If you ask anybody that loves Mexican Food, they’ll tell you, without any doubt, their favorite place for salsa. I know I have my favorite spots. Some like fancy restaurants and others like taco shops. I prefer taco shops. Here, in San Diego, you can find hundreds of Mexican Restaurants (if not thousands) and they all have different tasting salsa. The shady taco shops have this orange type salsa that is delicious. These taco shops with the orange type salsa tend to end in “to’s”…like “Roberto’s”, “Alberto’s” and there is even a “Albertacos”, which seems to be a combination of “Alberto” and “Tacos” and their food is out of this world including their salsa.

You can find Albertacos in Orange County and San Diego. The one characteristic that is true about any good taco shop is that it will be busy (and I mean a 20 minute wait in a long line) around 2am (when the bars and clubs let out). If you go to a taco shop and there isn’t a line, keep on driving. A favorite late night spot in San Diego is El Cotixan…called Coti’s for short. If you go there, get the California Burrito (a carne asada burrito with either potato chunks or french fries) and the Nachos. Isn’t this story about salsa? So, back to salsa, the restaurants tend to have chunkier salsa with big chunks of tomatoes and onions. Probably healthier and definitely very tasty. Everybody has tried taco bell salsa and I guess people like it. Have you seen Taco Bell hot sauce at the grocery store? Isn’t that strange? Is Taco Bell hot sauce really so good that it should be bottled and sold at the grocery store? Same goes for El Torito salsa. I think some of these salsas from taco shops would do quite well in grocery stores.

However, we should make a distinction between salsa and hot sauce. I tend to like hot sauce more than I like salsa. You can’t really eat salsa with a taco or with a burrito. It’s too chunky and not hot enough for my liking. Hot sauce is definitely lighter and tangier and definitely hotter. There are stores that specialize in hot sauces. There is the “Tears of Joy” hot sauce store and The Sweat Shop, which both can be found online and many others on the web. Since San Diego is so close to Mexico, I’ve heard of people driving down to Tijuana and eating at the taco carts on the street. I’ve never done this, but i’ve heard they are really good and cheap. There is a place in San Diego (National City) where they specialize in pork stomach tacos. I can’t remember the name now, but if you know it, please email me.

I’d probably have to have extra hot hot sauce with my pork stomach taco, but i’ve heard they are really good. I’ve heard Mexican food on the east coast of the United States is not very good. I wonder if it’s good, but different or just not good at all. I know that Mexican food varies from region to region within the United States, but I haven’t tried Mexican food outside of California. Please write me and let me know what’s good in your neighborhood. Regardless of where you are from, hot sauce and salsa are probably one of your favorite condiments.

Summary : From sit-down restaurants to shady taco shops and everywhere in between…who has the best salsa?