Sr. Cliff's Texas Style Burritos

Rosella Young

Just had the hard shell turkey tacos and enjoyed every bite. First time going to Senior Cliffs and will be going back! Gotta try the burrito next. Thanks TammiMac @ KJLH!😍

Tyler Cole (teeeteeee)

Love Cliffs, Bomb Food So Many Choices “They Also Cater” Been Around Since I Was A Student At COMPTON HIGH & THE FOOD QUALITY HASNT GONE DOWN. EBT HOTMEAL PROGRAM ACCEPTED AS WEll . HAPPY CUSTOMER

Jay Keyes

For me, there is no more interesting "regional" taco in Los Angeles than the "black taco," a type of taco that has been invented and evolved over the past 40+ years in black neighborhoods located within the urban sprawl beginning in South Central Los Angeles and ending in Compton. Black tacos have their own unique distinctive style, look, taste, and nomenclature, yet are not found outside of this micro-region. Don't get me wrong, there are different varieties of black tacos, but the basics are a tortilla (usually a white corn tortilla, but flour can be used as well) filled with ground beef or turkey, lots of shredded yellow cheese, lettuce, diced tomatoes, and either sour cream or some kind of sweet barbecue-like "sauce" or both. There are no onions or cilantro in a typical black taco. Sr. Cliff's "Turkey Taco" is what I just described, with seasoned clumps of ground turkey that are grilled until they're browned and deposited into a soft corn tortilla with tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and sour cream. Sr. Cliff's can also serve their tacos with onions and cilantro on double corn tortillas, eschewing all of the other toppings. They call this "Mexican-style." I ordered a "Ground Beef Taco" of this variety, and it was exactly what you would expect it to be, though the grilling technique that Sr. Cliff's cooks use for their ground meats imparts plenty of flavor due to the thick browning picked up through the process. Nonetheless, these are not much more than the kind of tacos that have made billions of dollars over the past 80 years for General Mills' "Old El Paso" brand. However, the combination of soul food and Mexican food on the menus of black-owned restaurants continues to evolve black tacos in South L.A. and Compton. These neighborhoods, once predominantly black, have become more racially mixed over the past few decades, with Compton now being the home to more Latinos than any other race. As Hispanics migrated into these neighborhoods, restaurants previously only serving blacks wisely began offering Mexican dishes on their menu. For example, Sr. Cliff's offers menudo and pozole. The next step, of course, was integration between both sides of the menu. The "Soul Man Taco" served at Sr. Cliff's uses pastrami in addition to ground beef for its meat, and has similar toppings to their regular black taco, but it also comes with a legit salsa roja on the side that wouldn't be out of place in a Boyle Heights taqueria. The woman who served it to me was a Latina, as were the cooks in Sr. Cliff's kitchen. Indeed, Sr. Cliff's "Soul Man Taco" veers towards an intriguing direction for black tacos, using and combining ingredients that one wouldn't think to combine in a taco, but make sense due to local culture. Having been in operation since 1975, owned and run by Cliff Williams the entire time, this is a historic restaurant that prides itself in serving "real food for real people," and has evolved with the times. Sr. Cliff's may not have invented the black taco, nor do they make the best black taco in L.A., but this is probably the best restaurant to go to for understanding what black tacos are, and how they have become essential eats in the communities they can be found in.

Zo Mc Clellan

The food here is awesome picked up to two chicken burritos in an all meat burrito I believe they were the king-size version I have enough to eat for three more days the place as nice the employees are beautiful nice parking I had a blast always be back thank you guys