Some Good Suggestions for Mexican Food

Formally merely Tex-Mex margarita mills & Cal-Mex burrito bars, NYC's Mexican restaurants evolved into truly authentic expressions of regional cooking. A bakers dozen below illustrate the ongoing change:

1. Casa Mexicana

133 Ludlow Street, at Rivington Street

Lower East Side


2. Los Dos Rancheros Mexicanos

507 Ninth Avenue, at 38th Street


3. Gabriela's

685 Amsterdam Avenue, at 93rd Street

Manhattan


4. Hell's Kitchen

679 Ninth Avenue,
near 47th Street

Hell's Kitchen


5. Maya

1191 First Avenue,
at 65th Street

East Side Manhattan


6. Mexicana Mama

525 Hudson Street, near West 10th Street

West Village


7. Mi Cocina

57 Jane Street, at Hudson Street

West Village


8. Rocking Horse

182 Eighth Avenue, near 19th Street

Chelsea


9. Rosa Mexicana

1063 First Av at 58th

U East Side (& new location across from Lincoln Ctr on the West Side too!)


10. Taco Taco

1726 Second Avenue, near 90th Street

Yorkville


11. Taquería de México

93 Greenwich Avenue, near West 12th Street

West Village


12. Tequilita's

5213 Fourth Avenue, near 53rd Street

Sunset Park

Brooklyn


13. Zarela

953 Second Avenue, near 51st Street

U East Side Manhattan

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My top three personal favorites:

1. Maya
2. Rosa Mexicana
3. Zarela

And I also love Burritoville for a quick, tasty filling, and really cheap treat! http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/smile.gif

While not the best Mexican on the planet, there is something to be said for Zocalo at Grand Central. The food is much better then most of the other places in the terminal, and if you skipped lunch for some reason a bag of Chips and a tub of Salsa and a Beer sure make the train ride home a bit better, and when they are offering their Pork Stew as a special it's worth getting.

Besides, you get ten miles per dollar spent there on the dining program.

Just one bag? http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/wink.gif

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POSTED BY:

Rssrsvp
Member

Registered: November 27, 2000
Posts: 5
Best Mexican in NYC
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I would agree with doc on Maya. It is currently the #1 in NYC. For good homestyle cooking go straight to Gabriela's.
There was one left off the list, it was Zocalo, which is located at 174 East 82 St. It is an excellent choice if you are in the Upper East Side.

posted November 27, 2000 08:52


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redhead
Member

From: New York, NY
Registered: April 04, 2001
Posts: 5
I second the recommendations for Rosa Mexicano and Zarela. Rosa Mexicano has a great guacamole that they make right at your table and the margaritas at Zarela are killers Try the passion fruit margarita!
I would also add the 5th St /2nd Ave location of MaryAnn's for cheap Mexican food. Again, goo margaritas and big, cheap servings of tex-mex.

I wish I were 1,000 miles away

posted April 04, 2001 14:52

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by doc:

And I also love Burritoville for a quick, tasty filling, and really cheap treat! http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/smile.gif

</font>

I hate to admit, but I love Burritoville as well. I find their guacamole to be quite good.

Fourteen years as a Texan, and apparently I never had real Mexican until Mexicana Mama. I've also been to Gabriela's, Mary Ann's and Taco Taco and intend to return to none of them.

Mexicana Mama can get quite busy, so the only way I'll go for dinner there on a weekend is to go early (I'm line-phobic). Lunch is a nice time to go. Jay (waiter) almost always gives very good recommendations on the specials list. Bring cash!

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Life's a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!

I sent a couple of friends to Hell's Kitchen yesterday and they gave it rave reviews.

My wife absolutely loves Gabriela's.

FWIW, there is another "new" one also at 311 Amsterdam at 75th St and we have been going there - but it's not quite the same "ambiance" as uptown - and I think that the prices, while still low, are a bit higher than uptown, too! http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by doc:
My wife absolutely loves Gabriela's.

FWIW, there is another "new" one also at 311 Amsterdam at 75th St and we have been going there - but it's not quite the same "ambiance" as uptown - and I think that the prices, while still low, are a bit higher than uptown, too! http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/smile.gif </font>

I enjoy the outdoors seating during the Summer at the 75th Street location. The seafood specials are the best things to order.

