Empellón Al Pastor

It's no secret that we love Empellón, Alex Stupak's collection of Mexican restaurants in New York. Our dinner at Empellón Cocina last year was our favorite overall meal of the year. When we heard that Empellón Al Pastor was coming, serving tacos and other "bar snacks," we were really excited. This weekend we finally got the news we had been waiting for - Empellón Al Pastor was open for business (ahead of their official Monday opening day) - and it was the perfect place to go for Sunday afternoon football.

The spotlight item on the menu at Empellón Al Pastor is of course the tacos al pastor. We decided to get one of those for each of us, and then ordered all of the other tacos on the menu to split, as well as some sides. Everything on the menu (other than a plate of short rib barbacoa that we want to try next time) is $4, making it really easy to figure out what to get. You order at the counter, they give you a number to put at your seat, and then they bring the food over when it's ready (which is quite quick).

The first thing to arrive was a plate of chips and guacamole. The chips were nice and crispy and not overloaded with salt. That was good because the guacamole was a little too salty. The predominant flavors in the guacamole (other than the avocado) were salt and lime, although we did also notice onions, cilantro, and (probably jalapeño) peppers. We did like it, but would have preferred a little less salt. A makes guacamole at home (although he also adds tomatoes), and he likes his version better, so we probably won't get this on future visits unless we're in the mood for guacamole when we get there.

The tacos (all 7 of them) arrived at the same time on 3 plates. Each taco comes with cilantro and onion toppings, as well as the "appropriate" salsa (which they had more of at the counter). The 3 on this plate were:

Potatoes and red chorizo - We make a soy chorizo and potato taco at home on a regular basis, but we figured this one would definitely be better than ours. The chorizo here had a really great flavor from the spices and chile mixed in. It was one of the heavier, denser tacos, but that's not surprising considering that it had potatoes (which also soaked up all the juice and salsa, keeping this one from dripping too much). We liked this.

Mushrooms and pasilla chile - This was our second favorite taco on the menu. The flavor tasted so familiar, but we couldn't quite place it. We're thinking that maybe it reminds us of one of the pasilla chile salsas from the salsa sampler at Empellón Cocina, which would make sense. The mushrooms were juicy and meaty, and the chiles made the flavors here rich and smoky and spicy. This was probably the taco with the most heat, but it wasn't overpowering heat and it was just really good.

Chicken and chipotle - This taco was a bit confusing for us. We were expecting a big hit of heat, smokiness and flavor that you usually get when you use chipotles, but it was very mild. It reminded us a little bit of pulled chicken in BBQ sauce. We did differ on our opinions of the texture though - M found the meat shredded and juicy (enough so that the tortilla disintegrated a little bit since this was one of the last tacos we ate), while A found it a little dry. The flavor was nice, although a little milder than we expected, as we said.

And on this plate, we've got:

Steak and caramelized onions - We generally felt the same about most of the tacos we tried (as far as our preference/ranking) - except for this one. Our opinions completely diverged on this one. M isn't a huge steak fan, mostly because of texture, but she really liked this one. For the pieces she had, the meat was mostly chipped, and the bigger pieces of beef were really tender, much more than she expected. On A's half of the taco, he found that the meat had a bit of an odd gritty texture. Neither of us tasted any caramelized onions though.

Vegetable of the day (peppers and onions with Mexican oregano) - This (vegan) taco was one of the lightest ones in the set, just some sauteed vegetables with spices. We liked it, but we probably wouldn't get this one again, because we make vegetables like this at home. Hopefully there will be a different vegetable special next time that we can try.

And last, but not least, the tacos al pastor - spit roasted pork with pineapple. This was really good, although a bit on the salty side. The meat tasted fresh and had great flavor. Whatever the spices were that were used for the pork, we don't know, but they were really good. The only little downside is that, because it's a pork spit, there can be a little bit of fattiness to the meat.

Both of us were in agreement that this was our favorite of the tacos. Although if you put this head to head with the adobada tacos from Tacos El Gordo in Las Vegas (which are our favorite tacos with pork from a spit, that we will recap someday), we'll probably still choose those. That shouldn't take anything away from these though. They're quite good, and so much closer than a 5 hour plane ride away.

One other note on the tortillas - They're all made (and nixtamalized) in house daily, and we were excited to try them because fresh tortillas are always better. They were a little thinner than we thought they would be. For the most part, they were sturdy enough to hold all the contents, but since all of our tacos came at one time, the ones that were juicy or had lots of salsa (like the chicken) that were on the later end of our dining order, caused the tortillas to disintegrate a little bit. The tortillas themselves didn't have a ton of flavor, but they were good and let their fillings shine.

In addition to the guacamole, we got 2 other sides (or as the menu put it "accoutrement"). We were really excited to try the drunken black beans with al pastor scraps. For both of us, this reminded us of a Mexican-style baked beans with burnt ends. It was really rich and flavorful, and a good choice for a side.

But the biggest revelation of the meal for us, and what turned out to be our favorite thing we ate at Empellón Al Pastor, was the greens with green chorizo. We weren't sure what green chorizo was (luckily Food & Wine had the answer), but we liked it. The greens tasted like collard greens, and they were incredibly tender without being watery or overly stewed. The crumbled chorizo bits were so small that they were reminiscent of bread crumbs. The flavor here was really wonderful, and we could have eaten a giant bowl of this. It was different from any other collard greens prep we've had before and so good. We love collards and we love chorizo, so this was perfect. 

In the days leading up to the opening of Empellón Al Pastor, we heard they were going for the atmosphere of a dive bar that just happens to serve tacos. The walls are covered in graffiti, the bathroom walls are chalkboards you can write or draw on (although unlike most bars, they are really clean), and the entire vibe is really casual. But this felt more like an elegant version of a dive bar with attentive service (people were always going around collecting finished plates) and a really neat and clean space.

We really enjoyed our visit to Empellón Al Pastor. We're a big fan of more casual spots where you don't need a reservation and can just walk in and grab something good to eat on the spur of the moment, and this place is perfect for that. We would definitely return.

Empellón Al Pastor is on the corner of Avenue A and St. Marks.