Mission Cantina

I will admit it, I am a burritHO. I can eat burritos all day, everyday, and twice on Wednesday while watching Seinfeld in my boxers. So when I heard that Danny Bowien was making burritos at his new spot Mission Cantina, I had to see what the deal was. I loved Mission Chinese, but I never got the chance to write about it, as I was too busy sweating my balls off from the chicken wings to jot down my thoughts on the dishes we ordered.

We arrived around 9pm with an hour wait, which was cool because we had a few specialty drinks at the small bar situated across from the front door. I liked the bar so much that we wound up eating dinner there. This is what we ordered:

Scallop & Veal Heart Ceviche ($13) -  Topped with fried capers, olives, and red rice vinegar on a crispy house made tostada. This dish had a lot of things working for it. Right off, I noticed the flavors of savory and sweet from the corn tostada and the vinegar. I loved the texture of the firm scallop and veal heart with the crispiness of the tostada. My palate was having a field day. My favorite dish of the night.

Chicken Wings ($12):  Mole, spices, chili vinegar, sesame, crema. I'm not going to lie, I was kind of in shook when they brought these wings to the table. I remember the wings from Mission Chinese, which were extremely spicy and mouth numbing. I like heat, but the spice had me sweating harder than Gwyneth Paltrow when asked for directions to Brooklyn. Mission Cantina's wings  are a little bit more tolerable on the tongue. Fried to a crisp and devilishly good.

Tacos ($6.50 for 2) We ordered the Cummin Lamb Taco, smoked prune, herbed crema and The roasted pork - Al Pastor with pickled pineapple. On my two trips to Mission Cantina, I had a great tortilla stuffed with extremely dry meat. I can usually excuse dry meat for flavor, but the flavor just fell flat on it's ass. This was like eating Taco Bell but while sober in the daylight.

The Brisket Burrito ($12): Beans, avocado, crema, queso blanco, salsa fresca, chips and 2 salsas, with your choice of meat, fish or vegetable. Let me start off by saying "Holy Fuck!" The sheer weight alone made me realize that I would be in a food coma for the next 3 days. Everything from the fresh and extremely dense tortilla to the perfectly cooked brisket was one hundred percent on point. What threw me for a loop was that there was no rice in the burrito; Bowien packs the burrito with perfectly cooked beans instead. The text book definition of a good burrito to me is that every bite tastes the same and Mission Cantina nailed that aspect.

After a few drinks and the food, our bill came to a measly $110 before tip. The service was on point our bartender/server was excellent - we even had a 10 minute conversation about tacos. I will gladly admit that he has the burrito game on lock. As for his tacos, they need work. There are a lot of great tacos popping up in Manhattan, and in a very large spectrum. Anything from a quick casual taco at Los Taco No.1 in Chelsea, to the high end tacos being slung a few blocks away by Lord Taco, Alex Stupak. I'd hate to see someone as talented as Bowien left behind in the taco dust.

Mission Cantina 
172 Orchard Street, New York 
missioncantinanyc.com