Posted by ninalalli, October 23, 2008 at 11:30 AM
As a New York kid, I regarded Staten Island only as a strange place where one visited elderly Italian relatives a few times a year. A place where dimly-lit, doily-strewn rooms had their own color themes and frilly glass dishes of ancient hard candies sat on coffee tables. Eating out on the Island was exotic, in its way—this is where I learned that spaghetti could be a side dish.
Now I'm all grown up and the old ladies have moved on to boroughs in the sky, but I'm still compelled to travel to Staten Island to eat, on occasion—much to my own surprise. The fare is more likely to be enjoyed standing up, though, and without a giant spoon for twirling noodles. Victory Boulevard, in Tomkinsville, a short stroll from where the ferry spits you out in Saint George, is home to a handful of Mexican delis and taquerias well worth the boat ride.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, October 10, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Editor's note: On October 18th, street vendors from all around the city will converge on the Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo, Brooklyn for this years Vendy Awards. Tickets are only $80 and every penny goes to benefit the Street Vendor Project, a non-profit organization that fights for the rights of sidewalk vendors in New York City. Every day this week we will profile one of the five finalists, and the food they will be serving up at the competition.
The Kwik Meal cart isn't the only repeat nominee at this year's Vendy Awards. The Calexico Cart is a veteran competitor as well, having been a finalist in 2006. And, as Ed Levine pointed out, they are also the only "hipster" cart—having more in common with the new breed of fancy pants carts and trucks than the traditional halal and hot dog vendors that make up most of the city's street food options. In a lot of ways Calexico was the O.G. hipster vendor. Started by 3 brothers who were inspired by the nominees at the 2005 Vendy Awards, Calexico serves up California style Mexican food from a cart in the heart of SoHo.
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Posted by Jenn Sit, September 4, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Awhile back—mostly out of the laziness that kept me from venturing anywhere above 14th Street—I made a joke to a friend about having no good places to eat in his Upper West Side neighborhood. Suffice to say, I never heard the end of it from that offended friend (and no, it wasn't Ed). Now, having moved to just a few blocks from said friend, I've found myself eating my words.
And those words are delicious tortas from Taqueria y Fonda la Mexicana.
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Posted by Joe DiStefano, August 29, 2008 at 12:30 PM
During the summer, the stretch of Roosevelt Avenue running through Jackson Heights is lined with vendors selling slices of mango and papaya. Tropical fruits spiked with hot sauce and salt help me cool off, but when it gets real hot I crave something much colder: a paleta. These Mexican popsicles come in much the same flavors as the fruit sold on the street: tamarind, mango, pineapple, cherry, guava, watermelon, etc. In my hood I most often find the Sley brand, which are made in Brooklyn. Until recently my faves were mango and chili, tamarind and chili, and, you guessed it, pineapple and chili. There’s nothing quite like sucking on a pepper-spiked popsicle on a sweltering summer day. I didn’t think it could get any more delicious or weird until yesterday.
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While Mexican restaurant Toloache in Midtown is normally expensive, they're celebrating their birthday today by selling tacos for only $1 each. From 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. three types of $1 tacos will be available: Pollo (chicken breast adobado, pico de gallo, manchego cheese), Suadero (Negra Modelo-braised brisket, tomatillo salsa, horseradish crema), and Hongos y Nopales (maitake & huitlacoche mushrooms, cactus, doble crema cheese). The limit is seven tacos per customer. 251 West 50th Street New York, NY 10019. 212-581-1818
Posted by Ed Levine, August 12, 2008 at 10:45 PM
Photographs by Robyn Lee
Papatzul
55 Grand Street, New York NY 10013 (near West Broadway; map); 212-274-8225; papatzul.com
Setting: Casual, pleasant, but I wish our server hadn't decided that watching ESPN was more important than serving us
Compare It To: Dos Caminos, La Palapa, Mi Cocina
Must Haves: Guacamole, Ceviche, Fish Tacos
Grade: A-
New York's food radar is so powerful I used to think it was impossible for any restaurant to fly under it. The food media (both old and new) contributes to this state of affairs, as does our obsession with discovering the latest bit of deliciousness to be had here. But every once in awhile, a restaurant like Papatzul opens, and somehow, some way, the food intelligentsia doesn't notice.
Papatzul opened more than two years ago. Chef-owner Thierry Amezcua had been cooking in serious restaurants like Savoy and Il Buco for ten years when he decided to open a restaurant to serve the food he grew up eating in Mexico City.
