I was on KUOW 94.9 this morning as a guest on a show about taco trucks. Unfortunately I was on my cell phone without a landline in sight, so my voice was a little muffled. LosTacoTrucks.com was my first Google maps-based website (can you tell?) and it has been entirely neglected of late for ShackPrices.com. In the early days, we considered a spanglish (or a franglais) name for ShackPrices, but elhouses.com just doesn’t have the right ring or the right feel to it (is it a site for houses in Spanish speaking countries?).

One of my favorite things about Seattle is the boom in immigrant run restaurants that are for other immigrants. Taco trucks are a prime example of this – you couldn’t get anything but americanized Mexican food when I was growing up, but now you can get really good, authentic Mexican food at taco trucks around the city and around the suburbs. And when you go to the trucks, you will be surrounded by Mexican people getting a flavor of home.

There are a lot of other great ethnic restaurants in the Rainier Valley and in White Center. My girlfriend and I went to a great Eritrean restaurant / bar just south of the I-90 – Rainier Avenue interchange the other night – it’s similar to Ethiopian food, but I wouldn’t say that too loudly at the restaurant. If you’ve never been to White Center, I highly recommend visiting the Salvadorian Bakery for dinner. If you’ve already been, you should visit one of the two taco trucks nearby – they’re great.

Here’s the taco truck list if you can’t find one near you on my site: http://kuow.org/resource/weekday/taco_truck_070208.txt. The other guests on the show went for the exotic soups and full meals offered at taco trucks, but I recommend the simple, straight forward items like tacos and tortas.