Three for the Weekend, March 7

A giant Bosnian burger in Ridgewood, a new taqueria in the Flower District that offers free beans, and other delights

The pork adobada taco, with all the fixins.

A weekly column that appears every Friday. In it, I suggest fun dining spots worth devoting your leisure time to on the weekend. Places recently opened get special emphasis, as do long-forgotten chestnuts that are still superb. Many places feature corollary attractions, such as hikes, museums, eminent architecture, and neighborhoods distinguished by their unique feel.

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Move over Los Tacos No. 1

The taco stylings of San Diego and vicinity have long been well represented by the burgeoning Los Tacos No. 1 chain, which offers a pared-down menu of tacos, tostadas, quesadillas, and mulas (with fillings mired in cheese between two tortillas) and a choice of grilled steak or chicken, pork adobada (similar to al pastor), and cactus. These come on freshly made corn or flour tortillas.

The bright orange interior of TEP

There have been Los Tacos knock-offs before, such as Bushwick’s Taqueria Al Pastor, but just recently another appeared in Midtown’s Flower District. Taqueria by El Prieto (TEP) is the replacement for the doomed La Chiliqueria, an agreeable place that mainly peddled the eponymous tortilla-chip dish. The new place adopts the name and logo of a taqueria in Chula Vista, California, but not its much more spare menu that includes only two tacos and one type of dressed french fries.

The chicken burrito at Tacos By El Prieto.

NYC’s TEP is a cheery orange space with ample counter seating, an Empire State Building mural, and a burrito costume out front ready to be donned for photos. The menu is more like Los Tacos No. 1’s than its Chuta Vista predecessor, but with tortas and burritos added. These burritos ($13.50) are wonderfully bare-bones, crammed with meat, poultry, or cactus dressed with onions and guacamole. No rice, no beans. The antojitos ($4.89 to $8.85) — tacos, tostadas, and, especially, the cheesy mulas, here called mulitas — are made on homemade corn tortillas that are pleasantly thick and soft.