Come to Papalote for fish or soy tacos. This is a pescatarian’s dream. Their fish has crack cocaine in it – that’s how good it tastes. I don’t know what magic voodoo they do to the fish, or even what kind of fish they serve. All I know is that the fish is white, buttery, and amazing. The fish tastes so delish on its own that there’s no need fur the guacamole and sour cream supertaco treatment. If you’re not in the mood for fish, come here for soy. Seriously. Soyrizo is mankind’s crowning achievement. It looks like chorizo, tastes like chorizo, except it’s 100% vegan friendly. WTF? How is that even allowed to happen according the laws of physics? Whatever. Don’t question! On top of all that amazingness, they also serve tofu mole. Does it get much better than this? I live down the street. Yeah, you can be jealous of me starting now.

Taqueria Cancun. How much do I love thee? Let me count the ways. One: you’re authentic. Whenever i come here, I see lots of Mexican people, and there’s always a line, and even though I don’t know for sure, because I don’t speak Spanish and have nothing to compare this to, I have a sneaking suspicion I’m getting the real thing. Two: I’ve read lots of reviews, and I see all those awards on the wall from places like the SF Bay Guardian and Citysearch, and I’m easily influenced enough for me to think that this makes it good. Three: Getting a taco here is like eating an entire meal in taco form. The tacos are delicious AND substantial. Four: I love the sour cream. It’s really good. I don’t know why it’s so good. I just love it and I want to put it all over everything I ever eat. Five: It’s local and I’m too lazy to go very far. Six: It’s the best original (not wonky) taco I’ve eaten in SF. I think that makes it enough. I love love love this place. It’s my go-to taco shop.

“We do not use lard,” says the sign in the window of Pancho Villa. I didn’t know that Mexican food used lard until I saw that sign, and I was happy that Pancho Villa alerted me to the fact. Their tacos are interesting, because they put lots of lettuce and tomato, which other places don’t. They are also quite generous with the guacamole (no sliced avocado here) and sour cream. The best part about Pancho Villa are the free spicy carrot things at the salsa bar. They’re great! But something not so good about Pancho Villa is that they aren’t generous at all with their chips. They also steam the tortillas instead of grilling them. Okay, I know my review now sounds like it’s more negative than positive, but there’s just something about Pancho Villa that gets me to return and eat more, even though most of the time I’d pick a different taqueria. For that j’en sais quoi factor, it made my list. And at least it’s healthy.

Taco truck taco truck taco truck. Is there anything better in the world? The tacos are delicious and only $1.75 each. They even sell sesos tacos, which are brains. I don’t eat brains, but it’s impressive that a tiny truck will offer the full range of gnarly meats that a regular taqueria would, like lengua (tongue), sesos, cabeza (head and cheek), verde, and the standard carnitas fair. Another great thing is that this is a taco truck meaning it gets precedence over burritos. Which is great. I have a massive fear of burritos; I only eat tacos. They still sell burritos, but they call it a taco truck. And most people come here for the tacos, and there are less burritos floating around than at a regular taqueria. Best Buy is next door too so if you need some more CD-RWs you can stop there after your Tonayense pit stop.

This place recently won Best of the Bay for their fish tacos. While their Baja style fish tacos (fried fish) are definitely good, I don’t know if I like them better than the sauteed fish tacos at Papalote. However, both are delicious in their own ways. El Metate gets points for actually putting real vegetables on their vegetarian tacos. We are talking squash, carrots, zucchini, lettuce, tomato, and beans, on top of rice. Their rice could have been fluffier (nothing compares to the rice at El Farolito) but their tacos were delicious and cheap. For $7, I got two tacos, plus rice and beans. I was super stoned so it was an amazing little meal. Bonus points for selling bottled Mexican 7 Up, in addition to Mexican Coca Cola. I love the cane sugar in the soda rather than disgusting corn syrup. This place has a dining room and it’s super clean and big and airy, plus has great outdoor seating on Bryant Street. My only qualm is that it’s a big out of the way if you don’t live in Potrero.

Guadalajara has amazing salsa. This place, of all the taquerias I’ve been to, has the best salsa – their spicy green salsa is so rich with avocado compared to the watered down stuff they give you at most other taquerias. Their tortillas are steamed though, and if you want your tortillas grilled, you have to ask them first. I don’t trust places usually that don’t grill their tortillas, but Guadalajara ended up surprising me. It was delicious. They put lettuce and tomato on the taco too, which gives a nice summery crunch. This place is large and clean and located on 24th Street, where the taqueria to people ratio is probably the highest in America. However, Guadalajara manages to stand out due to how good it is. Their tacos are delicious. The ingredients in the taco are evenly placed, which is incredibly important. I ate the top of the taco, with its guacamole heaven and sour cream drenched rice, and by the time I got to the bottom of the taco, there was still guac and sour cream. Completely even. It was amazing. I definitely recommend this place.

