Sorry for necro-ing, but I am brand new here, and love cooking... which means I'm probably going to be necro-diving through a lot of posts in this sub-forum.
On-topic: Unfortunately, its very hard to replicate taqueria flavors at home. The kind of gross, but real truth, is that a TON of the flavor comes from well-seasoned flat-tops and/or pans from years of meat being cooked on it in high volume. Not to mention the recycled lard from making carnitas.
Now, what you
can do to get as close as possible, is make sure you've got some color on your meat! So many home-cooks wind up steaming their taco meat because they just want to quickly cook it and be done with it. As soon as its not pink, even though it's still swimming in juice, they add their seasoning and call it a day. No bueno. You need to cook all the extra water off, and get that meat caramelized! Add some diced onion and cilantro, el pato, or make your own salsa, and a squeeze of lime. Good to go.
