Sr. Cliff's Texas Style Burritos — Restaurant in Compton

For me, there is no more interesting "regional" taco in Los Angeles than the "black taco," a type of taco that has been invented and evolved over the past 40+ years in black neighborhoods located within the urban sprawl beginning in South Central Los Angeles and ending in Compton. Black tacos have their own unique distinctive style, look, taste, and nomenclature, yet are not found outside of this micro-region.

Don't get me wrong, there are different varieties of black tacos, but the basics are a tortilla (usually a white corn tortilla, but flour can be used as well) filled with ground beef or turkey, lots of shredded yellow cheese, lettuce, diced tomatoes, and either sour cream or some kind of sweet barbecue-like "sauce" or both. There are no onions or cilantro in a typical black taco. Sr. Cliff's "Turkey Taco" is what I just described, with seasoned clumps of ground turkey that are grilled until they're browned and deposited into a soft corn tortilla with tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and sour cream.

Sr. Cliff's can also serve their tacos with onions and cilantro on double corn tortillas, eschewing all of the other toppings. They call this "Mexican-style." I ordered a "Ground Beef Taco" of this variety, and it was exactly what you would expect it to be, though the grilling technique that Sr. Cliff's cooks use for their ground meats imparts plenty of flavor due to the thick browning picked up through the process. Nonetheless, these are not much more than the kind of tacos that have made billions of dollars over the past 80 years for General Mills' "Old El Paso" brand.

However, the combination of soul food and Mexican food on the menus of black-owned restaurants continues to evolve black tacos in South L.A. and Compton. These neighborhoods, once predominantly black, have become more racially mixed over the past few decades, with Compton now being the home to more Latinos than any other race. As Hispanics migrated into these neighborhoods, restaurants previously only serving blacks wisely began offering Mexican dishes on their menu. For example, Sr. Cliff's offers menudo and pozole.

The next step, of course, was integration between both sides of the menu. The "Soul Man Taco" served at Sr. Cliff's uses pastrami in addition to ground beef for its meat, and has similar toppings to their regular black taco, but it also comes with a legit salsa roja on the side that wouldn't be out of place in a Boyle Heights taqueria. The woman who served it to me was a Latina, as were the cooks in Sr. Cliff's kitchen. Indeed, Sr. Cliff's "Soul Man Taco" veers towards an intriguing direction for black tacos, using and combining ingredients that one wouldn't think to combine in a taco, but make sense due to local culture.

Having been in operation since 1975, owned and run by Cliff Williams the entire time, this is a historic restaurant that prides itself in serving "real food for real people," and has evolved with the times. Sr. Cliff's may not have invented the black taco, nor do they make the best black taco in L.A., but this is probably the best restaurant to go to for understanding what black tacos are, and how they have become essential eats in the communities they can...

I had been hearing about this place for years and finally had the chance to go and try out the food at Sr. Cliffs. My mother and I ordered burritos. The price is okay for the size and girth of the burritos. First thing that caught me off guard was the small size of the place. There is no parking really, just a dirt area that is so small you can't even turn your vehicle around. This was not a deal breaker though. Second thing was, this is supposed to be an Afro-Mexican fusion diner yet there were NO BLACK PEOPLE working there. They were speaking Spanish back and forth while the fry-cooks in the back glared at me as if I didn't belong there. I didn't get the Southern Hospitality feel, one would expect after hearing the pitch of a black owned, southern grown establishment in the advertisements. Raises an eyebrow.

The flavor and tenderness of the proteins we chose were perfect, however, they did not put all of the fixings in either of our burritos. The menu stated that all burritos come with cheese, rice, beans, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, cilantro and salsa which I confirmed with the cashier. The only thing we excluded were the beans. We received the burritos and they were heavy so we didn't think to check anything. We drove all the way back to El Segundo, CA only to find that our burritos were stuffed with RICE AND MEAT... NOTHING ELSE.

We were extremely disappointed because stuffing a burrito and taco with ALL the TRIMMING is what sets the "Black Taco and burrito" apart from the basic taco and burrito. My family has been in Ca, particularly LA and Compton for generations and most tacos have meat, onions and salsa, and burritos have meat, beans, cheese and salsa, sometimes rice. It was too much to drive all the way back and too late to call as the place had already closed, so we bit the bullet and gave the food away. This was a waste of $42 for two "Baby" burritos that we didn't eat. Don't think we'll be going back. Sucks because we took a few bites and the...

So I came here with my friend and we ordered two fish tacos, one each. It took about 20+ mins to get this food. As I began to get frustrated my friend informed me that this was one of their more popular dishes, which only added to my impatience. If this is your most popular dish then you should be able to make it faster, right? However, we noticed as we picked up our food, this girl was working all by herself! The window and making the food, poor baby. If they're not hiring, they need to be. The tacos we're good but not 20min wait good. Get it together y'all, you have so much potential.

Also, there's only outside seating, no...