
On The Road With RL Reeves Jr: The Taco Trucks Of Tarrant Alabama
If you want to buy a cheap, wood-frame house, and you don’t mind living in the shadow of the largest merchant producer of foundry coke in the United States, then Tarrant is a good option for you.
There are plenty homes for sale in this part of Alabama for under $40k.

Taqueria Los Primos in Tarrant, Alabama
Enter the taco truck scene. If you’re working in a steel foundry, driving a coal truck, or running a piledriver you need three squares a day, and you need them to be hot, fast and cheap.
My home, New Orleans is the finest eating city in the U.S but you’d starve to death here if you held out for good Mexican food. There is none.
So when I pointed north toward the Deep South last month, I was firmly vectored in on eating multiple tacos on my brief visit.

Tacos at Los Primos in Tarrant, Alabama
My first stop was Los Primos, an outsider fantasy art dream of an old lunch wagon with a vaquero embracing a maiden painted on the backside. A rangy group of military guys is on queue with most men getting a half dozen tacos apiece to tide them over til they can hit the mess hall for supper.
The asada taco will not leave you misty eyed for the late night street tacos of Ciudad Acuña anytime soon. The meat has been chopped so fine that it removes the signature chew of good beef steak.

Los Primos
1400 Pinson Valley Parkway
Tarrant, Alabama
35217
Service is smiling, and carefree. The gals in the truck are happy to be making food for a big group of hungry Americans. All the good old boys holler their compliments as they wolf down their lunch, and peel out of the parking lot in their Dodge and Ford pickup trucks.
My coyote (tourist guide) beckons me back to the car with promise of another truck just up the road a piece “Not quite as good but definitely worth a visit” he claims.

Gorditas Mary Taqueria in Tarrant, Alabama
Al pastor is tricky. You have to give it a thorough marinade for the flavor to penetrate the pork shoulder but if you leave it in too long the meat gets shaggy from the brine. Gorditas Mary walks the tightrope with aplomb. The pork here is juicy and redolent with achiote and pineapple. Unfortunately the tortillas are store bought but when the meat tastes this good I don’t even care.
A lengua taco is not of the same caliber as the al pastor.

Gorditas Mary serves the finest al pastor I’ve ever eaten in Alabama
Tarrant is the wild, wild west. Drug dealing is common and done out in the open. Gun fights are frequent, hookers brazenly walk the side streets, and the big coke plant puts off giant, intense flares when the company brass sees fit to burn off some emissions.

Gorditas Mary
1800 Pinson Valley Parkway
Tarrant, Alabama
35217
Alabama’s food scene is all the better for it.
Los Primos
1400 Pinson Valley Parkway
Tarrant, Alabama
35217
Gorditas Mary
1800 Pinson Valley Parkway
Tarrant, Alabama
35217

Rusty Mize, chowhound, trencherman and authority on the Birmingham food scene
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