Tea for Two (Himalaya Teahouse, 33-17 31st Avenue)

We were both under the weather and were in the mood for maybe a restorative tea and some good hot broth. It seemed a tall order to find these both at the same restaurant, until we remembered the Himalaya Teahouse on 31st Avenue, which seems to exist to expressly cater to such a combination as we desired. Quaintly decorated outside with bamboo where you'll often find aluminum siding, the tea house inside is spare, with a few rugs hanging on the walls, which are painted a solid, soothing blue.

On the afternoon we visited, the teahouse was a two-woman operation, one cooking and one preparing the teas and waiting on the tables. This didn't make for the most efficient arrangement, but it certainly made things feel homey, and there weren't enough patrons in the restaurant for anyone to become truly neglected. The tea selection, as one would expect, is elaborate -- and the menu copy is full of inexplicable names for the teas but mercifully light on mystical mumbo jumbo.

To eat, we had thukpa, which was the yearned-for broth with what appeared to be hand-shaved noodles and boiled beef (we had ordered chicken, but alas), and momos, which are tasty Tibetan dumplings, also in broth. We may have found these a little bland under normal circumstances, but (a) the food of the Himalayas is meant to fortify, not enchant, and (b) we couldn't taste much through the late-winter cold plaguing our sinuses. What the food was lacking in pep, it made up for in delicacy, a feat considering we were eating beef with noodles and dumplings.

Where Himalaya Teahouse shines, unsurprisingly, is the teas. One of us was further along in our shared viral infection than the other, prompting one order of the Black Velvet, a mint-licorice tea that's supposed to encourage recuperation; the sicker one between us went with Fellini's Folly, a rooibos-mint blend designed for those in the thick of a cold. Andrew Weill and the FDA can battle it out as to whether the teas actually helped us recuperate, but they tasted good regardless of their health benefits. (What the "Really Goethe" lemon myrtle-jasmine-gunpowder blend is supposed to do, we have no idea, but we're not up on our Sturm und Drang.)



We've seen the restaurant floated on Astoria message boards as a late-night hangout, as they serve a handful of international beers and wines. We understand the impulse to have a beer in a setting other than a bar, but we can't imagine coming here to kick back a brewski. Forgive us for painting the Himalaya Teahouse in shades of Orientalism, but we prefer to come here for a sense of calm, a pot of Fellini's Folly, and the best momos in town.

Price: Under $12 for food. Around $5 for pots of tea.
Will we go again? Where else would we get our momo fix? Yes, especially when befallen with illness.

Dining With Client Nine (Arcos Churasqueira, 33-05 Broadway)

The ambiance of Arcos (the only Portuguese restaurant in Astoria we know of, so we are rooting for its success) is a bit of a puzzle. The white-linen tablecloths and relatively subdued lighting suggest austere formality, an impression our gracious waiter -- an elderly man with halting English -- quaintly reinforced. But at the same time, the television above the bar was flickering with the latest updates of the Spitzer scandal on CNN. Fortunately, we were too pleasantly engrossed with the delicious bread (Portuguese rolls with an herbed olive oil to dip them in) and the wine -- from the list of mostly Portuguese wines -- to have our meal spoiled by prostitution and hypocrisy.

The waiter wished he could recommend his favorite entree, porco à alentejana (pork cubes and clams), but it wasn't available, so we ordered the comparable dish that subbed in shrimp instead, along with steak prepared the Portuguese way -- with a slice of ham and a fried egg on top, all covered with a rich brown gravy. Both dishes came with some strips of carrot and broccoli florets, and fresh-made thin-sliced potato chips, which were right in the sweet spot between too crisp (which would have made them into Utz) and undercooked (which would have made them into scalloped potatoes).

The steak was everything we hoped for, a decadent protein bomb with a megaton of meaty flavor. The pork-shrimp dish, with chunks of meat suspended in a delectable herbed sauce (we have no idea what was in it, and didn't need to), was nearly stew-like in its hearty simplicity.



Plenty of places in Astoria offer a sort of charmed slice of the old country -- which country that is depends on which street you're on. We've happily dined at many of these restaurants and will again. But the overload of, say, Greek and Italian establishments means that, while their overall quality is high thanks to the intensity of competition, it can also be difficult to find a true standout. For every person who swears by the joint on Ditmars, there's someone on 28th claiming that his little Greek place is the best in the neighborhood. Maybe our naivete concerning the food of Portugal means that we've been snookered by a restaurant that would be considered mediocre at best were there more competition. We don't think that's the case -- but if it were, would it matter?

