NYC Food Truck Lunch: Assorted Tacos From Los Viajeros
Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food.
Last weekend was the Vendy Awards on Governor's Island, crowning the best street food vendors in NYC in a variety of categories. Continuing the Vendy Award theme of the past few weeks' reviews, this week we went to Los Viajeros, who were one of the finalists in the Rookie of the Year category.
Our first visit to Los Viajeros (which means "the travelers" in English) was shortly after they opened back in April, when we enjoyed a shrimp burrito. This time, we went for variety, getting 3 different types of tacos. In addition to tacos and burritos, Los Viajeros also serves quesadillas.
We ordered the steak, fish and shrimp tacos, which were $5 each. However, you can get any 3 tacos for $10, so this ended up being a good deal. The other choices were chicken ($4) and vegetarian ($3) tacos.
The first thing we noticed upon opening the lunch container was the soft tortillas were darker than usual. They appeared to be blue corn tortillas, something we hadn't seen before on the streets of NYC.
The fish and shrimp tacos were somewhat similar, with pineapple salsa, cole slaw and chipotle aioli sauce in both. The menu said the fish taco would have mango salsa, but this day it had pineapple salsa, which served the same purpose.
A nice piece of breaded, fried, flaky tilapia was in the fish taco. It stood up to all the fixings, but was a little lackluster in seasoning. Maybe a larger dose of salsa was needed, because there didn't appear to be much in the taco, and the pineapple really juiced up the taste of the shrimp taco.
The steak taco was made with ropa vieja, a Cuban dish where the beef is cooked for hours until it's very tender, similar to the consistency of pulled pork. In addition to ropa vieja, there was cole slaw, sour cream, chipotle aioli and jalapeños in the steak taco. The steak taco was tasty, but definitely the spiciest taco of the bunch, so keep that in mind when ordering.
In our opinion, the shrimp taco was the best of the bunch. It was fruity and spicy, with a multitude of flavors bursting in our mouth. The shrimp taco was spicier than the fish taco, but didn't pack as much heat as the steak taco. The sweet, juicy shrimp were a great counterpoint to the pineapple and chipotle aioli sauce.
The tacos at Los Viajeros are on the small side, but they were overflowing with ingredients. With the "any 3 tacos for $10" deal, it ended up being a reasonably-priced, filling lunch that held us until dinner.
You can find Los Viajeros on Twitter here and on Facebook here. They might not have won Rookie of the Year at the 2016 Vendy Awards, but they definitely deserved to be a Finalist.
