Midtown Lunch

Paty’s Tacos, also sometimes spelled as Patty’s Tacos, has been through a lot. At the 2011 Vendy Awards, Paty’s Tacos was voted “Most Heroic Vendor” after losing a lawsuit against the city, which prohibits vendors, in this case food trucks, from selling “merchandise” in metered parking spaces.

Despite being tossed around between the Upper East Side, Morningside Heights, and Union Square, Paty’s seems to have recently found a home parking on Park Avenue between 47th and 48th Street for lunch. And honestly, if the other neighborhoods won’t take Paty’s, we will welcome her tacos with open arms!

The menu at Paty’s is extensive and reminds me a lot of eating at the Red Hook Ball Fields in the summer. There are 16 regular dishes and 8 specials to choose from. Prices range anywhere from $2 (tamales) to $12 (chilaquiles con carne), with tacos at $3 and burritos at $8. I decided to go with something I had never heard of off the regular menu which was in the “moderate” price range: Item #9, Tlacoyo ($6).

Greeted by a delicious mess of ingredients upon opening the clam-shell container, the Tlacoyo is actually a hand made corn tortilla filled with beans and topped with queso fresco, lettuce, sour cream, avocado, pico de gallo, cilantro, and meat of your choice. Of course, I had to go with pork.

First off, the hand made corn tortilla filled with refried black beans is a brilliant idea and reminds me of how much I used to (slash still) love double-decker tacos for that thin layer of refried beans. The filled tortilla is pretty flat, only about a 1/4 inch thick, and underneath all the toppings, it’s oval shaped. The consistency of the bean-filled tortilla also reminded me of flattened fried plantains, or Tostones.

The pork was perfect – it was the kind of roasted pork that isn’t dry, but is stringy, crispy on the outside, and still juicy in the fatter parts. Paty’s also provided a green chile salsa and a red, habanero salsa to douse over the whole thing.

To wash this all down, I ordered horchata ($3.50) which was wayyyy bigger than I thought it was going to be. The horchata was heavily spiced with cinnamon and vanilla, and was sweet, but not overly so. I really was only able to get through half of the drink though – it was just so much more than I needed!

I’ll definitely be going back to Paty’s to try the at least 20 other things on the menu. Has anyone else had a chance to try the other dishes at Paty’s? Let us know in the comments.

Paty’s Tacos, Park Avenue (btw. 47th and 48th)