Arcos' owner-chef made it to our table to make a personal greeting, which was sweet, if slightly awkward. You can't help but feel slightly on the spot, and in a restaurant that seems unjustifiably empty far too often, the temptation is strong to want to go overboard with reassurances. We couldn't help but be wildly effusive in our praise, but we were sincere in almost everything we told him.

Price: $15 to $25 for entree. Well worth it.
Will we go again? One of our most delightful discoveries. Looking forward to repeat visits.

Mighty Marinara (Sac's Place, 25-41 Broadway)

There are at least a dozen restaurants in Astoria that likely qualify as somebody's neighborhood Italian restaurant. Sac's became that for us. We would go in biweekly for a slice at the attached pizzeria that peeks into the main dining room, and for actual dinners, on special occasions. (Sac's is reasonably priced, with most entrees in the upper teens, but felt less so in our younger, more cash-strapped days.) We'd never met either of the Sacramonte brothers, the proprietors of the establishment, but when we brought our non-New Yorker family in for a taste of "real New York Italian," one of them came over to greet us, saying it was a pleasure to see a pizza regular come in for a real meal. During the blackout of 2003, Sac's became everybody's neighborhood Italian restaurant -- it was the only place around that served food not powered by electricity -- and we joined the line ringing the block to get a slice from the coal-fired oven.

Still, we do our best to not let our fond personal memories stand in the way of the culinary truth, so bearing the sanctity of our mission in mind, we entered Sac's with a clean slate -- and the restaurant made it easy for us to stay true. The staff was low-key, accommodating, and efficient; the lighting appropriate for both a date and family night; the grapevine mural decorating the walls corny but appealing. The bread basket, which could easily have been filled with a perfunctory ciabatta, contained instead what appeared to be the yeasty, olive-oil-based focaccia that serves as a base for their delicious Sicilian slice. That's less a perfunctory gesture than a pre-meal meal.

For our money Sac's pizza is the best in the neighborhood, though we're open to changing that depending on what the every-restaurant-in-Astoria mission yields. But as we've pretty much exhausted the pizza menu, on this night, we ordered entrees. (Note also that ordering pizza by the pie is pricier than it should be.) Sac's is rightfully known for its medium-bodied, flavorful marinara -- reportedly seasoned with herbs grown on the owners' rooftops -- and the spinach ravioli showcases it well. Stuffed with fluffy ricotta, the ravioli, with its stripes of spinach dough, managed to be both light and substantial. The pollo rollatini was another success, with spinach and mozzarella carefully tucked into moist, tender chicken rolled into a dense and delicious cylindrical package.

Everything we ate was a success, actually, and Sac's can easily veer into excellence. We admit, though, that we sometimes wish there were more quirk at play. We'd love for them to surprise us with a wild choice on the menu, for the staff to show a bit more personality, for the Monday-night jazz trio to veer away from standards.

But asking for this would be like asking your grocery store to pipe in John Zorn instead of E.L.O. just to suit your taste: Unconventional is not what Sac's is after, nor should it be. A neighborhood place depends on reliability, not caprice. So we'll bask in Sac's success, marinara-dipped slice in hand, and be thankful.

Price: A little expensive relative to other Italian places for entrees and pies; slices are competitive with others.
Will we go again? It was our regular pizzeria before beginning this mission, and there's no reason to change that.

At the Lost Table (Time Cafe, 44-18 Broadway)

Sometimes it happens: You become the Lost Table. You don't get menus; you don't get water; your beverage order isn't taken. Patrons who came in after you are served promptly while you languish, forgotten. Surrounding tables get water and coffee refills while you stare into space, dehydrated, wondering what you did to piss everybody off. Does the waiter not know you're there? Did the hostess neglect to inform the staff of your presence? Does every server assume another staffer is responsible for you? Whatever the reason for the neglect, once you're finally noticed, your server realizes she has no incentive to rectify the wrongs already perpetrated. In her mind, the tip cannot be salvaged, so she continues to ignore you, giving her attention to the Favored Tables.

At Time Cafe, we were the Lost Table. We went in for brunch, expecting a pleasant experience, based on this errant post from the usually reliable Joey in Astoria. The smooth jazz -- playing not over the radio but through a digital cable music-on-demand channel -- was the first sign of trouble, but we persevered. And waited.

And waited.

