Battle Of The Taco Trucks

National Taco Day is coming up this October 4, and seeing two taco trucks sitting in the same New Rochelle park was just too tempting of a scene.   

At one end of Flowers (City) Park sits the white Teca’s Tacos truck. A former UPS vehicle, the truck, and the restaurant that spawned it, Tecalitlan, got a great review in the New York Times last year—but of course, we had told you about the truck a year prior. 

In the opposing corner (a respectful eight car lengths away), the lime-green Taqueria San Antonio truck. Its parent restaurant of the same name relatively unknown.

Which to try? (Both, of course). LET’S GET READY TO TACO!

Teca’s Taco: Both trucks charge $2.50 a taco, but Teca has a leg up with its amuse-bouche taco. That’s right, a FREE appetizer taco; refried beans with chorizo on the day I was there (minus toppings and not double rolled like the other tacos, but still). I hadn’t expected it, even though I’d received one at the restaurant last year.

I ordered a chorizo taco and a cup of iced horchata from a barrel, and then joined a growing number of lunchers eating from the backs of parked cars and on the curb. Tortillas are cooked in oil (per tradition, fat be damned), and the classic toppings of onion, cilantro, and tomatillo sauce, with lime and radish on the side, make this one delicious bite (and I would be remiss not to mention how friendly the people are). They also make burritos ($5); do try the slow-cooked beef birria.

San Antonio: The chorizo taco, served in the same style (but with red hot sauce, and the addition of fried onions, on the side), lacked the delicate flavor, abundant cilantro, and nuanced salsa of Teca’s taco, and drinks are limited to mostly bottled water and Coke. But they also make tortas ($7), a sandwich on a Portuguese roll—including queso blanco (vegetarian) with tomato, lettuce, shredded carrots, and a lovely lengthwise slice of jalapeño, with mayo and what tastes more like Russian dressing than the chipotle mayo you typically get on these things. De-licious. They also have hot dogs and quesadillas. (I have since learned that their most popular torta filling is lomo, pork tenderloin.)

I snaked through the side streets of New Rochelle, past Tecalitlan restaurant, to find San Antonio’s brick-and-mortar location, expecting a larger menu, but it is much the same as the truck—excepting menudo (a tripe soup they make on Sundays), a larger selection of drinks (including beer and Sidral Mundet green apple soda), and a snack rack, from which hangs a ribbon of goat-caramel lollipops.

About a block away is the newish store Candylandia, a mind-boggling Mexican candy heaven we will discuss another day.