{"id":80601,"date":"2023-12-21T09:50:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=80601"},"modified":"2023-12-21T09:53:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:53:40","slug":"sonoratown-is-bringing-its-famed-northern-mexican-tacos-to-downtown-long-beach-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/sonoratown-is-bringing-its-famed-northern-mexican-tacos-to-downtown-long-beach-in-2024","title":{"rendered":"Sonoratown is bringing its famed Northern Mexican tacos to Downtown Long Beach in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Sonoratown co-owners Teo Diaz and Jennifer Feltham, creating the best Northern Mexican taco in the heart of LA will probably be a life-long journey.<\/p>\n

They say the traditional flour tortilla and a certain style and cut of meat is impossible to exactly replicate so many miles away from the source.<\/p>\n

But those challenges haven’t stopped them from creating a taqueria so popular that people have flocked from all over the county to try it. This year, it once again made L.A. Times food critic’s Bill Addison’s 101 Best Restaurants<\/a> list.<\/p>\n

Soon, Long Beach residents will no longer have to bother with the 405 to try it. The taqueria is opening its third location in Downtown Long Beach next year within the former Under the Sun space, as first reported<\/a> by L.A. Taco.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Under The Sun in Downtown Long Beach, Tuesday Dec. 19, 2023. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The area around the Mosaic Promenade and Third Street has seen less foot traffic and activity ever since Portuguese Bend, Lupe\u2019s De La Mar and Under the Sun closed this year, but Diaz and Feltham are hopeful that Sonoratown will help reawaken the corridor.<\/p>\n

The couple have a special connection to Long Beach. It’s where they spent their time together when they first began dating 18 years ago while Diaz was studying civil engineering at Cal State University Long Beach.<\/p>\n

“In the first month I knew him, he took me to his hometown to eat tacos,” Feltham said. “It’s like a six-hour drive and I thought he was really weird. I thought this was kind of crazy just to get something to eat, but when I tried them, I understood.”<\/p>\n

Diaz is from San Luis R\u00edo Colorado, Sonora, a border town in Northern Mexico, where flour tortillas are used and carne asada grilled over mesquite wood fire. Since living in the States, Diaz had been missing that unique, distinctly regional taco that was so special to him.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A taco and grilled burrito from Sonoratown, which will open its third location in Long Beach next year. Photo courtesy of Sonoratown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2016, they decided to open their first Sonoratown location in the heart of Downtown LA hoping to provide a small taste of home for those from the region and educate others about Northern Mexican cuisine. The pair had over 27 years of service industry experience before opening their first restaurant. It would be an entirely new adventure for them.<\/p>\n

That adventure began with a mission to create the tacos of Diaz\u2019 hometown, which required some help from his brother-in-law, Javier Campas. For the first year, the restaurant was open Campas lived with the couple as they worked together to craft a menu.<\/p>\n

One of their first challenges was getting the right meat and nailing down the proper method of cooking it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Northern Mexico, you don’t use any flavoring or anything, it’s just the good quality meat with salt,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cIt gets its flavor from the mesquite smoke so it’s really simple food, but good quality ingredients.<\/p>\n

In Mexico, beef is butchered differently than in the U.S., so the restaurant combines two different cuts of meat to replicate the taco filling down south.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cut it this way so you can get a bit of meat and a bit of fat and it’s not like you’re chewing on it or it\u2019s unpleasant, but it has so much more flavor,\u201d Feltman said.<\/p>\n

Their other challenge was the tortilla.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were driving to Mexico to bring [back] sacks of flour,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cWe kept doing that drive up to the point where it was just unsustainable because we were getting so popular.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mills in Mexico they were driving to didn\u2019t want to deal with importing their flour, Diaz said. Eventually, the couple had to work with local millers to find the right blend that would produce the type of tortilla they wanted.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Made from scratch flour tortillas served at Sonoratown, which will open its third location in Long Beach next year. Photo courtesy of Sonoratown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The couple needed the right flour tortilla, but store-bought tortillas were not an option. Making their flour tortillas from scratch with lard was a gamble. People questioned if they were an \u201cauthentic\u201d Mexican taqueria.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery specific region has its specialties and the more we’re able to tell people that and get people on board it’ll just open up their minds to eating in general,\u201d Feltham said.<\/p>\n

Despite these challenges, the restaurant has rapidly grown in popularity. The couple opened a second location in LA last year and will open up its third there next year.<\/p>\n

But the pair have had their eyes on Long Beach from the beginning.<\/p>\n

Although their Long Beach location is opening in an area that has seen businesses struggle and eventually close over the past few years, they are confident in the potential. For them, it\u2019s not too dissimilar to the feeling they had when they opened in Downtown LA seven years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a community hub in the way that it was intended so hopefully if we can be a part of any of that,\u201d Feltman said. \u201cI don’t mean to say that it’s gonna be only us, but if we can have a hand in it in some way that would feel really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sonoratown will be at <\/i>244 E. Third Street. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Teo Diaz and Jennifer Feltham, creating the best Northern Mexican taco in the heart of LA will probably be a life-long journey. Since they opened Sonoratown, they believe they’ve come close. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":314,"featured_media":80605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[312,32283],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[32152],"class_list":["post-80601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-downtown","tag-sonoratown","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80601"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80611,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80601\/revisions\/80611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80601"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=80601"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=80601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}