We're easy customers. Actually, on the walk over to Time Cafe, one of us mused aloud whether we were too easily pleased -- of all the restaurants we've visited on our mission to eat at every restaurant in Astoria, there's only one we've given a blatant thumbs-down (El Olivo). Were we not discriminating enough? Were we passive diners, willing to excuse lackadaisical service and mediocre food to allow for a cheerful experience? Are we too pleasant for our own good?

At Time Cafe, our easygoing disposition was exposed for the liability it can be. We continued to be ignored while the tables around us were getting the mini-muffins promised on the brunch menu (not that we found out about this perk until later -- it took 15 minutes for us to get menus, which only happened after we flagged down the waitress). But codependent diners that we were, rather than get indignant, we wondered what we had done to deserve this.

When we finally did order, it took an unreasonable amount of time for the food to arrive -- by this time we were resigned to our fate -- and when it did come it was clear it had been sitting a while under the heat lamp. The mushroom-pepper-fontina frittata was serviceable, in the way that anything coated with a layer of cheese would be. But the only thing scrambled in the sausage and egg "skillet scramble" was a wasteful pile of at least a half-dozen eggs, served alongside three brown-and-serve sausage links. And nary a mini-muffin in sight.

Time Cafe helped us break the cycle: At just the point when we wondered if our enjoyable dining experiences in Astoria were authentic, Time Cafe stepped in to show us that it's not us, it's them. We entered this relationship with the restaurants of Astoria not out of a desire to inhale food mindlessly, but because, by and large, our local establishments are pretty good.

Time Cafe is not.

Price: Can't put a price tag on awful.
Will we go again? Answering this dignifies the question.

Among the Autopaparazzi (Koliba, 31-11 23rd Avenue)

We had all but given up. We were actually walking away from the restaurant down 23rd Avenue when we heard the stern Germanic voice of the hostess call out to us: "You, you." She had run out into the cold February night to retrieve us. "You want to eat." It was more a command than a question, and we felt that we had no choice but to go back inside, even though it was crowded and chaotic in the Czech restaurant and, given our problems with the service in the past (they can be slow to get to the non-Czechs and non-Slovaks), we had no reason to expect we'd ever be waited on once we were seated.

We were glad we went back in though. Yes, Koliba, which features a vaguely chalet-like décor that's highly suitable for wintry nights, was packed full, with a curious mix of Eastern European locals -- the sort who were glued to the hockey game on the TV -- and a rowdy bunch of autopaparazzi theatricals gathered for a birthday party, who took more pictures of themselves that evening than we had on a weeklong vacation by an exponential margin. And we were seated mere centimeters away at a two-top next to a group of out-of-towners, two couples who seemed very Long Islandish. During one rare lull in the hullaballoo inside, one man asked the other, "So how's the car running?"

None of this spoiled what turned out to be an excellent, extremely filling meal. Quickly, we were brought drinks -- Czech beers on tap; Krušovice, BrouCzech. When we asked our waitress what she recommended among the entrees, she looked puzzled and said, "It is all good." We have a general policy of asking servers this question and have found that generalized answers ("It's all good," "Depends on what you like," or simply reciting half the menu) yield lesser meals than places when the server has a ready answer. But this wasn't the case here. We could tell she honestly didn't get why we'd bother asking when everything they had was delicious.

After some coaxing, she finally made some specific suggestions: the roast duck on a bed of red cabbage, plus pork schnitzel with potato-pancake batter. The duck was flavorful and incredibly moist and tender without being too fatty, as duck can be. Neither of us are fans of cabbage, but we still managed to down most of the mound piled on the plate -- no idea what they did to make it taste good, but it worked. Our schnitzel was as hearty as one would expect, but more important, it was done right. Schnitzel in this country can easily be disappointing, relying on the fail-safe of frying to make it taste good. Koliba's version was done with knowledgeable care. Both entrees were accompanied by knedliky, the quintessentially Czech sponge-bread dumplings. (For those eager to play at home, advertised in the foyer was a factory in Chicago from which one could order knedliky. "This is for everyone. Do not remove" was handwritten across the ad, which was printed off of a website.)

Koliba is more than a match for its cross-neighborhood rival, Zlata Praha. Rumor has it that Koliba was formed by a rogue breakaway chef from Zlata Praha, sort of the way Roger Williams founded Rhode Island after being exiled from the Massachusetts colony. The restaurants offer rival venison feasts in early February; sadly we missed them at both venues.


We dined with a miniature sheepskin rug hanging at eye level next to our table, and the ersatz brauhaus roof over the bar was littered with an array of giant stuffed Easter bunnies. Frankly, we're suckers for a eccentric ambiance, and the bunnies alone would have been enough to bring us back. But what we especially appreciated about Koliba was that this sort of thing wasn't odd at all to the its regulars, and this lent the restaurant a quaint familiarity even to those of us who are clearly outsiders. Koliba's patrons come for the food. And so will we.

