, he was going to help too. -Alright. Now I'm heating up some tortillas by the pound order. First I put a little lard that we saved, so that's what sets them apart, the tortillas. -I come from a very humble home and we use this to help other people too, you know? ♪ Raised by my mother in the gutter, I don't give a damn ♪ ♪ I never had a brother, we suffocate them ♪ ♪ And we cut them, and we cut them ♪ ♪ Like I gave them a... ♪ Yeah.

I started working for the place after getting out of jail. It's a very positive thing in a negative context, like, you know, not everything is pretty, you know, but here it is. -Great Mario, I didn't have his father. That's my friend Mario for a long time. He is like a father to him. -Hello. -She is another... helper here. We all grew up here, like I said. -This is like a refuge for many people, you know? The doors are open to everyone. It doesn't matter where you come from, your race, you have money or not, you know?

They never let anyone leave here hungry, you know? -That's what's embedded in me. People come and take a sample. "Oh, what, really?" I said, "Yes, take a sample." -Just a mule? -Yes, a mule, please. -Alright. No problem. Mulitas, starting first with a tortilla. Then you have cheese. Then you have the meat, more cheese and another tortilla. It's like our Big Mac. Well, I've been helping since high school, so it's about 16 years that I've been helping them, off and on, but I've seen them grow from the beginning to what they are now. I add the onion on top.

Sometimes I roast the onion as desired, the cilantro, and then I just close it. There you go. You have your little mule like this. That's a mule right there. -Being humble with everyone, working with people, no matter who they are, brought us here in that way. -She had a stroke this year in March. It's been a rough road for us these last few months, but here we still have it here now, you know? That's why I feel like they deserve everything behind what El Momo is right now. They are very affectionate not only because they are my parents, but they are also with everyone.

So I know The Memo will never go extinct, and even though we're not rich or famous, I'll keep pushing, friend, until the wheels fall off or I leave this Earth. ♪♪ ♪♪ -I'll tell him: -Do you need a rhythm? -No, I don't need a heartbeat. -Alright. Here we go. -Here it goes. ♪ Welcome to Carnitas El Momo on Fairmount and Soto ♪ ♪ Right here, we don't show off ♪ ♪ We just take care of our place -- ♪ I don't know.