Nick’s Crispy Taco’s is probably the only reason to go to Russian Hill. It’s the one taqueria on my list not located in the Mission. The funny thing about Nick’s Crispy Taco’s is that it turns into a nightclub at night, and they shut the restaurant down promptly at 9, whether you’re still eating or not, and the whole place becomes part of a nightclub. Can you imagine telling people you went dancing at Nick’s Crispy Tacos and then took someone home from Nick’s Crispy Taco’s? The way to order a taco here is “Nick’s Way.” Which means you get a hard shell, refried beans in the middle, then a soft shell. Yeah, I know. This is as unauthentic as it gets. It ranks up there with calling P.F. Chang’s “Chinese food.” But it’s delicious. And no culture has a monopoly on delicious, and cheesy American taquerias can serve good food too… just don’t tell anyone you go here regularly. From time to time, though, is perfectly okay. They have $2 taco Tuesday. Maybe you should go to NCT next Tuesday.

This is the dive bar afterparty of all taquerias. First of all, this is THE dirty dirty. Filthy dirty. Their salsa comes out of a trashcan… in the sense that they use a giant plastic trashcan to hold gallons and gallons of salsa. I’ve seen them dump said salsa into their troughs of salsa and I’ve seen grubby men literally stick their hands in the trough to scoop it out, and this is the shared salsa trough that everyone uses, and the amount of human disease matter that’s in there is probably greater than in the laboratories at UCSF Medical School. But when you’re drunk and high, and it’s 3AM, and you need a taco in your mouth or you’ll die on the street, El Farolito is the place to go. Open until 3 AM, everyday. And to ensure your safety, there’s even a police officer who stands outside the door. Not that it would make you feel better knowing there was the necessity for a policeman… oh nevermind. Who cares? Just go.

La taqueria is good. Good good good. This is the one place where I chose to put pinto beans on my veggie taco instead of black beans. Their pinto beans are amazing – I think they cook it in chicken broth, but they are so good that the pescetarian in me can’t be bothered to complain. This makes me sound like the most fair weather pescetarian in the world, but whatever. I don’t come here as much as I should, which is bad of me. Because La Taqueria is hella good, and their tacos are enormous. They’re like baby burritos in the form of tacos. I love the generous portions and I like the prices. Reasonable central. It’s also clean and large inside, and they have outdoor seating, which is really bizarre for a hole in the wall taqueria. By outdoor seating I mean there are two plastic tables outside, but that’s still one step higher on the ritzy ladder than Farolito.

This is hella expensive Mexican food, and part of me hates to admit I enjoy it because I get so much more cred if I just bum around the Mission getting cheap tacos all the time, but once in a while a girl just needs tacos with beer marinated sautéed filet mignon tacos, chiles toreados handmade chile verde corn tortillas, and organic tomato salsa. Or what about tacos with achiote paste, tamarind sautéed shrimp, crispy flour tortilla wrap, black bean puree, baby spinach, crema fresca, roasted chile de arbol sauce? Or tacos with pan seared tuna, sesame seed salsa, jicama salad? Cuz you can get that here. And if you don’t feel like dropping $12 for a specialty taco, you can go next door to their less expensive attached-taqueria, and get 3 tacos for like $5.50—cheaper than even a dump taqueria in the Mission (though admittedly not as authentic). 3 fish abobado tacos for $6 is pretty damn good, authentic or otherwise.

Solid vegetarian tacos, cheap and gets the job done. El Buen Sabor has really good tofu tacos in particular. Being Asian, tofu is really important to me, and when I can get tofu in my taco instead of meat, I’m a happy camper. This tofu is bizarre, because it tastes like giant cubes of cheese, like the kind you get in your saag paneer at Indian restaurants, except it’s 100% soybean tofu. I don’t know how they imbue such a cheesy flavor in the tofu but they make it happen, and it’s magic. I also like how liberal these people are with the sour cream and guacamole. I eat the top of my taco with tortilla chips, then dig into the rest of the taco after the good stuff is scooped away. I love when my taco is 70% sour cream and 30% other so that I can eat the residual fatty material with tortilla chips. That is a very important ritual of taco eating that I always respect. Mmmm, fat.