Country Boys/Martinez Taco : And You Say There's No Good Mexican Food In New York
This 2009 Vendy's winner doesn't need introduction to New York's taco lovers (especially the desperate ones from Texas or those who are either from California or spent time there gaining the taco cred needed to lord the "there's no good Mexican food here" mantra over Manhattanites). It's one of the city's best Mexican food trucks. It's just a pain to get to for most everyone besides people who live near the Red Hook Ball Fields where Fernando Martinez and his wife Yolanda (originally from Puebla, Mexico) have set up since 1993 when they "started off with one grill and two tables" near the intersection of Clinton and Bay.
Yes, there are tacos, quesadillas, sopes, and chalupas, but the reason to wait on the at times more than hour-long line at Country Boys/Martinez Taco, are the huaraches: pressed to-order masa filled with a layer of soft beans, which is then cooked and topped with your choice of meat, shredded lettuce, guacamole, crema, and salsa. Is it worth waiting in line for an hour and a half? Is anything? To that New Yorkers will counter that these are good people doing the taco god's work, making good food, country food, "food for farmers," as Martinez told Leanne Tory-Murphy of Nona Brooklyn in 2011.
Yes, yes it is.
Arthur Bovino is The Daily Meal's executive editor. Follow Arthur on Twitter.