Mission Burrito
San Francisco Mission District-style burrito; large flour tortilla with rice, beans, meat, cheese, sour cream, salsa, guacamole, lettuce ...
Andrew Lekashman
Meximelt
Soft taco with seasoned beef, pico de gallo, and three-cheese blend.
Mexican Pizza
Two fried flour tortillas with beans and beef between, topped with pizza sauce, cheese, tomatoes. Cult following.
Memela
Thick oval corn masa base; topped with beans, salsa, cheese. Similar to sope but different shape/region.
Machete
Very long quesadilla; named for its machete-like shape, made with fresh masa.
Los Angeles Burrito
LA style; often smaller than Mission style, variety of regional Mexican fillings.
Lonche
In Jalisco a lonche is a birote sandwich with the salsa held back. Flood the same bread and it becomes a torta ahogada. The crumb, soured into existence during a 19th-century war, is built for both.
Lobster Taco
A whole Pacific spiny lobster split and fried in pork lard, served with a basket of warm flour tortillas the diner wraps themselves; Puerto Nuevo signature.
Korean Taco
Korean barbecue meat in a Mexican tortilla: sweet charred bulgogi or galbi metered by a soft tortilla and sharpened by kimchi and gochujang. Born on the Kogi truck in LA in 2008.
Korean-Mexican Taco
Korean barbecue meat on a small soft Mexican tortilla, dressed with kimchi, a gochujang salsa, and toasted sesame: the Los Angeles cross-cuisine build the Kogi BBQ truck pioneered in November 2008.
Kimchi Quesadilla
The kimchi quesadilla cooks the ferment down in butter before it meets the cheese, so the fold crisps instead of weeping. A Kogi BBQ creation from Los Angeles, 2008, the plainest of its quesadillas.
Impossible/Beyond Taco
A taco built on a manufactured crumble, where Impossible leans on brewed soy leghemoglobin to brown like beef and Taco Bell tested whether anyone would notice the swap.
Huarache
The huarache is a long, flat oval of corn masa named for a sandal, dressed across its whole surface so the base is half the eating rather than a wrapper for the topping.
Huarache con Suadero
The huarache con suadero sets confited rose-colored beef on a sandal-shaped masa oval, a form Carmen Gómez Medina invented at a Mexico City canal stall in the early 1930s.
Huarache con Bistec
The huarache con bistec is the steak build of the sandal-shaped masa platform: thin beef seared fast and chopped small, pinned to a long bean-smeared oval of corn.
Hot Dog Tijuanense
Tijuana's late-night cart dog: a bacon-wrapped frank seared on the comal, piled with grilled onions and chiles, striped with mayo, mustard, and ketchup. The build California calls the danger dog.
Hot Dog Mexicano
The everyday Mexican street dog: a griddled, often bacon-wrapped frank turned into the base of a built condiment pile, dressed from squeeze bottles and bins. Jocho in the center, dogo in the north.
Hot Dog Jumbo
Two things make a northern Mexican dog Sonoran: pinto beans down its length and a sturdy split roll built to carry them. The jumbo is that build dropped onto a supermarket's oversized sausage.
Hot Dog Hawaiano
Pineapple over griddled pork is no new idea in Mexico, and the hot dog hawaiano knows it: a bacon-wrapped Sonoran frank carrying the same sweet-and-salt turn the trompo already perfected for tacos al.
Hot Dog Estilo Sonora
The Sonoran hot dog spirals a frank in bacon, griddles it in its own fat, drops it into a fat split-top bolillo, and loads it with warm pinto beans, tomato, onion, and a roasted güero chile.
Hot Dog de Carreta
A bacon-wrapped frank built to order on a Hermosillo pushcart, the carreta, where one griddle cooks the dog, the onions, and the bun together and the line is what keeps it hot.
Hot Dog con Queso
The Mexican street hot dog where cheap melted queso amarillo, not bacon or a stretchy fresh cheese, does the binding. Poured molten over a griddled frank and topped with onion, jalapeno, and mustard.