Dos Lugares de Tacos para Pete Wells

[yana paskova for the nytimes]Before the current barbecue craze (BrisketTown, Mighty Quinn's, Fletcher's, and Dinosaur Barbecue next month), Mexican cuisine took New York by storm. You might say it started with Alex Stupak, who opened Empellón Taqueria and Empellón Cocina less than a year apart from one another. DUMBO later welcomed Gran Electrica. John McDonald and Josh Capon (Lure Fishbar and B&B) came along and opened El Toro Blanco, and Roberto Santibañez took Fonda, his beloved Park Slope template, across the river to LES. Santibañez was also a consulting chef on the menu at Salvation Taco, April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman's latest project and another member of the new wave of Mexican restaurants to open in the past few months.

Though the joint effort at Salvation Taco wasn't enough to earn the eatery any stars from Pete Wells, who filed on that restaurant and Taqueria Tlaxcalli in the Bronx this week. Of the latter, Wells enjoys the story that's told through the food. "Mauricio Gómez founded Taqueria Tlaxcalli seven years ago," he writes, "because he was homesick for the food he had grown up with in Mexico City." That means dishes like sopes, gorditas, cactus salad, and tacos - each executed with authentic precision and a sense of pride. Wells awards one star.

Salvation Taco rings in different results. The critic is none-too-pleased with the portions, writing, "The tortillas were a little bigger than an English muffin." And he notes "those tiny portions cooled quickly." "But the things you’d hope any taqueria would nail could be dispiriting," he writes later, citing mishaps with guacamole, margaritas, and an al pastor quesadilla. Though the effort found in Bloomfield's Mexican-inspired, albeit more adventurous dishes, i.e. kimchi, pork, and hominy soup, pigs ears, and beef chili (made with various dried Mexican chilies), helped balance the missteps. But not enough for the critic to award any stars. He gives Salvation Taco the "Satisfactory" stamp.

Mexican food is a soulful cuisine. It's heart warming, rustic, flavorful, often spicy, and perhaps most importantly (or the reason it's so popular) cheap. New Yorker's can be senstive to over-priced fare of any kind, and when there are better, cheaper options to be found elsewhere in the city, as Wells finds at Taqueria Tlaxcalli in Parkchester, it makes steep price tags that much harder to swallow. [NYTimes]

Eat the Week; May 20th - May 24th

The Village Voice loses Sietsema, Rao, and almost half its staff in less than a week | We eat the muffaletta at Cochon Butcher in New Orleans | Pete Wells gives Graydon Carter's Beatrice Inn "Satisfactory" | Lucky Peach Issue 7 will be in stores soon | Donde Dinner? - 540 Ninth Avenue

Donde Dinner? - 540 Ninth Avenue

Donde Dinner? wants to make your next dining experience an adventure. So, every Friday, we pick a restaurant and post its address for you. The catch is, that's all the information you get. No name, no type of cuisine, and no Googling. But first, here's last week's address:

67 South 6th Street = Bia67

This week's restaurant follows typical Donde Dinner? fashion. Price, quality, and accessibility have all been taken into account. You won't be waiting at the bar for two hours with $15 cocktails and you never have to worry about a dress code. Just hop on the train, or your feet, or your bike, and head to:

540 Ninth Avenue (map)

Lucky Peach Issue 7 Is Almost Here

Lucky Peach subscribers the world over will start to find Issue 7 in their mailboxes in the coming days. The quarterly magazine isn't out in stores or Momofuku outposts yet, but the Travel issue is ready to read. And it's a big one. "What is inside?" asks the LP website, "So many words! Maybe our most words ever."

Those include, "Smart words about snake eating" from The New Yorker staff writer Philip Gourevitch, "Handwritten words about The Most Beautiful Taco Bell in the World from artist Jason Polan," travel tips from Mario Batali, and contriutions from LP vets Harold McGee and Tony Bourdain.

