The Mango Lassie

I will admit it: I was wrong. More than once, I have ranted about the lack of authentic regional Mexican food in New York. In a city where Spanish is primarily spoken by Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, it’s no surprise. But having lived across the street from an awesome taqueria in Chicago and having done most of our shopping at a well-stocked Mexican grocery store there, I was spoiled. I was also annoyed by the assertions of fellow New Yorkers that the generic gringo-infused Mexican restaurants of Manhattan and Brooklyn were “really good.” But as it turns out, I had simply not been looking in the right place for my tacos, tortas and platillos de carne asada. It was all right under my nose in my latest food neighborhood of choice: Sunset Park.

To be fair, I had known about the Mexican restaurants in Sunset Park for quite some time, but I had never made the move to try them. The New York Times, and a number of people I spoke with talked up Tacos Matamoros, but Empanada Boy tried it and was disappointed. If that was the best Sunset Park had to offer, I feared my standards would never be met. But EB and I decided to try our luck again last weekend. I found a informative article from Serious Eats about a taco crawl on Sunset Park’s 5th Ave. Two spots stood out to me. One ended up being closed when we got there, so we headed to the other: Tulcingo Deli VI. The name itself held promise, and when we walked into the nearly full restaurant and saw we were the only gringos, thing started looking even better. After we were seated at one of the empty tables, the waitress came over to take our order. Every non-native Spanish speaker knows about that awkward moment where you wonder whether the server will be annoyed at you speaking Spanish. Our waitress jumped right over that hurdle by immediately launching into Spanish. Gringos though we might be, we were speaking Spanish that night.

While we waited for our food, we sipped our beers andchowed down on the excellent chips and slightly sweet chunky salsa. We were later brought two other kinds of thin spicier salsa– one made with smoky red peppers and other made with chiles verdes. Both were nuanced and delicious, boding well for the tacos to come. All of a sudden, a group of mariachi musicians clad in white suits studded with silver fastenings stood up and started to sing and play at the front of the restaurant. I am not always a huge fan of mariachi music, but something about the way the band enlivened and excited everyone else in the restaurant (singing and clapping) caused the music to have a similar effect on me.

Just as the female singer launched into a Spanish-accented rendition of “Happy Birthday” (‘appy berthday to jou), our tacos arrived. I had really wanted to try the goat meat barbacoa taco, but they were out, so I ordered chorizo, suadero (wasn’t sure what it was, but was up for adventure) and al pastor. EB ordered al pastor, oreja (ear!) and lengua (tongue). These were big tacos, more sizable than the ones I typically ate in Chicago, wrapped in two layers of fresh corn tortillas. They were brimming with meat and topped with chopped white onions, cilantro and creamy guacamole. The chorizo was chunky, but nicely crisped and infused with chile, garlic, paprika and cumin. After that, the suadero, which turns out to be the soft, smooth breast muscle of a cow, was a little bland, but it did have a slightly gamey, livery flavor, which made it more interesting. When I got to al pastor, I was already feeling pretty full, but this taco brought the flavor back swinging with soft strings of well-spiced pork. I doused mine alternately with the red and green salsa, unable to decide which I preferred. EB’s oreja was tasty, if a bit cartiladgy. I preferred the lengua, which was tender and juicy. The guacamole on top of each taco added a nice touch of cooling lubrication to the mounds of spiced meat. I was in taco heaven!

After we finished eating, the mariachi band, which had been working its way around the room asking for requests in exchange for cash, came to stop at our table. EB sheepishly requested “Guantanamera,” and the band obliged with a particularly rousing version. When they asked for another song, we realized that was about the extent of our Mexican song library. That didn’t stop them; they played the Stevie Wonder song “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” which worked surprisingly well with the mariachi instrumentation. Everyone sang along. We walked out of the restaurant feeling like we had made some friends and found the authentic Mexico flavors we had been missing for so long.

Tulcingo Deli VI
5520 5th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11220
718.439.2896