I remember reading about it in a Village Voice blurb, but I wasn't spurred into action until my friend Steve, a fellow with solid taste buds, sent me the following email:
Let me take up the cudgel for an authentic nondescript place in the heart of trendy Soho on Grand Street: Papatzul. There's nary a mention on Serious Eats, and it doesn't even have a Zagat number rating. My Cali friend, who transplanted to New York years ago, routinely bemoans the awful Mexican food here, especially the typical mish-mash of Tex-Mex, Cali-Mex, Nuevo Mexicano, and Mex-Mex. He grudgingly went along, and we loved the cantina.
When we raved to the waitress, who was on her first week, she said she'd tell the chef. Owner-Chef Amezcua came over and was beaming. Said he'd bring us some homemade spicy salsa.
Well, the place was crowded (a lot of eye candy, by the way, befitting its location), and we paid the bill, which was pretty gentle for these days. As we left, the chef ran out and grabbed us: "I forgot the salsa, you can't go, I will send you dessert." And we had a lovely dulce de leche ice cream with great pecan brittle ("palanqueta," as I read in the New Yorker review).
Chef said we need to go back for the flautas and beef enchiladas. Some serious cooking is being done in there, and I'd be interested in reading your thoughts if you or your staff ever get a chance to go down there.
Steve's note certainly piqued my interest. What did I find?
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 5, 2008 at 11:30 PM
Photographs by Robyn Lee
The bar for tacos in Manhattan is not set very high, and the fish taco bar here is set even lower. So when Pinche Taqueria owner and Soho Films partner Jeffrey Chartier announces to the world that he is opening a branch of his Tijuana taqueria in part to show other downtown taquerias like La Esquina how to make a proper fish taco, it sounds like a plenty plausible throwdown.
Pinche Taqueria
227 Mott Street, New York NY 10012 (between Prince and Spring streets; map); 212-625-0090; pinchetaqueria.com
Service: Friendly but surprisingly slow for what is basically a self-service operation
Setting: Your basic unairconditioned taco counter with a few seats inside and a bench and a two-person counter outside
Compare It To: La Esquina, Pampano Taqueria, Bonita
Must Haves: Fish tacos, shrimp tacos, carnitas mulita, huevos con chorizo, aguas
Grade: A for the fish tacos and the shrimp tacos, B+ for the carnitas burrito or tacos, and a B- for the rest of the food
I had fish tacos from Pinche and La Esquina within minutes of each other. One bite in at Pinche and I could tell that these folks knew exactly what they were doing. They make a killer fish taco. Chunks of crisp fried fish are tucked into a house-made tortilla and topped with cabbage, a spicy cilantro-spiked mayonnaise, and guacamole. These tacos are crunchy, flaky, spicy, and creamy. What more could you want from a taco? It really is the first good fish taco I've had outside Southern California or Mexico, though the one I had at Bonita in Williamsburg was damn good. And the shrimp taco (both the fish and the shrimp tacos are $3.75) may be even better, as the crisp, small-but-not-teeny shrimp have some actual shrimp flavor.
Meanwhile, over at La Esquina, just watching the guys in the kitchen make my fish taco, I knew it was going to be no contest. The cook took what appeared to be a pregrilled fish kebab out of a fridge and put it on the grill. It was a lame, half-hearted fish-taco-making effort.
So Chartier wins this hyperlocal fish-taco throwdown handily. But what about the rest of the food?
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Posted by Robyn Lee, June 25, 2008 at 10:45 AM
When my friends and I stepped out of the 137th Street station on the 1 train on the way to a friend's get-together, we all thought the same thing: what would we eat for dinner? How fortuitous it was for us to turn left and behold one of the most beautiful sights in Harlem: a woman selling a variety of tamales out of a street cart. It's like it was there, just for us...along with the other gazillion people who come hungry out of that station.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, June 5, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Whenever I visit friends near Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria, I make sure to take a side trip to Lupita Grocery, an otherwise nondescript little bodega on 21st Avenue. For less than $4, you can grab a small midday snack or a light lunch in the form of a taco or tamale and a bottle of Mexican Coke.
Lupita offers chicken or pork tacos and chicken, cheese, and pork tamales. The pork here is often a little too fatty for me, but I know that for many of you out there, there's no such thing as pork too fatty, so they might be right up your alley. I generally opt for a chicken taco, which comes loaded with hunks of moist white and (mostly) dark meat and a generous helping of pico de gallo. The taco may look small, but it's a filling snack. Double your order and you'd have a satisfying lunch.