Del Posto's pastry chef Brooks Headley goes back to his punk roots (re: Born Against) for what McSweeney's website calls "Punk rock touring with Brooks Headley." Other highlights include "the history of curry," "an epic sub on the Jersey Shore," and "the world’s most dangerous chicken in Rio de Janeiro."

Happy reading!

The Only Stars for Beatrice Inn are Charlie Rose and Candice Bergen

[michael nagle for the times]Pete Wells files on six-month-old Beatrice Inn this week. Graydon Carter, the long-standing editor of Vanity Fair, opened the restaurant on West 12th Street in November. Carter's is also one of the minds behind Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar, restaurants Beatrice Inn borrows from in it's "stagy, raffishly exclusive neo-speakeasy" vibe (as Adam Platt refered to it in his review of Beatrice last month) and star-studded clientele (Charlie Rose and Candice Bergen were present during one of Wells' visits).

Despite its youth, the West Village eatery is on its third chef. Brian Nasworthy was there first, but he left at the end of January to work at Picholine. Calliope's Eric Korsch filled in for a few weeks, then Hillary Sterling signed on as executive chef. Sterling has Mesa Grill, Lupa, and A Voce on her resume, so the number of missteps Wells encounters are surprising.

On Sterling's menu, Wells finds goat cheese gnudi "that were bursting with the flavor of warm New York City tap water." And a strip steak that "had a chewy band of fat at its edge." There were "desperately undercooked sunchokes" and a "grainy, salty sauce of dried black olives." The critic much prefers Nasworthy's early efforts, which yielded "a horseradish-chile gastrique that had the lively hot-sweet-sour-salty tension of a Southeast Asian sauce," and mushrooms, salsify, and spinach "under a textbook hollandaise for a clever take on oysters Rockefeller." Wells awards no stars and gives Beatrice Inn the "satisfactory" stamp. [NYTimes]

Cochon Butcher's Muffaletta and the Warehouse District in New Orleans

The Warehouse District, or New Orleans Arts District, runs a dozen or so blocks north to south from Canal Street to the Pontchartrain Expressway and east to west from the Mississippi to Saint Charles Avenue. In the 19th Century, the industrial neighborhood served as the storage grounds for goods coming in off the Port of New Olreans. In 1976, the Contemporary Arts Center opened on Camp Street and gave rise to a shift in the neighborhood's dynamic. The Warehouse District was soon refered to as the "Soho of the South" and some of the city's revered chefs saw it as the perfect location for their forward-thinking, contemporary approach to cooking.

Click to read more ...

The Shots Heard 'Round the World

[courtesy of gawker] sietsemaThe news came sometime late last Friday morning. Robert Sietsema, who had been with the Village Voice for two decades, was fired from his post as food critic.

Three days later, Tejal Rao, the yin to Seitsema's yang at the Voice, and recipient of a James Beard Award for restaurant criticism this month, has resigned.

Nightlife columnist Michael Gusto and theatre critic Michael Feingold, a Pulitzer finalist for criticism in 2009, have also been ______ (fill in adverb of your choosing) let go, and staff writer Nick Pinto has recently given notice that he's out after his next feature.

Layoffs and resignations ensued after Christine Brennan, executive editor of Voice Media Group, told Voice editors Will Bourne and Jessica Lustig to fire 25% of their twenty-person staff. The company's press release reads in part, "This restructuring will allow the Voice to continue offering superior content and products to its New York audience." But Sietsema, Rao, Pinto, Gusto, and Feingold have left behind colossal pairs of shoes – the filling of which is nigh impossible.

Eat the Week; May 13th - May 17th

The last day of retail for Joe's Dairy | A look at the GoogaMooga grounds four days before the festival | Pete Wells gives one star to Caravaggio on the Upper East Side | Signage goes up at Costata, now open in the former Fiamma space | We eat at Today's Cajun Seafood in New Orleans | Donde Dinner? - 67 South 6th Street