Price:Between $15 and $20 for entrees.
Will we go again? We're already looking forward to the dueling Venison Fest with Zlata Praha. Otherwise, for deep comfort-food needs only.

A Circle in a Spiral (Wave Thai, 21-37 31st Street)

For a time, there were no Thai restaurants in the area near the Ditmars stop (unless you count Bangkok Tasty, which may not meet the table-and-chairs requirement for consideration in this project). Then, suddenly, as if in compliance with antitrust ordinances, there were two -- separated on 31st Street by only a laundromat and an ABC Superstore. Wave is the closer of the two to the subway stop, with what looks to be some sort of postmodern bull's-eye over the window. (Down the street is Thai Elephant, which isn't trying nearly as hard.)



Each Thai place in Astoria tries to put its own distinct twist on accommodating the neighborhood's seemingly ever-expansive demand for the cuisine. Thai Pavilion is known for quirky Thai in an oddly formal setting; Arharn Thai is the mom-'n'-pop Thai; Yajai sates diners who apparently prefer their Thai in a setting that rivals Trade Fair for poor feng shui. (We're not particularly looking forward to our obligatory visit there.)

Wave Thai is all about the romance -- and though we generally roll our eyes when restaurants employ tricks that might have wooed us in college (red walls, half-blackened light bulbs), the place has enough ingenuity to get a pass. The fountain near the entry, bedecked with small statues of elephants, imparts a genuine calm, as does the lulling but kind of weird soundtrack (elevator-music versions of Prince?). The concentric-circles motif, plus the flatware with undulating handles, is gentle and wavelike -- we get it -- but it too works toward its end. The bathroom deserves special mention for making us feel like minor royalty -- the faucet was like one of those fancy showerheads you find in nice hotels, the kind that's supposed to mimic rainfall. Again: a semi-classy gimmick, but one that turns out to be welcome.

The food? It's Thai. That's all there is to say; it's just Thai food, it fills you up for a reasonable price and tastes yummy and the noodles are fine and the curry is spicy but not too spicy. The Pad Kee Mao looked like this (even the plates are a bit wavy):



In truth, we mourn the departure of Ubol's Kitchen every time we try to go out and find someone special again. But until something that good comes back to Astoria, we'll go to Wave again, and Thai Pavilion, and Arharn, and Thai Angel, etc., depending on the mood we're after. Sure, Wave tries a little too hard, but ultimately we just shake our heads, squint in the dim light, and give in anyway.

Price: Under $15.
Will we go again? No, but we'll send you there on an Internet date.

A Brief Enquiry Into Pizzeria Ethics (Alba's Pizza and Restaurant, 36-20 Ditmars Boulevard)

We expect to encounter many places like Alba's on our mission, serviceable places that you would never go to unless you lived down the street. Neighborhoods need places like Alba's but rarely will anyone bother to sing their praises; it would be like championing your garbage collector or corner-bodega proprietor. In short, a pizzeria needs to be pretty conspicuously good (or remarkably awful, for that matter) to warrant special attention. Alba's is neither of those things.

We went in on a cold afternoon and were thankful for the heat blasting out of the pizza ovens. We asked what was good, but the answer surprised us, as the counterman recommended what looked to be clearly the least appetizing offering behind the glass, the penne a la vodka slice, which looked like an ordinary slice with some ziti baked into it on top.

This raised the ethical question that confronts any food-service employee when asked for a recommendation: Do they say what they really like, or what it would be expedient for the establishment to get rid of. We suspect that we will become more adept as we proceed at placing the divers waitstaff we encounter along that moral spectrum. But right now we need other cues. For instance, should we be alarmed that Alba's, like La Mia Vita, also offers a Grandma pie? If we can't trust Alba's nana, who can we trust?

The penne a la vodka slice ended up being perfectly edible, if a little bizarre, and the plain slices were adequate and filling. No pizza toppings at individual tables, but they were readily available at the counter. And seating was ample and the mood relaxed. It felt like a safe harbor from the street.

So if we were hungry for slices and happened to be walking by Alba's, nothing would make us hesitate from going in. But it's hard to imagine planning a special trip there.

Price: Like all other pizzerias.
Will we go again? Totally unnecessary to do so.

