This past weekend, I met up with a group of friends and headed out to Tacos Morelos, a Mexican restaurant on the east end of Jackson Heights that makes traditional antojitos and platters of food. Morelos is a Mexican State south of Mexico City. When I sat down, I was given a menu almost immediately. I was looking forward to digging into it and seeing what they had to offer.
I was happy to see a lot of familiar fare—tacos, huaraches, quesadillas, cemitas, tortas. Also, there were the less common tlacoyos, which excited me. And then the even less familiar tacos placeros, which, according to Sara Markel-Gonzalez of Serious Eats, the term tacos placeros “means different things to different people, but generally are tacos that you can buy in an outdoor plaza in Mexico, usually inexpensive, made with a variety of fillings, but simply prepared.” I expect I could have bought them from the street vendors in downtown Cancun when I was there years ago.
Parque las Palapas in Cancun, Mexico.
You can see the food vendor area in the distance. At that point in time I was not open to eating street food much, so I abstained. You better believe I’d be all over that now!
Anyway, about those tacos placeros—I remember seeing one on the menu that included potatoes, and there was also a chile relleno taco. I think next time I’m there I’m going to try them.
The first thing that came out to the table was chips and salsa. The chips were good—nice and light, and came with an excellent salsa that had visible bits of onion and cilantro in it. I also loved the color; the black specks are likely bits of charred chiles. It wasn’t very spicy but had great flavor, and we finished it off pretty quickly.
For drinks, people at our table ordered beer (Modelo, Pacifico) or micheladas. This Mexican beer cocktail has become easier to find in NYC recently, but for a while there were only a few places (that I knew of) that served them. A basic michelada is essentially beer, lime, and salt. But more commonly they contain hot sauce in addition to the lime and salt.
You can also add chamoy syrup, which contributes an additional tang. A few years back, a friend who lived in Mexico City for a few years showed me how to make a michelada. She got chamoy flavored candy at a local bodega and melted it so that we could taste it; that’s what’s on the rim of the glass. I have had a devil of a time finding chamoy syrup proper in NYC. Here are the micheladas from that evening in 2010:
And here are the micheladas from Tacos Morelos.
You can see that they were pretty popular! And rightly so—they were extremely tasty. I loved the sourness of the lime, the spice of the hot sauce, and the salt rim was also good.
I, on the other hand, got something non-alcoholic; I was going to a whiskey and bourbon tasting later that evening, so I thought it would be best to pace myself (I have a terribly low tolerance for alcohol). I chose a mora batida—a blackberry shake—with milk. Usually when you order them, they’ll ask you if you want your batida made with water or milk, and I always go with milk, since I like a richer shake.
It was gorgeous and delicious, with plenty of flavor. I loved the bubbly top of the batida.
One of our eating companions got a piña colada, which was refreshing and sweet, and quite strong.
There were a few more piña coladas served to our table later in the meal, too!
Across the table, Jen ordered sopes, another masa-based dish, related to the tlacoyo and huarache. They were three grilled discs of masa topped with beans and chorizo, as well as lettuce and crema. I didn’t get to taste them but she said they were delicious.
Sopes are one of my favorite things to order in Mexican restaurants here in NYC.
As I mentioned, there were tlacoyos on the menu. I love the word, which has origins in the Nahuatl language, an indigenous language to Mexico and greater Mesoamerica. In this language, the word tlacoyos comes from the Nahuatl word tlatlaolli, which essentially means “ground corn dough.” They are made from masa and shaped into a long torpedo shape. It’s easy to liken them to huaraches, but in my experience huaraches are much larger.
The tlacoyos, about three inches wide and six inches long, came three to a plate ($7.50). I got mine with al pastor (recommended by the wait staff over the carnitas, when it came to pork) with a green sauce, and another person got it topped with goat and a red sauce. Both were excellent! I loved how they were stuffed with mashed black beans, too.
The salsas were spicy and flavorful, but not killer in the heat department (though the red was hotter than the green). I also liked the addition of crema, too, and felt like it tied everything together with its slight tang and creaminess.
Tlacoyos with al pastor and green sauce.
Tlacoyos with goat and red sauce.
Tacos Morelos also offers platters of food, and my friend Mark ordered chicken in salsa mora, a specialty at Tacos Morelos. The chile mora is a dried and smoked chile, similar to a chipotle. Lesley Téllez of The Mija Chronicles, talks about the chile mora:
It’s a smoked, dried jalapeño, and therefore classified as a chipotle. But it’s a bit sweeter and more raisin-like than the brown chipotles you see in the markets. It’s also not as hot. (The chile morita, a cousin, is much spicier.)
Mark said the burn was easy at first and increased as he ate it, finishing with something quite hot. I tasted it and really enjoyed the flavor, but only caught the early, baby burn.
Note the avocado on his plate, some of which ended up on my tlacoyos, because I like avocado on pretty much anything. They were nice, ripe, creamy slices, too.
Another platter of food was ordered, which looks like mole poblano. Whatever it was, it looks fantastic! I’ll have to find out what it was.
Platters also came with a beautiful plate of black beans and rice. I didn’t try it, but according to Serious Eats, the beans are flavored with epazote, an herb used in traditional Mexican cooking.
I loved the food here, and look forward to my next trip back. The service was also good and I got to use some of my high school Spanish, always a good thing. It was pretty warm in there, though, with no A/C or visible fans, but despite that I would return in a heartbeat. It’s always good to find well-prepared Mexican food in NYC.
Tacos Morelos, 94-13 37th Ave., Jackson Heights, NY 11372, (347) 832-0193, Yelp, VV, SE
