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Maria Márquez began her Sonoran-style taqueria in 2022 from her home in Oakland, pairing the nearly translucent, lard-glossed flour tortillas she’d been making her whole life with meats grilled open-air over mesquite coals by her husband, Juan Carlos Garcìa. Three years later the business evolved to a food truck parked four days a week in a lot along one of Hayward’s main streets, with a comfortable dining tent set up in the far end. Few things in California life are as rewarding as a taco that hits your senses like the current that turns on the stadium lights. San Francisco Chronicle critic Cesar Hernandez led me to the taco Yaquí, a large tortilla folded around smoky chopped carne asada with refritos (flavored with chorizo and chipotle to double the smokiness) and a grilled Anaheim, its stem a curly tail sticking out from the bundle. Melted cheese had sealed the taco, but I pried it open to splat on smooth avocado sauce and roasted-tomato salsa served in a molcajete. Boom. The menu is short: quesadilla, caramelo, chorreada (made with a crackling corn tortilla drizzled with the rendered, toasted lard called asiento); asada, al pastor, chorizo, tripa. For overkill, the “special burrito” is wrapped in bacon and grilled to crispness. It’s probably something you only need to order once, but it’s there for all the TikTok likes should you choose.
Extra Helpings: On the subject of Sonoran-style taquerias, I must shout out Sonoratown, now with several locations across Los Angeles County, which fills its powdery-butter tortillas with cheese-laced guisados for chivichangas and my favorite burrito in the city with grilled steak or, lately, spiced cabeza.
