23551 South Avalon Blvd.
Carson, CA 90745
Okay, I know what you are thinking. Carson? What has brought me to the South Bay? Well, I've become quite obsessed with audiobooks since the middle of last year. Instead of paying for another subscription service, I decided I'd borrow audiobooks through our public libraries.
I had two local library cards already, then I learned that by being a California resident I could get library cards from other areas if I applied for them in person. I found out that the Los Angeles Public Library is the 4th largest in the US, and with the closest branch to me being in Willmington, I decided I'd combo my new library card with a new restaurant review. After some quick research, I found myself at Top Shelf Tacos in Carson.
Top Shelf Tacos is located in the Plaza Avalon shopping center, which is also home to a Domino's Pizza, Fresh Food Ranch Market, and other small retail shops. Like so many before them, Top Shelf started out as street vendors in the South Bay, then came pop-up locations in other restaurants, and then finally in 2015 they opened this storefront.
Their impressive four-and-a-half-star rating with over 1,000 reviews is what drew me to Top Shelf Tacos. The menu is pretty easy to navigate. There are seven protein options, and then you choose how you want to use them; tacos, burritos, loaded fries, nachos, tortas, bowls, sope, or a quesadilla. There's also a shrimp cocktail and ceviche to pick from. Nothing here is more than $14, so I quickly made my selections at the register and waited about five minutes for my number to be called.
I started my meal off at Top Shelf with a trio of tacos. I went with the Birria ($2.50), Al Pastor ($2.50), and the Carnitas ($2.50). As you can see from the pictures above, these tacos come with just a corn tortilla and the meat that you choose. They do have a salsa bar which allows you to dress your own tacos. I tried both the red and green salsa, which both had a decent kick to them, but did not overwhelm the proteins. The best of the bunch for me was the pastor taco. I liked the contrast between the little fatty pieces and the tender meaty slivers. The flavor was spot on as well. The carnitas won the silver medal on this early afternoon, as it also had nice contrasting bits of pork encased in this sturdy corn tortilla. The birria was fine with its flavor profile, but it was a little more on the soupy side of things. Not a bad taco out of the bunch.
On their Yelp page, they get plenty of love for their Top Shelf Fries ($14.50), and after my first few bites, I can understand why. This starts with some fries on the bottom and then they add beans, grated cheese, crema, guacamole, and my protein of choice, carne asada was layered throughout. This did call for tomatoes as well, but I'm not the world's biggest fan of that seeded fruit. These were the best-loaded fries that I've had in recent memory. They were layered nicely, so every bite had a little bit of everything in each forkful. The fries stayed crispy even until the end, which was not actually that long, as I scarfed these down rather quickly. The carne asada was not overcooked like a lot of places tend to do. My only qualm with this was that there could have been a bit more guacamole included, but otherwise, this was a top-notch version of carne asada fries.
Just for good measure, I got an Al Pastor Burrito ($8.50 plus $1.25 for guacamole) for dinner a little later at home. This burrito was good-sized but manageable. The flour tortilla was filled with plenty of that good al pastor that I had in my earlier taco, whole beans, onion, and cilantro. I modified this by omitting the rice that usually comes with this and adding cheese instead. A very good modification if I do say so myself. I did forget to get some extra salsa for this, but it was just fine with some Tapatio that I had in the fridge.
I have to say that Top Shelf Tacos was a pretty solid spot for my library card adventure to nearby Willmington. All the meats that I consumed here were very good, while the carne asada fries were one of the best I have encountered through the run of this blog. If I lived in the area I would definitely have this spot in my heavy rotation at mealtimes. Service was fine, and the dining room was clean and comfortable. I can definitely see myself coming back here when I have to renew my library card, or maybe sooner.
Out of five airplanes, (because the city of Carson hosted the very first air show held in the US way back in 1910), five being best to zero being worst, Top Shelf Tacos gets 3.5 airplanes.
For more information about Top Shelf Tacos, head to their website by clicking here: https://www.topshelftacos.com/
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