Order the damn fish taco! (Dorado Review – Union Square)

Desp-Dorado, why don’t you come to your senses (and order the damn fish taco!)?

When one runs a taco blog, their tendency is to attempt to provide the fullest experience possible for any particular taco joint they are reviewing.  However, truth be told, sometimes less is more, as was the case with Dorado (Union Square).  A word of advice for you taco explorers, and I recommend you heed this advice as I learned the hard way, when a Taqueria is named after a delicious fish, and said fish graces the establishment’s logo, stop messing around and order the damn fish taco!  Luckily, the Baja Original (battered Atlantic whitefish) was part of my order, but my two non-piscine selections (Mushrooms and Chorizo) were less than stellar. With that on the table, boy did that battered whitefish make up for it!  Here are a few choice words for each, from the gutter (chorizo) to the gates of heaven (take a guess which one).

Chorizo – Very rarely do I meet a chorizo taco I do not like.  In fact, I blame chorizo for much of my taco-sluttiness.  However, this was one chorizo taco so dirty that I regretted bringing it home.  In defense of the chorizo genre, this wasn’t so much chorizo as it was a chili/dog food hybrid.  On paper, this should have been a great taco.  Chorizo, guacamole & salsa fresca; all the tools to make a great taco. But alas, much like Tim Tebow, the physical attributes did not lead up to a winner on game day.  I would give this taco a 1.5 out of 5 tortillas.

Mushrooms - If the chorizo taco was Tim Tebow, the mushroom one was Mark Sanchez.  Definitely a step up, but  this taco is still not leading anybody to the promised land.  I am a huge fan of portabella mushrooms, and the menu included the magic descriptor “spicy” to the mix so this should have been a sure thing.  Even the fixings were enticing (cotija cheese, guacamole and salsa fresca), but unfortunately it all seemed to blend together to one big mish-mosh.  It would have been nice if the flavors maintained their own qualities, as the resulting glob was not very enjoyable.  I give the mushroom tacos from Dorado 2.5 out of 5 tortillas.

Baja Original - This taco…was a masterpiece.  The batter was soft yet crispy, melding perfectly with the flaky Atlantic Whitefish.  Each bite melted in your mouth, leaving just a hint of butter as an aftertaste.  This fish was a testament to the art of frying, proving not all that is fried has to be a crispy grease wad.  A slice of this fish on a tortilla alone would have made me happy but this taco didn’t stop there, it continued to go the extra mile to ensure tortilla greatness.  The cabbage and pickled onions added a nice crunch to the melt-in-your-mouth buttery flakes of fish, and the crema as well as the salsa fresca each played their role to perfection, popping in with a supplementary flavor burst now and again without taking focus away from the true superstar of the taco (the fish).  If I were presented with this taco 100 more times, I would order it 99 of them, leaving one order of something else to give me something to compare the greatness of the Baja Original to.  I give this taco 4.8 out of 5 tortillas!

The moral of the story is if a place is known to have a specialty, there is probably a reason that it prides itself on that dish.  You’re not going to go to Pat’s in South Philly and order a hot dog, right?  No you’re getting a cheesesteak, probably whiz wit.  As is the case with Dorado, don’t let curiosity dupe you into checking out what anything else on the menu is about, just let them do what they do best; make you a fish taco!

Sidenote: They do also offer a Seasonal Catch Fish Taco and a Beer Battered Shrimp taco.  Next time I go to Dorados I’ll probably give those two a go as well to see if they live up to the Baja Original.

- TS

Dorado Tacos (Union Square)
28 East 12th Street
New York, NY 10003