Karry Lu
Last weekend I had the opportunity to go back home for the fall break. Naturally, my first order of business was to take the first 7 train out of Queens and embark on a two day taco binge. In the interest of science, here are a few tasting notes.
Reyes Deli & Grocery, Gowanus
Wedged between Boerum Hill and Park Slope is Gowanus, which is the area surrounding the eponymous canal that used to be both cargo route and sewage line for the tonier inland neighborhoods that border it. Fortunately, it’s managed to eclipse its shit-ridden past and like so many other previously undesirable areas before it, has kickstarted the gentrification process in earnest (yes, there will be a Whole Foods soon, and yes there will be a bar, restaurant AND commercial vegetable garden on the roof). But in the quiet moments before the inevitable waves of boozy brunches and bars with bocce ball, we can patronize places like Reyes Deli & Grocery on 4th Ave and 14th, which is basically what it sounds like: a deli that serves tacos, tortas and quesadillas, and also a grocery that sells bodega staples, BIMBO-brand Mexican snacks, and Lindens Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip cookies, which I used to eat a lot of when I was nine but haven’t seen in over a decade. It’s another entry in the long, proud lineage of deli-cum-taco-joints that are scattered across New York, and I came in with high expectations, given that some of the best meals of my life have come surrounded by random Catholic paraphernalia and the constant hum of Spanish soap operas.
Tacos are $2.25 each here, so get any and everything. Upon receiving your order a guy next to the cashier, face partially hidden by a rack of Cheetos, will start working on your food on the flattop. In the meantime you can stake a claim to one of the five stools provided, read an article or two in a copy of Mexican Maxim, maybe overhear the cashier and the 13 year old shelf stocker gossip about you in Spanish. Takes about 10 minutes but eventually the tacos will come, served on pliant, supple steamed tortillas and with the standard onion, cilantro and lime wedge. The salsa verde is on point, spicy with sharp tangy bursts of tomatillo goodness, and absolutely mandatory. Carnitas, beef, and cecina (salted beef) are juicy, well-seasoned and generously supplied. Wash it all down with a bottle of neon-orange Jarritos. Everything just works together. This sort of meal is the platonic ideal of “satisfying”, like scratching a deep itch, or completing a particularly difficult problem set. Would’ve liked a bit more variety on the menu (some goat or chicharrones would’ve been sick) but otherwise, no complaints at all.
Recommend if: you just moved to Brooklyn from the Midwest and need to rack up some street cred, you are okay with the idea of spending anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours on public transportation to buy a $7 lunch.
Calexico Cart, Flatiron
I try not to think too hard about “authenticity” in food. Fuzzy concepts like “tradition” and “cooking with love” are really just lazy synonyms for “having lots of practice.” It doesn’t take Pierre from Gascony to make coq au vin or an Italian nonna to crank out the perfect orecchiette, it just takes some work and experience (which explains why half of all professional kitchens are staffed with Mexican immigrants). But I may need to revise that opinion for white people, specifically white people who open up food carts for ethnic cuisine. I get that it’s hip and cool now to sling fancy, spruced up street food out the back of a truck like some tattooed James Dean/James Beard motherfucker, but it wouldn’t hurt to spend a few minutes on Google researching the basics before crumbling some bacon on that shit, charging a 50% premium and calling it a day.
Calexico was started by brothers from California who seemed unmoved by the Mexican food already on offer in New York (and who apparently never ventured west of 9th Ave or into any part of Queens) and eventually started up their own cart/restaurant with locations in Lower Manhattan and (obviously) Brooklyn. While I applaud their perhaps uniquely American entrepreneurial spirit, I remain less than impressed with their (also maybe uniquely American) failure to understand the cuisine they are getting involved in. Tacos, and food in general, are all about maintaining balance: each element (tortilla, meats, onion/cilantro, sauce) complements and accentuates the others in an intricate choreography of flavors, textures, and temperatures. This seems intuitive; indeed, Thomas Keller knows this, McDonalds knows this, and Miguel from Oaxaca knows this. The brothers Calexico do not.