FWIW, our visit here, ie @75th St, last month was far less than outstanding, so perhaps it's becoming a bit inconsistent? http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/frown.gif

There is NOTHING I love more than a steak burrito with all the fixings, but let me ask this: WHY do Mexican restaurants so often:

1) put all that RICE inside? That is just so stupid - Mexicans don't eat sandwiches with rice in it, and it's the wrong texture for Mexican food.

2) undercook the beans, giving you horrible flatulence? I eat beans all the time, and eat them at Indian restaurants, yet I never, NEVER have a problem.

Two of my pet peeves about Mexican here in NYC - I love the Mexican you get in Chicago, it's more authentic.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by anonplz:
There is NOTHING I love more than a steak burrito with all the fixings, but let me ask this: WHY do Mexican restaurants so often:

1) put all that RICE inside? That is just so stupid - Mexicans don't eat sandwiches with rice in it, and it's the wrong texture for Mexican food.
</font>

That's just the opposite reaction to my spouse. He grew up in Guadalajara and prefers his burritos with the rice inside. Of course, then they have to be rolled properly so that you can pick them up and not get filling all over you!

The True Flavors of Mexico, Hidden in New York

The grocery Hidalgo Mexican Food Products looks as if it could as easily be in a courtyard in Cuernavaca as on a nondescript block in Astoria, Queens. The shelves are lined with avocado leaves and chilies. Small bags of dried herbs share the aisles with cans of beans, sacks of tortillas and racy comic books in Spanish. Bundles of fresh epazote leaves are stacked next to a cash register.

But sidestep a mop and bucket blocking one aisle and walk to the south end of the store, and a neat little counter with a handful of stools reveals itself. Behind the counter is a stove where a short woman in a tank top is tending a pot. She looks up with welcoming eyes. "Hola," she says as you take a seat and inhale the warm, homey aromas of steamed corn and sautéed pork.

The taqueria within Hidalgo is one of many hidden in the small groceries and shops that dot the city's scattered Mexican neighborhoods. Part lunch counter, part family dining room, these taquerias, serving mostly antojitos, or little street delicacies, have become an essential component of Mexican culture in New York City.

Not so long ago, any kind of taqueria was unheard of in New York. The city's Mexican population in 1980 was barely 24,000, according to the City Planning Department. But by 2000, that population had shot to about 187,000, primarily in the Queens neighborhoods of Elmhurst, Corona, Jackson Heights and Astoria; Sunset Park in Brooklyn; and East Harlem. It has spread farther since.

In the East Village, the Zaragoza Mexican Deli and Grocery, a cramped bodega with barely enough room to turn around between a cash register and a crate of fresh cactus paddles, offers a small selection of tamales and tacos each day, with a more elaborate selection on the weekends. A three-seat counter is squeezed in next to a jukebox, along with a pile of napkins on a paper plate, toothpicks and a bottle of salt.

At the Tehuitzingo Deli and Grocery in Clinton, the taqueria in the rear is far more spacious, complete with a blackboard menu, a small kitchen, a counter laminated with a sea creature design and enough fake flowers to hold a fake funeral. At Las Conchitas in Sunset Park, the taqueria is in the rear of a bakery, just a few simple tables and stools behind trays and trays of garish pastries in iridescent colors.

The quality of Mexican food in New York has improved markedly in the last few years, with restaurants as elaborate as Pampano, Rocking Horse and Salon Mexico showcasing the complexity and diversity of high-end Mexican cuisine. Yet the heart of immigrant Mexican culture beats within these rude and humble taquerias, where two soft corn tortillas, doubled and folded around carnitas or barbacoa — braised pork chunks or stewed goat — can for a moment soothe an ache for home.

These taquerias are decidedly modest. Paper plates are typical, and if you haven't mastered the important skill of grasping a taco and taking a bite without squeezing out the filling, the fork you receive will be plastic.

You have as much chance of seeing a margarita as a bottle of Château Pétrus. The drinks include beer or excellent Mexican sodas made by Jarritos, which uses cane sugar instead of the American corn syrup, giving the soda a clean, crisp taste in tangy flavors like grapefruit and tamarind. Occasionally you'll be offered a glass of house-made aguas frescas, lightly sweet water-based beverages in flavors like mango or strawberry. Hidalgo serves a wonderful agua fresca made with hibiscus, like the Jamaican sorrel drink, and called, fittingly enough, Jamaica (pronounced hah-MY-ka).

The flavors and aromas may evoke nostalgia, but oddly enough the institution of the grocery-taqueria is practically unknown in Mexico. "No, never," said Barbara Sibley, an owner of La Palapa, a Mexican restaurant in the East Village, who grew up in Mexico City. "Stores are stores. You'll more often see a person on the corner, selling their special gorditas, or a certain kind of flauta or quesadilla."

