Everything on the menu at Cariñito, ranked
Plus: a new sneaky way to eat at Tatiana without a reservation
When you’re a professional food person for long enough, you have to start sorting your friends by how well they can hang in various eating situations. I’ve spent the better part of the last five years eating and cooking for a living, so I know exactly who in my contacts list has no food aversions and will meet me anywhere in the five boroughs with about an hour’s notice, who can whip out a great outfit and sit through a 9:30 reservation for a 12-course tasting menu with wine pairings on a school night, and who to take to a romantic date-night restaurant when my partner is unavailable.
So when I decided to rank all the menu items at Santo and Cariñito, I knew my friend Anne Loreto-Cruz was the person I wanted to do it with. Anne and I have worked together at lots of places, like The Infatuation and Bon Appetit. We’ve been each other’s +1s on speed dial for forever, and I’m excited to have her play around in this space with me!
We showed up at Cariñito around 6 p.m. on a Friday night, snagged two tiny red stools and a stack of cardboard Corona boxes, and contemplated our order. We’d warmed up with a long walk and a romp through The Strand (I bought Atmosphere, which I’m loving, and Nobody In Particular, which I suspect will be a good palate cleanser because I don’t think the sapphic astronauts are getting a happy ending…) and “I could eat” was the general consensus.
The chef stopped by our table as we debated whether to get two of the tacos we were most excited about and come to an agreement about what felt skippable. “How about one of everything and some white wine?” he suggested. They were doing a pop-up with Scribe Winery, it was the first hot night of almost-summer, and the truth is we did want one of everything.
The first thing that hit our table was a pile of tortilla chips beside a dried corn husk filled with guacamole. This could have been a boring start, but the guac was topped with tangy, spicy nam jim that made it impossible to stop eating even though we knew there was so much more food coming. There were corn ribs, too (the corn on the cob rebrand no one asked for), but we kind of forgot about them once the tacos showed up.
At the time of this writing, Cariñito does six different tacos and a crunchwrap. We’ll get into all of that in a second. Because we were chatting with one of the partners while we were eating all of these tacos, we also got to try an off-menu family style barbacoa that was unquestionably the best thing we ate—or maybe that was the single bite of (also off-menu) flan with a textbook perfect texture and a caramel topping juuuust on the right side of the “too bitter” line. Whether these end up on the permanent menu or not, we were both listing different people we thought it would be fun to come back with.
Once we were entirely too full of tacos we made our way through the restaurant, beyond a plastic curtain, and into the not-so-secret mezcal bar upstairs. The space was previously a Mexican restaurant, an Armenian restaurant, and in the 1950s it was a lesbian bar called The Bag where writers like Audre Lorde and Ann Bannon hung out. It’s dark, red-lit, and has a tiny dance floor and lots of little nooks that immediately made me wish I was there on a not-platonic date (sorry, Anne!). The mezcal list would make even your friend who just came back from CDMX do a double take. You might hear a cumbia cover of something by The Black Eyed Peas or For Elise on the sound system. The women’s bathroom is basically a shrine to Selena, complete with period-accurate hair products. It’s not too loud to have a conversation, but it’s not weirdly empty either.
But you came here for a taco power ranking. So without too much more vamping…
My ranking
Cochinita Thai—I fell in love with cochinita pibil when I took a road trip across the Yucatán Peninsula a few years ago. Traditional cochinita pibil is already rich and acidic, so the addition of Thai flavors made a lot of sense here. It’s the one I kept going back for when I was already full.
Eggplant Laos—Unless you’re specifically at a vegan or vegetarian taco place, meat-free options can feel like an afterthought. This eggplant confit situation is not. It’s braised in soy and nam jim and hit with tamarind, basil, and crispy shallots. You get depth of flavor and lots of brightness with jammy and crunchy textural elements. It’s not trying to replicate a particular meat, but you don’t miss the presence of an animal protein. I could eat a lot of these.
Issan—Pork belly appears in half of the tacos on the menu here, so it should be one of the best things they make. And it is. This one adds chicharrones, toasted rice powder, and mint for the Thai influence. It’s not as punchy as the cochinita, but I liked it a lot.
What She’s Having—Smoked pastrami, Chinese mustard, pickles. It’s a cute homage to the city, and it tastes good. But for me, the mustard was a tad overpowering, and ultimately I prefer pastrami on a sandwich. But is IS fun, so you should try it. Anne loved it, and I wouldn’t not eat it again.
Cauliflower Pibil—If you love the texture of fried things in a taco and/or if you don’t eat meat, you’d probably rank this higher. I found it to be less exciting than the rest of the menu.
Cariñito Crunchywrap—Also fun, also tastes good! But the promising flavor profile of Szechuan-spiced brisket and ground pork got a little muddied in the format. That said if you’re coming back downstairs for round two of food after some mezcal, this is a great choice.
Cantones—This was the only taco served in a flour tortilla, and the only instance where the fusion wasn’t totally working for me. The crispy pork belly was too greasy for me. Since this one is garnished with hoisin and sriracha, the only thing that made it feel like a taco was the visual.
Anne’s ranking
There were no huge variations, but we did flip a few things. After a lengthy discussion during a post-dinner walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, Anne considered potentially putting the Issan taco in first place, but here are her initial, untainted by my arguments thoughts:
What She’s Having
Issan
Cochinita Thai
Eggplant Laos
Cariñito Crunchywrap
Cantones
Cauliflower Pibil
The perfect order:
Get here early, because by the time we left around 8 PM there was a sizable line. Start with guac and wine. Get a cochinita, an Issan, and an eggplant taco—add a What She’s Having for the fun factor. Do not offer to share your tacos with your dining companions, everyone gets their own. Okay fine, you can share the pastrami taco. If flan or barbacoa are on the menu when you go, definitely get those. Chat with your servers and don’t act like a jerk and you can probably just walk up to the “friends only” mezcal bar upstairs. You could get a ranch water or something, but you should ask the bartender for a mezcal rec and sip it slowly at the bar while you chat up the person you want to dance with after.
Chef Kwame’s Patty Palace
The other night I went to see the New York Philharmonic perform the score to Empire Strikes Back. This was obviously awesome. But I had just gotten back from a trip upstate, hadn’t made dinner reservations, and Lincoln Center is a notoriously tricky venue to eat near. Normally I go to Cafe Fiorello across the street before a show but it was A) packed and B) not what I wanted. I walked in to Tatiana at 5:45 and asked about a walk-in table for two. They had one at 8 or 9:45, neither of which worked with the performance. So we got gelato at Amorino and ate a bag of popcorn during intermission and I thought, that’s dinner!
But on our way out, I spied a sneaky little food truck outside of Tatiana’s entrance. It was the first night of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City programming, and most of the people leaving the theater were busy trying to figure out what in the world a silent disco is. But I see a food truck and I want to know more. Turns out, the Tatiana team was slinging patties, sort of. There was exactly one item on the menu: a sauced up curry chicken patty served *on* coco bread. At ten o’clock at night riding the high of seeing technically masterful musicians play the score of one of my favorite movies, it was just right.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the menu expands over the coming weeks. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.