This much was clear from the two tacos I purchased from the new Calexico cart next to Madison Square Park. Perhaps even more alarming was the casual disregard for the laws of physics; turns out that wrapping steaming hot tacos in tin foil causes them to become extremely soggy due to the trapped moisture, a lesson that was borne out when the first taco completely split apart at the seams. Then again, that could’ve also just been a failure to Wikipedia the right way to prepare a tortilla. The structural integrity wasn’t helped much by overloading with too much crap: warmed-over shredded chicken, cheese, pico de gallo, ambiguously-labeled “crack sauce.” I ordered both the pollo tocino and the chipotle pork, but it didn’t matter much in the end because they both tasted like indiscriminate meat product with some tomatoes and lettuce chucked in. At some point I switched to a fork and spoon to finish the job because I lost faith in the second taco to hold up much better, which while not a tragedy like global warming, is still a pretty sad way to go. On my way back past the cart I spotted an increasingly long line forming up. New York, I love you but you’re bringing me down.
Recommend if: you live in Murray Hill and think venturing into Greenpoint counts as edgy, you are bored of Chipotle but still want your server to speak English. But seriously, fuck these guys.
Nightcap: Dutch Kills, Long Island City
One day I’ll know that Queens is officially hip when Lena Dunham films herself smoking crack out in Jackson Heights in front of bemused Indian grocers, but until then, I can always head over to Dutch Kills. Incidentally, I should note that LIC is home to the Queensbridge housing projects, which, according to its Wikipedia entry, produces at least 70% of the city’s rappers (Capone-N-Noreaga representing Queens to the fullest).
The neighborhood is kind of an interesting one: it’s directly across the water from some of the swankier parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it’s where the 7 train coming from Flushing intersects with about six other lines and the Long Island Expressway, it’s where yuppie-approved date spots like PS1 and Socrates Sculpture Park sit on the same block as boarded-up warehouses and autobody garages. Around the way at Hunter’s Point, a bomb-ass mural of the Notorious B.I.G. scowls disapprovingly at all that he surveys, the corner where he used to sling rock now sporting a boutique organic pharmacy. Back in the day, I used to wait tables in nearby Astoria, and it is genuinely surprising how fast the luxury condominiums and starry-eyed twenty-something transplants showed up in the area, lured by a breathtaking city view and the promise of $2700 apartments that are actually nice.
Luckily, what’s not yet crossed the East River are the alcohol prices. You can expect to routinely pay upwards of $16 per drink, not including tax and tip, in some of the frillier temples of mixology in Manhattan, but thanks to a combination of cheaper rent and a clientele that can’t yet afford to stand for that nonsense, Dutch Kills manages to offer basically the same quality of booze for $11 a pop, $8 during happy hour, which is basically unheard of anywhere that invests in its own custom ice cubes. The vibe is “industrial speakeasy”, the lighting is dark and blemish-hiding, the bartenders rock the vest and mustache look, and it’s almost always packed with the young and flippant, as these types of places generally are.
I got there early, spent a few minutes hovering awkwardly near the bar eavesdropping on at least three first dates, but the waitress was kind enough to eventually find me a seat. Over the course of four hours my fashionably late lawyer friend (who also just happened to move into the neighborhood) and I held court at a booth, sipping whiskey-based beverages and periodically entertaining our female callers. The drink list isn’t huge, but I wouldn’t hesitate in going off-menu, since the bartenders certainly seem to know their Fernet Branca from their Lillet Blanc. The cocktails themselves are fairly straightforward, and lean towards well-executed variations on the classics, which honestly, I am okay with, because sometimes you just want to unrepentantly drink nothing but Old-Fashioneds (or Old-Fashioneds made with Islay scotch and maple syrup) for the entire evening, and if you are that kind of guy, Dutch Kills is here for you.
Recommended if: you’re a first year associate at a law firm but want to meet some hipsters, you’re dating a first year associate at a law firm but are basically a hipster.
I think your writing is tasty.
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