$6 Mexican Beef Skewers and Beef Burritos!
Vato in Park Slope is good, and so is Comal on the Lower East Side!
My first year-end guide drops next week! But today, I’ll give you a quick taste of where I’ve been eating. Also: I should be back in a few days with a short essay, alongside some other fun Sutton Stuff.
Let’s get to it!
Mexican Meat Skewers on Forsyth!
I finally dined at Comal, a Modern Mexican restaurant on the Lower East Side.
The manner in which I ended up there was…somewhat unexpected.
My original plan was to hit up [redacted] for dinner; the chef at that hotspot announced a tasty new menu item on social media that afternoon. So I hopped on the train to check it out. And yet, the venue was somehow closed for a private event that evening — without any apparent public notice! This sort of thing happens to me enough that it doesn’t actually bother me that much.
Anyway! I ended up at Comal. And I ate well!
If you’re a fan of Cosme or Corima (two of the city’s top fancy Mexican restaurants), or if you enjoy small plates places like Wildair, I’d say Comal is absolutely worth your time. It’s all brought to us by Gaz Herbert, a chef who previously put in time at River Cafe, King, and Jupiter.
My advice: Start with the skewers. And get the beef tongue.
Herbert poaches his lengua for a few hours, slices it thinly, skewers it, and cooks it over Japanese coals. It’s powerfully beefy and, thanks to a good tare, just a little bit sweet. There’s also a fine pork butt skewer marinated in adobo spices and pineapple juice; the swine packs a nice chew and a level of heat that’s a little more intense than typical al pastor. I dig it. Cost: Just $6 per skewer.
Be sure to order the chanterelles if they’re on the menu. Herbert serves the woodsy fungi with persimmons, making for one of the most unusual (and delicious) sweet-savory-salty pairings out there right now. Puffed rice adds a nice crunch, which you need when working with ingredients as slippery as these!
I’ll have more to say about Comal soon. 116 Forsyth Street, Lower East Side
On Comida Chilanga at Dolores
My NYT review of Dolores dropped yesterday.
Go read it!
I awarded a star and named it a critic’s pick. I’m a fan.
What I especially like about the Bed-Stuy spot is that it’s a ton easier to get into than during the summer rush, when the host stand regularly cited two-hour waits. If I lived nearby, I’d grab a seat at the counter — next to folks sketching and journaling at the candlelit bar — and order a few papadillas every other week or so.
Those papadillas — fried masa stuffed with mashed potatoes — don’t get a lot of airtime at neighborhood cantinas in New York. This is what intrigues me about Dolores; it’s not a local taqueria serving up a standard bill of fare, and it’s not a fancy restaurant or a pricey small plates joint. Instead, it’s a rustic and referential take on comida chilanga, the cooking of CDMX.
Dupeyron tells me that his papadila was inspired by the version at Bar Montejo in La Condesa.
During my fact-checking process, I asked Dupeyron about his approach to comida chilanga, especially now that the phrase “Mexico City-inspired” has become somewhat of a ubiquitous tagline, as my colleague Luke Fortney noted in his own column this summer.
Dupeyron responded at length via email. Here’s some of what he had to say:
“To me, it is more important to showcase simplicity and a more rustic, home-style version of Chilango cuisine, which is what I grew up eating, rather than taking inspiration in a more abstract sense and creating something that is fussy and overly ‘cheffy’. Back to basics.
So it is not a “fad” to call Dolores a Mexico City-inspired restaurant, it is a quest, it is something we work on every day. We work hard to make the salsas spicier, to bring nostalgic Christmas dishes like tortas de bacalao, or to showcase what a chilango would eat on the day to day, and most importantly to push the boundaries of the American palate.
At some point we tried making the huauzontles in its traditional form, (battered fried, stuffed with cheese and served in a salsa, almost like a chile relleno), we served it a couple of times, every dish was sent back. So there is a real push back, and we will try to make those traditional Mexico City dishes a thing, at the end of the day, it is what we are.”
I can confirm that Dolores’s salsa verde crudo is absolutely stinging. I’m into it!
Should you queue up for burritos at Vato?
