Restaurant Week

So, Staten Island Restaurant Week apparently started on Monday. In celebration, let me share with you the place with my friend Chorney and I unwittingly marked the occasion:

Taqueria El Gallo Azteca (yes, the Aztec Rooster)
75 Victory Boulevard
(718) 273-6404

I sorely miss "Taqueria y Fonda" at Amsterdam & 107th from my days at Columbia in White Harlem. While St. George's restaurante muy autentico lacks my old stomping ground's breadth of menu and cornucopia of fresh ingredients, it does have street cred. You're eating freshly made $2 tacos with grilled beef on corn tortillas with mucho cilantro and onions, topped with a homemade medium-spicy green sauce while rubbing elbows with blue-collar Mexican guys. There's Corona, Boing, Jarritos, and many other usual suspects to quench the thirst of La Raza or any pinche gabacho. Three cheers for the cook behind the counter who, while I was eating my tacos, methodically sliced a whole slab of [I think pigs'] brains that was easily three feet by four feet. That sounds like some nice, cholesterol-laden eatin'!

But the reason why I would come back again would be for the $6 tortas. At first, I thought I didn't want a sandwich for dinner, but these huge sandwiches filed an entire plate, were piled with grilled meat, peppers, and onions, and were topped with a globular, butter-glazed bun. DAMN, it looked good - I need to come back to try them.

Also along this beginning stretch of Victory Street - northeast Staten Island's commercial artery - is a Jamaican restaurant, a Polish restaurant and adjacent grocery, a pizzeria, and another [sketchier-looking] Mexican restaurant. Maybe they're too blue collar for Zagat's, but I'm excited at the prospects.

I get off work early on Friday, and will hopefully find a place to *actually* take advantage of Staten Island Restaurant Week, and the SINY Film Festival. They're offering "Dinner and a Movie" specials a-plenty.