Just inside El Gallo Giro is a head full of color: strings of papel picado hung up in mismatched rainbows, booths edged in bright greens and reds and yellows. Out of the speakers comes a head full of music, too, horns casting out triumphant little soundtracks on each entrance. The restaurant is festive almost to a fault, but for a corner lot locked into a dreary stretch of auto body shops and empty lots, it’s the kind of cheer that almost everyone can happily eat up.

Like its sibling spots planted everywhere from Santa Ana to Huntington Park, El Gallo Giro is a full-service place that packs two sides into its L-shaped interior—a restaurant and a bakery. Behind the first counter are cakes and breads, mixers that are stuck wobbling in uneasy circles and rows of pastries that patiently wait to fill up nearby display cases. Around the corner and there’s a counter lined with barrels of aguas frescas, fresh tortillas stacked and bundled for take-home taco making and a kitchen that seems to stretch on forever, each station giving way to more racks of food and more cooks.

But for a place as big as this (there’s even a Ritmo Latino stashed in the back for impulse buys), El Gallo Giro is easily navigable. Other branches of the mini-chain can be confusing with multiple lines set up for each food, a system that leaves clusters of customers scattered all through the restaurant. Here, however, ordering is a pared down process that points you in only one direction: the menu. And so you’re left with no distractions and only the clearest mind to narrow down your meat-heavy options.

El Gallo Giro’s menu is a certain one for those who hound taquerías, but that’s no sign of sagging quality. The tacos are as good as any, wrapped up in those in-house tortillas, stretching to the size of a softball. There’s the excellent kettle-cooked carnitas and a good carne asada, too. Plus tripe and tongue for those who like their meats on the more uneaten path. El Gallo Giro’s burritos are only ordinary, though, unremarkable things just marginally bigger than a taco and bettered by a number of other stops in the city.

The real draw at El Gallo Giro is the torta.

Here the restaurant puts both of its halves to the best use: thick cuts of just-baked bread housing meats scooped from the grill and shoved right into the sandwich. Whatever protein you pick (chicken’s a good choice), make sure your torta has everything on it: lettuce, tomato, avocado, a pepper or two and a slice of queso fresco. Split in half, the sandwich is a slice of pure efficiency, an impossibly layered mix of tricolored ingredients that, even when halved, is nearly as big as any burger.

While all of the tortas are more than filling, some are inevitably more so than others, and El Gallo Giro tops everything with the torta cubana. One of the most popular items on the menu, the torta cubana is a Cuban-style import stacked full with four different meats: a slice of ham, a slab of pork leg, a chunk of breaded milanesa beef and a slice of head cheese, a gelatinous mix of what most would consider those otherwise inedible slivers of meat found, yes, in the head. The head cheese surely turns away some, but put it out of mind and you won’t even notice it—the torta cubana’s bound to bring on enough guilt anyway.

El Gallo Giro doesn’t stop at tortas. The restaurant adds in soups and tamales and a number of antojitos, too—there’s even a limited-time Lenten meal that feeds 12. Of course, there’s also the restaurant’s sugary side, laid out in tempting glass cases near the door—plenty of reason to schedule a separate stop at the place. That’s El Gallo Giro’s hope, after all—that you’ll come back as often as the families that linger outside, children happily rocking away on the mechanical horse until it’s time again to eye all those baked goods.

EL GALLO GIRO 1795 LONG BEACH BLVD | LONG BEACH 90813 | 562.591.3180 | FOOD FOR TWO, $10-20

Tags: el gallo giro, Food, Long Beach, mexican, Reviews, tacos, tortas