
Wednesday, 3:30pm
Cascabel Taqueria
1542 2nd Ave. (81st St.), Manhattan
Three blocks north of the restaurant that inspired Sam Sifton to compare the Upper East Side to a second-tier city where residents have mediocre palates - MXco would be the second-best date-night restaurant in a second-tier city, a perennial readers-poll winner for best guacamole in the regional glossy magazine. On upper Second Avenue in New York City, it may do just fine. - you'll find Cascabel and what may be the City's best tacos south of Spanish Harlem. But rely on us for food judgement because Sara, the philistine, lives in the E. 80's.
Since we brought SpaHa into this discussion we should mention that pricewise Cascabel is considerably more expensive than, say, Taco Mix on 116th, but their tacos are a decent value (note: it's not really fair to A-B these two since they're not wholly the same genre). Add in a couple beers and some guacamole, however, and you'll quickly exceed $25...for tacos, per person. Gorgeous, delicious tacos, yes, but we want you to be fully prepared.
You should also be prepared to wait, not because service is slow, but because this place gets busy. With whom, you ask? Mixed Ages. We're deeming it AABM because that's our middle-ground designation and because if you do have the chance to linger here and drink through their beer list (as a little sidewalk chalkboard suggests), it's likely early enough that the place will be more AA than AI. We're also going to talk about Cascabel on ScoreboardGourmet because they have a Mexican wrestling theme and a TV showing soccer. And because we're going back.