The most L.A. corner of the internet

Before running L.A. Taco, Javier Cabral was a teenage food blogger. Now he’s building the kind of internet he always wanted to read.

Javier Cabral is the editor-in-chief of L.A. Taco, a culture site covering life (and tacos) in Los Angeles. He talks about starting out as a teenage food blogger, going deep on espresso Reddit, and being fully prepared to defend his take that carnitas should never be topped with salsa.

What was the first online community you engaged with?

Back in 2007 — before Instagram, Yelp, when the first cameras on phones were just starting to come out — I started a food blog called Teenage Glutster. I was 16. And my first community was people who commented on my writing. It was not vitriolic… it was very supportive. Things are different now, but over the years, I figured out how to respond or not respond to trolls, to message boards, to random comments online. Back then I would just walk by restaurants, grab menus, study them and write about them. And yes, the blog is still up.

What is your favorite corner of the internet?

Well, you have to realize that when you ask the editor of an independent online publication, the internet starts to become all work and errands. It gets harder and harder to use it for fun.

So my favorite corner is wherever I can decompress. After publishing stressful stories— obituaries, stuff that could get us sued — I just want to chill. That’s when I’m scrolling Reddit. Lately, I’ve been on the Marzocco subreddit. My wife just got me a Marzocco espresso machine. It’s this very professional, expensive, stupid-high-quality machine that requires finesse. If you use the wrong tamp, you void the warranty. But there’s an art to it, like pulling a perfect shot of espresso. That subreddit has been my go-to for about six months. It’s just cool to have the internet be a place that isn’t dread or trolling or deadlines.

It's getting so hard to have good, clean thrills in our lives. You know, in a world where everything feels like slow self-destruction, this hobby feels wholesome. The machine is expensive, and it just went up in price because of tariffs, but I’ve already pulled hundreds of shots. I know folks who love the ritual of walking to their local shop. I respect that. But you can also develop that same ritual at home and build a real passion around it.

So yeah, that’s my current little corner of the internet.

What is an internet deep dive that you can't wait to jump back into?

I oversee a publication, so I'm always watching to see what performs. But it gets harder to predict what’ll take off. The news cycle moves fast, especially with things like Trump, AI, doomscrolling.

I’m especially interested in why people are willing to pay our membership rate — it’s like $6/month — to find out things like the top 25 breakfast burritos in L.A. That’s part of what I want to keep doing deep dives into — readership insights and what those patterns actually mean right now.

Also, the relationship between creators and journalists. I’m sensing a real divide. But creators need what journalists need: engagement, attention, readers. Where can we meet in peace? I want to keep researching that.

I went to community college for journalism, and things were already changing fast then. I can only imagine what it’s like for students now. But they still want to write and create with ethics and integrity. That’s the future of journalism.

What is the one tab you always regret closing?

I always say to myself, “Okay, I’m going to shut my computer at 5 p.m. and be a normal human.” But it rarely happens. There’s always another story, another case, something I have to get done. So I always regret closing my browser in general. Even after you finish a story and send it off to socials, there’s usually something you forgot.

What can you not stop talking about on the internet right now?

Tacos. I was just on The Dave Chang Show, and I’m getting a lot of heat for what I said. I said carnitas aren’t meant to be eaten with salsa. You’re supposed to eat them with jalapeño in vinegar. That sparked a lot of reactions. But I stand by everything I publish. I’m always prepared to defend it in a dark alley, if needed.

Today they published another clip where I was actually defending Dave Chang. He said you should only order tacos four at a time so they stay hot. That way, when you're ready, you can go back and get another round fresh. People were upset about that too.

But yeah. Two decades later, I still can’t stop talking about tacos online.

If you could create your own corner of the internet, what would it look like?

I already feel like I’ve created it with L.A. Taco because I’m the editor-in-chief. Every story is something I believe in. Either I wrote it or I wanted to read it.

Still, I’d expand it. I’d love to do more travel guides. I’ve always admired travel writers. I have friends who do it, and I’ve always wanted to do what they do. I’m actually working on a big guide right now for Ensenada.

Also, we started the L.A. Taco Media Lab. We’re working with younger students and aspiring journalist-creators. We want to help them get their first bylines. I used to do that all on my own. Now we have the framework to help more people do it.

The internet is better when we hear from everyone, not just the same old voices.

What articles and/or videos are you waiting to read/watch right now?

I’ve bookmarked a piece from Columbia Journalism Review about how journalists and newsrooms are using AI. I don’t want to be a grouch about AI. I also don’t want to surrender to it. Navigating [that tension] is something I care a lot about.

What’s the most L.A. corner of the internet?

L.A. Taco. We’re holding it down. No shame in saying that.

When we gather at membership events, it’s clear we represent the L.A. I fell in love with. A place where tacos unite people. A place where we do real reporting, research, fact-checking. Stories we talk about with our friends and families.

There’s nothing like this anywhere else. Not even in Mexico. Here, we have the power of the free press. And people always want to know where the best tacos are.

L.A. is hands down the taco capital of the U.S. No contest. Not Chicago, not San Francisco, not Texas, not New York. We’re at the forefront.

So yes, L.A. Taco is the most L.A. corner of the internet. No doubt about it.