The Grandest Tofu (JJ's Asian Fusion and Sushi Bar, 37-05 31st Avenue)

The Magazine That Shall Not Be Named, so dubbed because of its propensity for inducing status anxiety and making proclamations about the whole of the city that, in truth, only apply to a small set of middle-to-well-heeled Manhattanites, awarded JJ's Fusion the honor of best pot stickers in New York. We're always glad to see Astoria restaurants get their due but remain suspicious that there's some sort of outer-borough quota that the writers feel the need to fill. (At least they're not touting Uncle George's as the best Greek in New York.)

We'd be less wary if the heralded pot stickers lived up to the name. They're good, don't get us wrong, and original -- dumplings stuffed with tender soy beans, served with a wasabi cream sauce. But there's a reason soybeans are enjoyed one-by-one as edamame, as we found out when the beans took on a glue-like consistency when we bit in. They'd be better smaller, or with a sauce that didn't add to the paste problem -- cream is a dubious flavor carrier here, though it did nicely soften the wasabi punch. We also admit we can be skeptically ornery when the "Best _____ in New York" label is applied; we like to think that means we're merely open to the possibility of there being a better pot sticker in one of the city's 36,000 other restaurants.

Our cantankerous fits aside, JJ's is a delight. The Astoria roll, with crab meat and crunchy flakes, was topped with fresh salmon and an unidentifiable but delicious sauce. And the sushi was fresh and reasonably sized, well worth the risk of mercury poisoning. The basic rolls and sashimi we tried were of higher caliber than other sushi haunts in the neighborhood too -- the fish may not have been wriggling in our mouth, but close enough.

One of us used to get delivery from JJ's but had never dined there, so we knew going in that the food would be good. What we didn't expect was the rich yet restrained ambiance. "Romantic" lighting is too often just dim, but JJ's sleek paper lanterns hit the mark. Intricate geometric wood panels adorned the terra cotta walls. The music, that night showcasing a pseudo-Björk (or maybe it was Björk; we can never tell), managed to complement, not overwhelm, the gentility of the place. And though JJ's is small and was surprisingly full for a Wednesday night, we were hardly aware of anyone else there, feeling only the comforting satisfaction that comes from having picked a popular place without any special forethought.

It's a shame that outlets like The Magazine That Shall Not Be Named fingers restaurants like JJ's just for single items; the pleasure of dining there derives from the entire experience: the service, the mood, the sake, the food. Nestled at a perfect point on the continuum between neighborhood joint and destination restaurant, this is the kind of place that makes us sigh about our every-restaurant mission. We'd love to go back to JJ's soon, but every other sushi restaurant in Astoria calls.

Price: In line with neighborhood sushi; good value but not a total bargain.
Will we go again? We wish we were more prone to sushi moods, because we're eager to go back but have a helluva lot of places to venture into first.

A Heaping Helping of Hot Coal (Layali Beirut, 25-60 Steinway Street)

No part of the neighborhood seems more foreign to us than the stretch of Steinway Street below Astoria Boulevard, where the smell of shisha fills the air, all the bodegas sell hookah pipes, and awnings implore you to read the Holy Koran. Frankly, we were intimidated by the plethora of hookah cafes as we wandered around on a weekend night trying to choose a place. It seemed hard to believe that people could eat amid all that smoke, so thick that it hung visibly in the air and cast a gray pallor over everything we could see through the windows. Perusing the menus outside many of the cafes -- in many cases translated poorly out of Arabic -- did little to put us at ease. Roast pigeon? And we weren't entirely sure women were welcome in these places. They seemed very much the domain of Egyptian men, young and old, playing backgammon with mute ferocity.

We chose Layali Beirut, in part because it was lit with green and red neon, and because, inexplicably, it had a weirdly welcoming pirate statue posted by the entrance.



Once inside, the scent of tobacco was nearly overpowering. The place was full, and just about everyone was smoking hookahs. We felt conspicuous, but it was comforting to see that female customers were present; one table even consisted entirely of women, though they were not smoking. Considering our purpose, though, it was not reassuring that few seemed to be eating. The décor was eclectic to say the least, some kind of testimony to Lebanon's reputation as a cultural crossroads. There were Christian-themed paintings, bas reliefs, Islamic carved pattern work in the moldings and doorways, a vast array of bellows hanging from the walls, and Lebanese music videos flickering through the haze from flat-screen TVs. And the sea of plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling bordered on insanity.

