[Pigging by Wilfrid: July 21, 2008]
Patricio Sandoval has been packing a young, affluent crowd into the Mercadito taquerias in the East and West Villages since - believe it or not - 2004.
And I swear it's as much as a year ago that I noticed a wine and beer license application pending for an empty store-front at 172 Avenue B, and discovered the Mercadito people were behind it.
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It took a while, then, to build and open Mercadito Cantina, which - to my surprise - turns out to be a large, airy space by Sandoval's usual standards. Brightly lit, too, and filled with...blonde wood. Blonde wood bar, blonde wood dining counters, a blonde wood wall, likewise the stools (about forty seats - there's space in the back too). Pushing beyond the point of parody, the stools are exactly the same square shape as those at Momofuku and Ssäm Bar.
This is not a cantina vieja from the backstreets of Mexico City. This is a Chang clone, Momotaco with a vengeance - but with more counter seating cunningly packed in - and who can argue with that as a business decision?
Sitting at the bar of one night, the atmosphere in the open kitchen was rocking the current style too: no fewer than three line chefs, the on-the-spot chef de cuisine Ivan Garcia, a bar-tender and a bar back, all stepping over and around each other, slamming pans on the stoves, grabbing squeeze bottles, working in two languages.
Indeed, MC - a few steps down from busy Back Forty - has already pulled a crowd. Walking in mid-evening, I managed to snag the very last stool, in a corner of the front counter which faces the window. My plan was treat the joint like a taqueria - grab a bite and be on my way. Most of the very young (and cute) crowd were clearly set on grazing their way through longer meals, washed down with a variety of sangrias.
A more substantial meal can be constructed from the taquizo option. Weights on the menu are given in kilos (is that legal?), but I estimate you can order up a just over half a pound of chicken or carnitas, with all the fixings, for around twelve to fourteen dollars, and build your own tacos.
Otherwise, the food selection is familiar from the Mercadito down the street. Small (very small) tacos served in pairs, with a selection of guacamoles, salsas and interesting sides to help them along. I have never disliked the Mercadito way with tacos, but balk somewhat at the tag: $7.50 for two of these delicacies, $2.50 for a small bowl of salsa (with chips), $10.50 for a pair of guacamoles.
On my first visit, I chose the green chorizo, the sausage colored with parsley and (probably) other green stuff - mild, crumbled, topped with some grated Manchego. A couple of pleasant bites. I can't even go near comparing it with the searing, vividly flavored chorizo huaraches and tacos found (at least they used to be) at the Red Hook ballfields. I've also eaten the estilo baja tacos - beer-battered shrimp with a spicy avocado slaw - a quick, hot crunch. I'll happily admit that the salsas I've tried here have been terrific - the costeno; dark and smoky from toasted chilis and sesame seeds; the cacahuate, a kind of tomato-peanut sauce, burning with several different peppers.
The drink list is interesting too. MC neatly side-steps its license restriction by offering cocktails based on "Tric-quila", a tequila-like sake beverage. I liked the Papa Low (although it looked a bit girlie) - an acidic bite from passion fruit, and the slow burn of jalapeño. There are beer cocktails for the brave.
I did better on a subsequent visit, by picking one of the interesting sides to accompany a pair of tiny wraps. Tempted by wild mushroom with huitlacoche, I decided the papas y chorizo would be a good filler. It was: simply potatoes cooked in their skins pounded in a hot pan with crumbled chorizo meat.
Sandoval, to be fair, emphasizes well-sourced ingredients, and his chorizo is house-made. At the same time, the main appeal of this food is surely to those people (and there are many) who can't find their way to the 7 Train and can't pronounce Coatzingho. My loyalty lies with larger, and often tastier - two buck tacos across the water.
Burger Shoppe
Ah, ye olde meat in a bun.
For several years now, I have been the sworn enemy of Shake Shack, and for several reasons. First, it needs no more friends. Second, making those small, compact, fast-food style burgers is not difficult - you can do it at home; Danny Meyer should not be in the running for a Nobel Prize. Third, no matter how good, it can't be worth the wait.
With that off my chest, I admit occasional attendance at some of the alternative fast-food burger options in town. Good Burger is okay (and fast). The best I've found so far, though, is yclept Burger Shoppe (well they started with the archaisms), down in Financial District on a historic preserved block of Water Street.
The Shoppe shows two distinct faces. Downstairs is a very plain, white-tiled, 1940s-style - almost automat-style - diner. You stand in line to order, and either take it away or sit on fixed stools along an unserviced counter which runs along the wall.
Up some rickety stairs, however, and you are in a cozy, full-service bar, sports on TV; a tempting place to while away the afternoon.
Prices - unlike my photography - are great. Since these are burgers on the small side (although larger than Mercadito's tacos), the Deals are the way to go. Ten dollars buys you two burgers, fries or onion rings, and a beverage. Unless you vary the order, the Shoppe burger will come with cheese (of a kind), lettuce, tomato and the inevitable special sauce.
But the sauce is not sweet and cloying, and the patties are fat, juicy, and taste like beef. They are a little salty, but not Shake Shack-salty. The fries - not to my taste, I like them extra-skinny with my burger.
Curiosity led me to try the mushroom burger too. Suffice to say, it's more interesting than the average mashed-up veggie burger one sees around town. Thick slices of fresh portabello are very lightly breaded for crispness.
On my way to a gallery show in early afternoon, I had decided not to sit upstairs and start chugging beer. Only subsequently did I realise that the bar serves a more ambitious menu: chicken livers, short rib "pudding", marrow bones; and in addition to the regular burgers, one topped with pork belly, as well as a silly PR effort with truffles and Kobe beef priced at $150.
Excepting the latter item, this menu deserves and will receive further inspection.
Find Ye Olde Web-Site here.