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Posted by Joe DiStefano, May 23, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Editor's note: Nobody knows the outer boroughs like our man Joe DiStefano, who takes great joy in walking the gustatory road less traveled. Last week it was guinea pig in Jackson Heights, this week it's cemitas in, well- Jackson Heights (what can we say, there is a lot of good eating in Queens). —Zach
I have frequented the taquerias along the stretch of Roosevelt Avenue that runs from Woodside in the high sixties all the way the to the low hundreds just shy of Shea for years, but I'm ashamed to admit I have a dirty little secret. I have yet to find something that I don't like nestled between two corn tortillas, but until very recently I had never tried a cemita. I'm not proud of it, but based on looking at the pictures on the menu at Taqueria Coatzingo in Jackson Heights, I've always regarded them as little more than tortas served on a slightly different looking roll. And seeing as how a torta is like a taco on steroids (thanks to a a schmear of refried beans, sliced avocado, lettuce, tomato, queso blanco and pickled jalapenos), how could one possibly improve upon such a creation?
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Posted by BrianYarvin, May 23, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Editor's note: We here at Serious Eats:New York are pretty excited to welcome Brian Yarvin as our New Jersey correspondent. Brian is a photographer, educator, and writer, and his book "Farms & Foods of the Garden State" just came out. Every week, he'll tell us about something delicious in New York's sixth borough. —Zach
"There was happiness everywhere as tables full of people tucked into their meals. I think you call such a place 'a find.'"
You´d never know it by what you see in the produce section, but the asparagus season comes and goes quickly. Knowing that May 18th was at the tail end, I dragged my friend Michael away from his home in Manhattan down to South Jersey in an attempt to get a few last bunches. We figured that going on a Sunday would be our best bet; farmers down there put out their best spread on weekends.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 13, 2008 at 11:15 AM
A couple of weeks ago an Ed Levine Eats reader suggested I try a pork taco at Great Burrito, this unassuming taco place at 23rd and Sixth. Actually, "unassuming" doesn't begin to describe its hole-in-the-wall qualities. Besides the home-style Pueblan Mexican food, Great Burrito sells pizza and gyros on homemade pita bread 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
And you actually see people ordering all of those things.
But the thing to come for is the Mexican food. The aforementioned al pastor pork taco (all tacos are $2.50) was served with hot sauce, guacamole, onions, cilantro, and lime. Even better is the carnitas taco, here made with what is described as broiled pork. The single best thing I've tried on the menu is a huarache, a homemade corn tortilla that covers an almost festive, brightly colored plate (take that, Red Hook soccer fields, where only paper plates are used). Topping the tortilla is beans, lettuce, hot sauce, sour cream, grated cheese, tomato, and your choice of meat.
I stuck with the carnitas. The huarache is $7, but it is most assuredly an entire meal. There are all sorts of house-made Mexican gelatins and puddings to try here as well. I can't tell you that the food at Super Burrito is as good as what you'll find at the Red Hook soccer fields, but it's January and it's a long way until May, when the soccer fields will open again.
Great Burrito
Address: 100 West 23rd Street, New York NY 10001 (just west of Sixth Avenue)
Phone: 212-243-0022
Posted by Ed Levine, April 11, 2006 at 8:06 PM
I had a good ten dollar lunch at Ixta yesterday: Excellent chunky guacamole made with ripe avocados, served with greaseless homemade tortilla chips; a very tasty, well-seasoned black bean soup; and a fine if somewhat strange sandwich consisting of chorizo, smoked gouda and red onion on an all-American hamburger bun. Ixta, you might remember, was seminal New York Mexican chef and force of nature Zarela Martinez' second Gotham restaurant. She opened it a couple of years ago and just couldn't make a go of it in what was then a bit of restaurant no-man's land. So she sold it to her employees, who seem to be making a go of it. It helps that Park and Madison Avenue between 23rd and 29th Streets is clearly the next happening restaurant scene in the city. The recent openings of A Voce, Country and Urena are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Just today I heard that Zak Pelacio of Fatty Crab and 5 Ninth is opening a Malaysian restaurant in a new hotel in the neighborhood. Ixta is at 48 E. 29th Street, 212-683-4833. I won't rate it until I eat dinner there.
