As we pulled up to the Boyle Heights branch of Carnitas Michoacan, Esparza said, “It’s got a hamburger and a dinosaur on top. Is that a good sign?” No, Bill, no it isn’t. The theme park like outpost of a local chain is open 24 hours, featuring uncomfortable red booths and a Ms. Pac Man machine.

The carnitas ($1.25 per taco) was not cooked in copper pot, as befits Michoacan. They also don’t offer surtido, just dry, desiccated shoulder meat, but they did have gloppy salsa verde, bagged, mealy tortillas and finely minced onion. As far as food goes, there’s nothing sadder than wasted pork, and this taco was so poor it wasn’t even worth finishing.

Tacos Los Guichos is a four-year-old taco wagon that parks in a lot belonging to a hand car wash and window tinting establishment. The siding on the wagon hosts a trio of dancing jalapeños, which should be happy to grace carnitas from their cazo.

As Esparza said, their surtido taco ($1.50) involves “ears, lips, shoulder, esophagus and ribs, oh my.” The meat had the day’s best texture, sticky with pork juices, nice and tender, with the shoulder meat touting the consistency of good pulled pork, along with gelatinous and chewy bits. The diced onion, pico de gallo and tomatillo-jalapeño salsa were all fun, the only element holding the tacos back were the packaged tortillas, which didn’t have the vibrancy of fresh-pressed corn tortillas.

The signage was visually arresting for another reason. Given the porcine provenance, it was hardly a surprise to find Carnitas El Tio’s sign sporting a pig cooking in its own juices in a cazo.

Some people herd sheep, and other people have a higher calling, herding pigs across arid land into a bubbling cazo. This was just one more hilarious image that made Carnitas El Tio interesting.

Cooks loaded each Taco Grande ($1.50) with hacked-to-order shoulder meat, which was boiled then fried, forming crusty bits. No cazo was in evidence. The simple garnish consisted of cilantro, minced onion and a squeeze of lemon. They didn’t have salsa verde, which is preferred with carnitas. Instead they offered salsa ranchera, a mild tomato salsa. This was a fairly simple taco that tasted just fine, but wasn’t fairly one note. Even though we were near the end of our journey, Dave Lieberman persisted and bought a true taco surtido, which had curls of gelatinous skin that added much needed variety to the experience.