Restaurant Review: Eclipse Restaurant, Sunset Park

Tonight, we tried a new Mexican restaurant in Sunset Park. Eclipse is located right on 4th Avenue, and easy to miss. Eclipse is a happy blend of delicious and relatively healthy "real" Mexican food and good decor and service. Unlike our other hotspots, who haven't invested in appearances, Eclipse has savvy decor to attract all sorts of clientele while keeping prices low. Also differentiating themselves from other hole-in-the-wall neighborhood places, they have a full bar (rather, than, say, Matamoros, where the situation is BYO).

I tried my favorite kind of tacos, carne enchilada (spicy grilled pork), 3 for $6. They weren't as spicy as other joints in the neighborhood, but they were rich in flavor and cooked cleanly, without a lot of grease. The ingredients in our pico de gallo salsa were incredibly fresh - you could taste it - and E practically huffed his bistec burrito.






In short, Eclipse is a great place to take people who enjoy lots of different kinds of food, but are afraid of places with tacky decor, menus in other languages if they exist at all, and waitstaff who don't speak English. The courtyard is lovely, the staff courteous, and it's the perfect place to take my parents when they're in town for some delicious food.

Eclipse Restaurant
4314 4th Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11232

Food Review: Delicias Mexicanas

I am apparently expanding the reach of my restaurants. Having recently begun working in Harlem, I decided it was time to sample the delights of Spanish Harlem. A quick troll of blog reviews and Yelp told me to try Delicias Mexicanas.

Walking over from my office, I realized when I crossed Lexington that I went from Harlem to Spanish Harlem. Delicias Mexicanas is located just south of the 116th stop on the 6 train, with a clean, pleasant seating area decorated with tans with plastic plants. Their menu is extensive, from the standard burrito and taco to huaraches, birria, and flautas. I sampled the al pastor taco, which is strongly flavored with pineapple, and the carne enchilada. These are served with chopped fresh cilantro and onion on small corn tortillas. They make excellent fresh guacamole that holds true to the flavor of the avocado, and red (very spicy) and green (milder but not mild) salsa. On the whole, Delicias Mexicanas is very good, although I remain partial to my neighborhood taquerias.

Also recommended: eat-in restauarant, rather than getting takeaway. All the savory juices make your taco shell soggy by the time you finally get to devour it.



Delicias Mexicanas
3rd Avenue between 115th and 116th
Manhattan, NY

Restaurant Review: El Compadre

This week's restaurant review is a special one: El Compadre, in Los Angeles. El Compadre has two locations on Sunset Blvd in LA, one in Echo Park and one in Hollywood. The food is delicious although a bit gringo Mexican (read: cheese is on everything, and you get endless chips and fiery salsa), but the decor and the flaming margaritas make up for it.

I'd recommend the Vagabundo or the El Compadre, although everything I've ever had there is delicious. Make reservations, and you'll probably still have to wait any night of the week after 6pm. Inside, the atmosphere is dark and the decor like a redone Spanish villa. You'll fall in love, even before the mariachis start to sing or a woman comes in off the street to sell you individual roses at your seat.