Brokelyn

Photos by Ben Dwork

Food carts are all the rage these days, but Tacos El Bronco isn’t part of the growing fleet of retrofitted cargo vans with sleek logos and Twitter feeds that serve Kobe hot dogs or $4 brownies sweetened with agave nectar. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) It’s just an old-school lunch truck that sets up nightly in front of the Key Food at Fifth Ave. and 43rd St. and serves murderously good tacos for $1.50 apiece. And that’s it—no burritos, no quesadillas, not even rice and beans. Read the rest of this entry »

A Texas taco contest. Photo by Armando Rayo.

It’s not quite hot dogs in Coney Island, but tacos in Park Slope has a certain authentic grit to it, don’t you think? Besides, face-stuffing is face-stuffing, which is what we hope to see tonight at Barrio‘s first annual taco-eating contest. The guacamole will fly at 7 p.m. when contestants race to clean their surely-overflowing plates. The prize is a $100 gift certificate to the restaurant. You can still sign up, but call ahead at 718-965-4000. The entrance fee is $19, which seems steep, until you consider that you probably won’t want to eat again until Saturday morning. And it’s an even better deal than Dine in Brooklyn. Competitors, show up by 6:45.

Barrio, 210 Seventh Ave. at 3rd St., 718-965-4000

Photo by Marie Viljoen

These aren’t the cheapest places you’ll read about on Brokelyn, but there are occasions—birthdays, anniversaries, when someone with more money is paying—when a truck-stand taco doesn’t quite cut it.  So we asked the mystery diner behind the anonymously authored Eat It: The Brooklyn Food Blog for a list of restaurants that offer luxury, in one way or another, beyond their menu prices. Here are her picks. Read the rest of this entry »