A table had just been vacated as we entered, so we had somewhere to sit, but it took the waitress some heavy-duty work with Windex to get it clean. The amount of mess left by the previous customers seemed astonishing until we considered that they may have been there for several hours, what with the backgammon and all. Like most of the hookah cafes, there's no booze at Layali Beirut; most customers drank tea, Turkish coffee, or fruit juice -- one of us ordered something billed on the menu as "Mango4" (we couldn't decide if this was a typo). We decided to pass on the overpriced entrées and stick to the more reasonable appetizers.

The kibbeh, miniature fried footballs of minced lamb and bulgur, were tasty. We wish the waitress had given us a hint and suggested we order a side of tahini to go along with it, as is traditional and necessary -- they screamed out for something to moisten the palate, though the meat was tender enough. We also ordered what was essentially Lebanese home fries, cubed potatoes seasoned with coriander and heaps of cilantro.

Naturally, we ordered shisha as well. Not to wax too orientalist, but smoking from a hookah always inevitably feels somewhat exotic, and in this particular setting, it was especially so. We were most taken with the employee who walked through the crowded café carrying hot coals to restoke the hookahs. With his tin basket and iron tongs, he seemed quaintly medieval, an indentured manservant to some pasha in the wings. And we can hardly imagine what sort of fire pit the coals were being extracted from. But when the coals were refreshed, one could certainly draw smoke much more copiously, and the curious ritual did much to add to the occult feel of what we were doing. It made tobacco seem exciting all over again.

We never quite felt at ease in Layali Beirut, but that may have been because we had nothing by which to gauge our expectations. But it seems that if you could acclimate yourself to the smoke and could overcome the oddity of the environment -- two big ifs -- you could settle in and enjoy yourself at the café for an unbounded stretch of time. It's hard to condemn a culture in which men devote their evenings to smoking leisurely and gathering to play venerable board games, especially when we contrasted it with the dismal milieu at McCaffrey & Burke, which we visited later. There, an inebriated man tried to hug us while slobbering about the Super Bowl, and a group of drunken twenty-somethings stumble-danced with one another to the classic rock on the jukebox while one of them tried to show off her massage skills, bracing herself for leverage and getting her elbows involved. The sad, sunken faces at the bar are best left undescribed. It was depressing to realize that while we felt so alienated at Layali Beirut, these loutish, besotted slobs were, in fact, our people.

Price: $7 for hookah; food runs the gamut -- what we ordered seemed pricey for what it was.
Will we go again? No, but through no fault of Leyali Beirut's. We just need to work on our backgammon game.

No Más (Tacos Mexico, 32-08 38th Street)

If we weren't eating at every restaurant in Astoria, we might be eating at this straightforward taqueria more often. Even though we admire the pool table in the side room and the cattle skulls (or were they goat?), it's not the sort of place where gringos like us might ever feel entirely at home -- the TV plays soccer matches or Univision telenovelas; the jukebox blares Los Tigres del Norte and mariachi band music; the waitresses don't know much English -- but that wouldn't keep us from becoming regulars. On a recent afternoon visit, we certainly felt treated as such. The waitress gestured for us to sit anywhere, and chips and salsa were on our table before we had a chance to take off our coats. The chips came in a paper bag inside a basket; the salsa was well blended rather than chunky and leaned more toward peppers than tomatoes. But these are minor details, what's important is that they were supplied gratis without us having to ask, and we were asked repeatedly if we wanted more. In years past, when we were on a much tighter budget, this kind of hospitality would have left a deep impression.

Though Tacos Mexico offered the customary range of Mexican options, we decided to stick with the namesake. We ordered our tacos by pointing at the menu -- pollo asado, carne asada, birria (we didn't venture into lengua or cabeza territory, though these were offered) -- and they came shortly thereafter, wrapped in paper and garnished with lime and radishes and Tapatío on the side. As befitting the somewhat humble surroundings, these were not ambitious preparations: just meat mixed with onions, cilantro, and ample heaps of guacamole on corn tortillas. The birria, meat stewed in a rich chili pepper-laden sauce, was sufficiently spicy and delicious, though sloppy, and the grilled meat tacos were well above average, superior even than the beloved taco cart on 30th and Newtown Avenues.

After we finished, we lounged for a while, declining chip refills, no más por favor, and having our water glasses repeatedly topped off, until we finally realized that as far as the employees were concerned, we could sit at our table all day. It doesn't seem to be the taqueria way to bring a check to the table, so finally, somewhat reluctantly, we went to the counter to pay and were stunned to discover how satisfied we could become for so little.

Price: Cheap.
Will we go again? Has competition for taco numero uno, but the chips and salsa indicate yes.