Tacos in Philly, finally

Elisa Ludwig has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about where to get 'em:

Is there such a thing as too many tacos? Twenty years ago, there was nary an authentic tortilla to be found in Philadelphia. Ten years ago, we got our first taste of the real deal, with the expansion of the local Mexican population and mom-and-pop shops in South Philadelphia.
In 2013, the new school has arrived: three taquerias (Shifty's Taco, Taqueria Feliz, and Union Taco) opening in a span of six months, with at least one more (Calexico) slated before the end of the year.
We could blame Roy Choi. The Los Angeles, California chef started the kim chi taco trend back in 2009, and here we are, almost five years later, with an explosion of cross-cultural hybrids.
Or we could blame Jose Garces for running traditional flavors through a chef's paces at Distrito.
Or we can look at the way upscale street foods, first by truck and now by storefront, are starting to dominate the local restaurant scene, as people hunger for anything fast, handheld, and inexpensive.
Maybe it's just a corporate thing. "I think the explosion of places like Chipotle have made the average American much more familiar with Mexican food, and that exposure has helped the rest of us," says Zack Shell, who ran El Fuego before opening Shifty's.
No matter how the current state of affairs came to pass, it's an exciting time to be toasting chiles in Philly.
"If there was a divide between Mexican food cooked by Mexicans and Mexican food adapted by Americans, that line is getting blurred," says Lucio Palazzo of Taqueria Feliz (photo). "It's a scene within the food scene and you hear an exchange going on: 'What are you putting in your mole? How do you make your carnitas?' It used to be that a lot of the authentic ingredients, especially the herbs, were hard to find, but now you can easily get epazote, grasshoppers, a much wider variety of chiles" at local Latin markets.
Even as local Mexican food has gotten more authentic, it has also gotten more chef'ed up, amplifying the age-old recipes with technique and unexpected flavors.
Shell cooks up a seitan taco that's slathered with a pomegranate-molasses mole, bringing a bit of Middle Eastern flavor to the proceedings. A panko-crusted chicken nugget taco, with iceberg lettuce, ranch dressing, and Mornay sauce, takes the hybridization in too many geographic directions to count, but is nonetheless delicious.
"We're American guys making Mexican food, and we'll just do what we think is interesting and fun and not taking it too seriously," Shell says.
Likewise, at Union Taco, the motto is actually "where the gringo meets the street," and chef-owner Nick Farina embraces the blank tortilla as a canvas for exploration. "We'll use Kobe beef for our ground-meat taco and pork cheeks for our carnitas. We might go a little more high-end or in-depth with our preparation, a little more extravagant with our ingredients. And because it's a taco, I can give you something nice and fun at a reasonable price."
Yet there are, of course, limits to what can constitute a "taco", and not everyone can Roy Choi their way to innovation. Going too far outside of the foundation of a simple braised meat, a few sprigs of cilantro, and a lime wedge can verge on trying-too-hard or gimmicky at best, inedible at worst.
Wary of bastardization, Lucio Palazzo hit a crossroads in his study of Mexican cuisine several years back, when he read a review on Yelp that said: Just because you put something on a tortilla doesn't mean it's a taco. "Something about it really struck me. My background up until then was eclectic, but that comment made me think." As a result, Palazzo decided he wanted to hew closer to tradition, and he has used that Yelp question as a litmus test when planning the menu for Taqueria Feliz: there's barbacoa, lamb shoulder and belly rubbed with a guajillo chile paste, wrapped in banana leaves, and steam-roasted; and an approximation of al suadero, brisket braised in chiles and evaporated milk.
A separate section of the menu titled comida loco, or "crazy stuff", is reserved for the traditional but less-familiar-to-Americans taco fillings such as lamb hearts, beef tongue, and eventually, grasshoppers.
For Palazzo's part, the authenticity comes from something deeper than the flavor. "At the end of the day, it will never taste exactly the same as what you'd get on the street in Mexico City, but you can get the intensity, the soul of the dish, and that's what matters. Authenticity in and of itself isn't the ultimate goal. But we think about the texture, the mouthfeel, how it holds up in the hand; these are important distinctions."
And those odd bits on the menu? They're turning out to be the biggest sellers, he says.
"I guess people are just ready for these foods now. Or maybe somehow, when it's on a taco, it's a little easier to swallow."

Rico says he can hardly wait... (But not for grasshoppers, thank you.)