I ate more than 70 tacos while reporting on our recent 101 Best Tacos package. Along with my colleagues, there were hundreds. For weeks, I drove around the city, at all hours of the day and night, eating at stands, trucks and restaurant counters. And of all the tortilla specialties I encountered, the tacos that stuck with me the most are not on the list.
By the time I tried the shrimp tacos at Maestro restaurant in Old Pasadena, the 101 favorites had already been decided. So I'm going to use this column to defend the wet tacos, now.
These aren't tacos served with a cup of consommé, like the ones you'll find at the countless birria places. These are tacos soaked in broth, damp as your clothes after a front-row ride on Splash Mountain.
“We tell people it’s a wet taco when they order it,” says Maestro owner Sergio Martinez. “Some people eat it with a fork and knife, others use their hands.”
The two tacos sit side by side in a bowl, forming a perfect circle. They're filled with plump shrimp, melted Monterey Jack cheese and potatoes, all inside a thick, soft corn tortilla. On top and around is a red broth packed with diced carrots and potatoes. Piled on top and almost obscuring the tacos is a mound of coleslaw and pico de gallo.
Shrimp tacos from Maestro restaurant in Old Pasadena.
(Master Restaurant)
When I shared my findings with the rest of the kitchen team, people were perplexed. Are they from a specific area of Mexico? Do tacos get wet? Are they really moist? How do you eat them?
“We talked about making a shrimp broth,” Martinez said. “We ended up making shrimp tacos with real broth.”
He and executive chef Jaritza Gonzalez combined the two dishes and introduced tacos to the menu in early 2023. It’s a warm stew of seafood, cheese tacos and coleslaw all tossed together in a bowl that registers a solid 10 on the scale, right up there with shepherd’s pie and meatballs.
The shrimp broth that drowns tacos is a rich shrimp broth made from slow-cooked shrimp shells.
The tortillas, made with Kernel of Truth's organic masa, are plumper than most, just the right thickness to survive the onslaught of broth. They're chewy but not tough, and taste like pure corn. The longer they sit in the broth, the more they act like a sponge, soaking up the flavor of the shrimp and the sweetness of the carrots.
I looked at my cutlery and shook my head. I would eat with my hands. I pulled one of the tacos out of the broth and took a bite. The red liquid slid obediently down my chin and forearms. Pieces of shrimp and potato spilled out the back, despite the unnatural angle of my head. The fork and knife proved more productive, but less fun. I swapped bites of taco with sips of broth.
It's a surprising sequence of textures and temperatures: the warm broth, the cheese, the soft, soggy tortillas, and the crisp, freshness of the coleslaw. A bit of the Monterey Jack cheese from the tacos spilled into the broth, creating blobs of melted cheese that I scooped out like treasure with my spoon.
An order of tacos ahogados from Maestro Restaurant in Pasadena.
(Master Restaurant)
These aren't the restaurant's only wet tacos. Tacos ahogados have been on the menu since Maestro opened in 2017.
“This is predominantly in Jalisco, in Guadalajara, it is served in broth,” Martinez said.
These are excellent tacos on their own, boiling hot when they arrive at the table, crispy and brimming with shredded chicken. But the real star is the broth underneath, made from the liquid used to cook the chicken. Seasoned simply with fresh lime juice, it's the kind of elixir I imagine cures the flu.
“I always tell my guests that there is no wrong way to eat it,” she said.
You're not wrong, although one of the methods will probably require the restaurant's entire stock of paper napkins.
To see our full list of tacos, click here. Let me know if we missed your favorite. I'd love to go try it.
