Tacos Domingo Turns a Quintessential East Village Corner Into Little Mexico
The new branch of a DF taqueria spotlights grilled steaks and flour tortillas
The storefront at 131 First Avenue, at the corner of St. Marks Place, housed Brooklyn Dumping Shop for four years, a deplorable restaurant that produced thick-skinned, soggy dumplings with odd fillings delivered in plastic sleeves. Then just this week Tacos Domingo replaced it, and already an excited crowd is lining up.
The color scheme is bright yellow, and a sales counter with a prep area behind it follows the long side of the room, fronted by a pair of stainless steel counters for stand-up eating. One looks across the street at several other good Mexican restaurants (La Palapa, Taqueria St. Marks Place, and Electric Burrito). Can we now call this corner Little Mexico?
Tacos Domingo in the first U.S. branch of a three-unit Mexico City chain that features — something of a current fad there — charcoal-grilled steaks sliced and served in a flour tortilla, rather than one made of corn. If you’ve ever eaten tacos in Texas, this sounds a lot like the skirt-steak fajitas that are a staple of Tex Mex cooking. Indeed, though flour tortillas have been used in several parts of Mexico since the introduction of wheat by the Spanish colonizers in the early 16th Century, corn tortillas remain dominant.
