About Taco Bamba
 No Alcohol |
 Best for Carryout |
Victor Albisu—who serves up $128 tomahawk rib eyes at Penn Quarter’s Del Campo—is as passionate about feeding the little guy as he is about sating the AmEx black-card set. His often-packed taqueria, where you’re lucky if you can nab one of the few barstools, puts out two kinds of tacos: tradicional and nuestro. In the former camp, there are the usual taco-truck meats: terrific lengua (beef tongue), crisp bits of carnitas, and slow-roasted brisket. The latter category is where Albisu lets himself have a little fun—who’d ever have guessed poutine and bacon worked so well inside a tortilla?
Also good: Arabe taco, with chicken and chipotle yogurt; sopes with carnitas; green pork tamale; corn on the cob with mayo and cotija cheese; torta Cubana, with carnitas, ham, cheese, and jalapeños.
See what other restaurants made our 2016 Cheap Eats list. This article appears in our May 2016 issue of Washingtonian.
Ann Limpert joined Washingtonian in late 2003. She was previously an editorial assistant at Entertainment Weekly and a cook in New York restaurant kitchens, and she is a graduate of the Institute of Culinary Education. She lives in Petworth.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
