Established 1949, there is a good possibility that Bill may not be with us anymore. Back In those times, South Central, as the area was called then, was a bustling site of African American culture & community.
The Dunbar née Somerville Hotel on Central Avenue & 42nd Street was a luxury hotel catering to African Americans at a time when segregation was prevalent before the civil rights era of the late 1950's & 1960's. Dunbar served as a site for high society with luminaries such as Lena Horne, Duke EllIngton, Cab Callowy, Billy Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, etc. Also included are Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall; W.E.B. Dubois, Renaissance man.
With the interior & exterior of the building in homage particularly to Dr. Martin Luther King & what looks like photos of the movers & shakers of the African American community, I will make the assumption that Bill, too, is an African American.
For 1949, Bill was a man w/ a vision to cross ethnic culinary lines by selling Mexican style tacos to what would then be to a majority African American clientele w/ their own rich culinary culture based on Southern roots.
I would like to time travel back to taste Bill's Tacos to see if it hewed closely to Cal-Mex cuisine, or if taste or ingredients were modified for the African American clientele creating a possible "fusion" taco that would predate Roy Choi by over 50 years.
Now Bill is run by Latinos. Tried to order a chicken taco but told that they ran out. The outdoor sign says al pastor, carne asada, but the indoor order board lists no meat choices. They only had ground beef.
The corn tortilla is the standard supermarket packaged larger size unlike getting two smaller taqueria size tortillas. It was grilled w/ an excessive amount of oil so that although it was grilled, it came out half fried & soaked w/ fat.
The ground beef was not molida which is loose. It was basically half patty of hamburger meat possibly seasoned with garlic powder, touch of oregano, black pepper. A strip of velveeta looking yellowish cheese was added.
A thick sauce looking & tasting similar to Denison's chili con carne out of a can was generously slathered directly onto the meat. Iceberg lettuce & chopped tomato was the refreshing note to the heaviness of the hamburger & grease laden tortilla.
I should have not liked this heavy, leaden taco grease bomb, but it has a soothing, comfort food feel not unlike greasy Southern fried chicken or pork belly. Then it suddenly hit me that this might be close to the original formulation of one of Bill's taco creations.
There is definitely a non-Mexican feel to the flavours and the use of a chunk of hamburger meat is something not usually found in Mexican eateries. 3+ Yelp stars for comfort food that seduced even though I resisted.
Hopefully, Yelpers dating to the time that they sampled the actual Bill's tacos can let me know if what I had was close to the real deal. I would appreciate it. read more