Over the past two months, the New York food press has buzzed intermittently around Dos Toros, lower Manhattan’s newest burrito joint. Most stories running on Dos Toros sprout from some combination of the words “burrito,” “San Francisco,” “Mission” and “California,” framing reviews with California ex-pats’ scorn for New York’s Mexican food in general and New York’s burritos in particular. Obligatory jabs over the correct usage of these terms, attacks on the authenticity of Dos Toros and of course some gratuitous Chipotle bashing ensued, once again handing Mexican food the role of rorschach test for any given eater’s lack of imagination, unwillingness to commute in the name of carnitas or neurotic devotion to semantics.

Well, I’m a California ex-pat, I love Mexican food, and I’m pretty damn neurotic when it comes to words. Technically speaking, Dos Toros is a “mission style burrito” – big, steamed flour tortilla, rice, beans, meat, pico de gallo. It is not, however, a Mission burrito. It’s not even a California burrito, if you want to be really ornery about it… but that’s a story for Zach to handle.

Gordo’s, the taqueria that inspired Dos Toros, is located in the Sunset, just outside Golden Gate Park. It has a second location in the Elmwood district of Berkeley, where I lived for one year and ate at Gordo’s almost every week. Most of those meals were the direct result of laziness and proximity – Gordo’s doesn’t hold a candle to La Taqueria, Farolito, or even El Castillito in the Mission. I can say the same for my burrito at Dos Toros: the tortilla there is full of win and the meat is surprisingly juicy, but ultimately it’s an exercise in form, not flavor.

The takeaway isn’t that Dos Toros is a bad place to eat and that it’s failed in the realm of authenticity; it’s that this burrito, on its own merits, is not a cause for celebration, let alone a cause célèbre. Gordo’s wasn’t too exciting in the East Bay, its clone isn’t too exciting to me in New York, and Ed Levine was entirely in his right mind to compare Dos Toros to Chipotle for the purposes of review. In the end, either is a fine place to stop off for a quick walk-and-eat lunch – after all, we’re not going to fly out to San Francisco or San Diego on our lunch breaks.

We can, however, catch a train to Hell’s Kitchen. There, dead center on the south side of an otherwise unadorned block of W. 47th St., stands the bodega that houses the three-table-and-one-short-order-window known as La Rosita Mexican Deli. Here, every meal is cooked to order, every meat kisses the grill before it lands on your plate, and corn tortillas for quesadillas and sopes are made by hand. If that’s not enticing enough: They deliver.

Tacos ($2.50 each and generously sized) are rightfully the best vehicle for sampling the various meats on offer here, all of which are done quite well. Chorizo – also pulled from the casing and grilled to order – is chunky and hearty, with a slight sweetness standing in place of heat. Carnitas are thankfully tender, with lightly crisped edges and just the right amount of savory. Chicharrones here are much more rubbery and fatty pork skin than they are crisp and crunchy pork rind, and show up stewed in blazing hot salsa verde if you request them “spicy.”

Two less usual taco fillings on the regular menu at La Rosita are arroz con pollo and arroz con huevo (rice with chicken and rice with egg, respectively). The former, pairing inoffensive Spanish rice with juicy bits of grilled chicken, is a delight for those who don’t want to overdo it on meat. The latter, featuring a halved hard boiled egg, is admittedly not much fun, but I wouldn’t stop hard boiled lovers from throwing it on the tray.

Working down the menu yields greater rewards: La Rosita’s quesadillas and sopes are nothings short of outstanding. The sope – a handmade and fried corn tortilla topped with meat, sour cream, lettuce, radish and onion, then sprinkled with crumbly queso fresco – hits just about every texture and taste in right proportion. The quesadilla, which combines the shape of an empanada with the outer crunch of a chimichanga, is unlike anything I’ve recognized as a quesadilla, and it’s for the best. The distinct qualities of these offerings – only helped by the availability of cerveza at $2.25 a pop – make it that much easier to forget about cross-country comparisons to seminal meals.

My favorite menu choice so far, though, is La Rosita’s milanesa de pollo ($5.50). Apparently Italian in origin and typically found on sandwiches in Central and South America, these breaded and deep fried slices of white and dark chicken play a heavy cousin to Japanese katsu and are damn good when trimmed with queso blanco, avocado, lettuce, tomato and pickled jalapeno, then thrown onto a refried bean-laced bun for the enjoyment of anyone with taste buds. La Rosita offers a torta with milanesa made of beef as well, but right now I’m more tempted by the fact that they have a $5.00 all-day breakfast special and list a short order burger at $2.50.

…and La Rosita’s burrito? Let me be the first to say on behalf of California: Who gives a shit?

Thanks to Zach Brooks for the tip on this place!

La Rosita Mexican Deli
526 W. 47th St.
New York, NY 10036
212.397.1137

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Manhattan, New York.