Apparently the grocery-taqueria is a New York adaptation, perhaps inspired by the little groceries and delis in New York that double as sandwich shops. Or possibly it's a question of economy...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/23/dining/23TACO.html

I read the beginning of this article too. I pass the place on 10th Ave every day on my way to work and wouldn't have thought twice about it. That is one of the beauties of New York: that these little gems exist, right under our noses, and they reveal them selves, or are revealed to us, every now and then, just like magic. I'm going to try out the Tehuitzingo Deli and Grocery this weekend!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by maisany:
I read the beginning of this article too. I pass the place on 10th Ave every day on my way to work and wouldn't have thought twice about it. That is one of the beauties of New York: that these little gems exist, right under our noses, and they reveal them selves, or are revealed to us, every now and then, just like magic. I'm going to try out the Tehuitzingo Deli and Grocery this weekend!</font>

It's a great taqueria - go in back to the counter, but the girl in the kitchen only speaks Spanish, unless you go later, and then the owner's kids will translate for you if you don't speak Spanish. This is my favorite place for cheap Mexican! http://www.flyertalk.com/dining/ftdining_forum/thumbsup.gif

There used to be this great place in Park Slope -- for all I know, its still there; its just that I haven't been back -- that used to have *the best* burritos. The size of two softballs, they were. I used to love that place.

Benny's never quite measured up.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Louie_LI:
That's just the opposite reaction to my spouse. He grew up in Guadalajara and prefers his burritos with the rice inside. Of course, then they have to be rolled properly so that you can pick them up and not get filling all over you!</font>

Funny. I grew up in Guadalajara, and don't recall ever eating anything resembling a burrito. And the closest thing to that certainly didn't have any rice inside. Or outside, for that matter.

Had another great meal at Maya the other night, along with my wife and my son. It was the first time back there in a while, and it was as good as ever! :)

Mark

I have tried both Rosa Mexicano (UES) and Maya and although they are both top restaurants I think the edge goes to Maya.....

I have also heard that Dos Caminos and Pampano are also quite nice....

Two of my favorites are Mi cocina and Rosa mexicano.

I'll also second (or third?) Zarela... I get a week in the city once or twice a year, and seem to find myself dining there with colleagues at least once or twice each time. And I think they even deliver!

from Amsterdam & 94th to Columbus between 93 & 94th on the west side of the street. They reopened in May & haven't had a chance to get there yet, but it looks great.

from Amsterdam & 94th to Columbus between 93 & 94th on the west side of the street. They reopened in May & haven't had a chance to get there yet, but it looks great.

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Yeah, and it's a good place.

Yet I'd still go for Zarela for the marg's! ;)

Mark

Two of my favorites are Mi cocina and Rosa mexicano.

I visited the RM this past week. It was a return visit - I visited another location a couple of years ago. Once again, I found it overpriced. The food was good, don't get me wrong, but not worthy of $23+ a plate (I know it's NYC, but c'mon, it's still Mexican!) They must print money with their $14 Guac (made at the table), since pretty much every table had it. Remember - we're talking about 2 avocadoes, some salt, pepper, etc for $14!!! :eek:

In Hell's Kitchen (the neighborhood) my favorite is Hell's Kitchen (the restaurant) on 9th Ave for fancier Mexican-inspired cuisine. It's in a similar vein as Rosa Mexicano but a little more hip (read: darker, louder, more crowded) and maybe a little more creative food-wise. Aside from the aural assault and the saltiness (but I think there's too much salt at just about every restaurant I go to), I absolutely love the food there. It's probably my favorite restaurant in the neighborhood.

For more authentic Mexican in Hell's Kitchen (the neighborhood, not the restaurant), go to the back of the Tehuitzingo Deli on 10th Ave and order some tacos. It looks like a typical bodega, but there is a tiny kitchen in the back that I only discovered this after it was mentioned here on FT--and I live less than a block away. The tacos are cheap and very different from any other taco I've ever had--probably because I grew up thinking Taco Bell and Chi-Chi's were "Mexican."

Both of these have been mentioned in passing already in this thread, but I wanted to highlight them a bit more prominently. Both are also an easy walk from Times Square hotels and the theater district.

Off the beaten path but truly excellent. Alma, in Red Hook:

http://www.almarestaurant.com/about.html