Cabrito

Sorry about the late posting guys. I followed my brother to watch him teach this morning, which meant that we left at 7:10 a.m., which to me is the butt crack of dawn. Do not yet possess the ability to both blog and be conscious when the ghouls are just retiring from their nightly horrors.

Man, it's intimidating to go out for Mexican food for the kid responsible for this meal. I mean, before he advanced to homemade tortillas for his legendary fish tacos, he had his mother in Los Angeles basically FedEx some "worthy" specimens for a prior taco party.

Which meant of course, that when he was utterly unimpressed with these tacos from Cabrito, I pretended like that conclusion was beyond obvious to me as well. In reality, I was so happy to be eating a taco, I'm not so sure I would have realized they were sub-par if my friend hadn't pointed that out to me.

My tasting faculties were however, intact enough that I was able to bash the rest of the offerings without assistance. Considering how cheap they are to make, and that in a gazillion million Mexican kitchens right now there are probably pots of superlative rice and beans simmering on their stove as you read this, it really is a travesty that in the greatest city on the planet (my hometown obviously) it is difficult to get a plate of decent rights and beans. New York, step up!

I'm going to hit up the boroughs this summer and find some real Mexican restaurants. There is just no way the Mexican community actually puts up with this sacrilege. It's only idiots like myself who pay $5 for a plate of rice and beans who willingly shovel the stuff down their gullet.

Cabrito's rice and beans are not retch inducing, not by a long shot, they just don't make me swoon.

You see, to me a great meal involves at least one involuntary moan of pleasure. That's when you know you've hit jackpot.

The main reason why we went to Cabrito, is because we wanted to order this cemita. Except we screwed up and ordered the above huarache instead. Turns out those are only on the lunch menu, but did Tasting Table tell us as much? Tasting Table I blame you for our meal.

I ordered this. I should have known better. It's short ribs. It came with what appeared to be two flour tortillas. If they were, let me just say here that generally flour tortillas belong in a Taco Bell. And I love me some good Taco Bell, but that's not Mexican, that's just fast food goodness, a food category unto itself.

Frank Bruni somehow managed to deem this ribs "spectacular." I just don't understand how he could eat it and describe it as "ablaze with guajillo and chile de arbol" when the whole thing has a pretty mellow flavor. It almost made me think of a Chinese comfort dish. Honey, if you want spectacular, go hit up your colleague Mark Bittman and ask him to cook you up a batch of his Short Ribs with Coffee and Chili.

We didn't keep out disapproval to ourselves, and vocally muttered our ways through the meal, until the end, when I noticed that we were sitting right under an open window that connected to the kitchen. Oops. Well, at least they know we think they suck.

And in Bruni's defense, he did say that "Cabrito is afflicted by an inconsistency that’s puzzling, even maddening." Yeah, I'll say.

Cabrito, 50 Carmine St. (near Bedford), 212-929-5050.