Tehuitzingo

Countless bodegas line the streets of New York. Most are tiny, vaguely dirty places that sell packaged foods and household supplies at exorbitant markups. But scattered throughout this seemingly indistinguishable mass are a few bodegas whose names are like codewords among the food-obsessed, signs that grant you admittance into a secret society. One of those is Tehuitzingo, in Hell's Kitchen, which serves some of the city's best tacos in a bizarrely green-hued back room.


If you can get over eating in what is basically a glorified supply closet, and if you can handle ordering in Spanish, then you'll soon forget about the precariously stacked boxes above your head as you dig into a plate of authentically soft and carefully seasoned tacos. We had the papas con rajas, bistec, pollo, and al pastor. Unlike the gooey-sweet slop that passes as tacos at many American Tex-Mex places, these are dry and hearty, even if they look diminutive. The bistec was only ok, but the other three were terrific --- the potatoes and jalapenos had a huge kick and a toothsomeness rarely found in a vegetarian taco, while the chicken and pork tacos both put the flavors of the meat forward, with just a small amount of spice and a drizzle of sauce to augment the protein. It may seem silly to call a taco made in the back of a bodega "subtle," but that's what these were. And when washed down with the decidedly un-subtle sugary goodness of cold Jarritos, they make one of the better cheap meals you're likely to find in Midtown. Just don't tell anyone you heard it from us.