Puesto Mexican Street Food is a new taco shop located in the heart of Downtown La Jolla. The concept is fun and simple – you get to chose what you want on your tacos, selecting from a variety of fresh, healthy choices as toppings for your tacos. In addition to tacos, you can get a guisado bowl or a salad as well as a variety of sides and drinks. I was recently invited to come in and check it out for myself – bringing Jake along to help me sample all that Puesto has to offer.

We were greeted by one of the owners – Eric – who showed us the ropes. You start by grabbing a laminated card that shows you all of the possible options – meat choices, toppings, salsas and more. He helped us decide on a few combinations and then we leaned the cards up against the glass divider so the chefs could start making our creations.

[My tacos on the grill]

One of my favorite toppings was the crispy grilled cheese that you can have added to your tacos. They just layer down a good amount of cheese right onto the grill and put your main ingredients onto the cheese. Above  I have the huitlacoche and zucchini flowers on one taco (I decided to try an all veggie one), pork on the other and shrimp on the non-cheesy taco.

[taco fixings]

Toppings and fixings galore!

[Making my salad]

Oodles of salad toppings (including nuts and cranberries and the like). I was surprised to see nuts and cranberries, actually. Especially at a taco shop.

[Mango salsa, Jamaica salsa, and Pistache salsa]

Puesto also offers up some interesting salsas for topping your tacos. I asked for all of the on the side so I could try them before deciding which tacos to put them on. The mango salsa is more like a salsa fresca, with mango, habanero, tomato and cilantro. The Jamaica salsa has hibiscus flowers and chiptole and the Pistache salsa (my favorite) has pistachio and jalapeno in the mix.

These are my creations – all topped with a beautiful slice of avocado. Oh yes!
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