 How do the bearded tacos in New York compare to the ones in L.A.? Give you and Miles. Okay, hey, give the Miles a... Yeah, take it right here. Right here, Miles. The best tacos that I've had in this video. As you guys may know, David and I, we have spent a lot of time traveling between L.A. and New York, covering the culture and trying the food. And one thing has always been said about New York City. It's that the tacos suck. Taco balls are pretty good to me. Yeah. All right, so for the past couple of decades, and particularly the last few years, there has been a massive taco revolution in New York City. That means a lot of new spots have opened up, serving everything from authentic to new wave fusion spots. I'm here with native New Yorker Marco. Can you confirm that tacos in New York City have always been mediocre? Growing up in New York City, we only had Taco Bell. My parents only had Taco Bell. My grandparents only had Taco Bell. So the tacos were just mediocre. But our first spot is Planet Taco. It just opened up one week ago. It is owned by an Asian person, a white person, and a Mexican person. And let me tell you this, man, they are doing things a little bit differently here. They got international flavors, and I'm not gonna say it's the most authentic tacos, but it's definitely something you have not seen before. Planet tacos, let's go. What's going on, everybody? Gotta give a quick shout out to our sponsor of this video, Helix Mattress. They are the premium inbox mattress that goes straight to your door that I have talked about before. So in this video, I just wanna quickly give you an update on how my mattress is going after using it for like six or seven months. I have decided it is my favorite mattress I've ever personally used. Now, there are so many factors that determine what type of mattress you should get. Helix actually has this online quiz that you can take that will help you figure out the firmness and the shade, the thickness of mattress that you need. Side, back, stomach, there's all types of people and all types of sleepers. From my weight and the way I sleep and the fact that I sleep alone, I will tell you this, for you right now, people who don't have a Helix, I think this is the number one selling point. Helix offers a hundred night free sleep trial, meaning that they will ship you a mattress in a box. You can use it for more than three months to make sure you love it. And if you do not love it, then you can tell them to come pick it up and they will give you a full refund. And if that interests you at all, make sure you go to helixsleep.com slash Fungbros and you can get up to $200 off of your Helix mattress. Definitely check it out. I think that it's totally worth it. The whole mattress industry has changed over the past several years. And I think mattresses are as good as they've ever been in the history of mankind. They let you try out a mattress for up to three months to see if you love it. And then they'll refund you if you don't. So check it out, helixsleep.com slash Fungbros for up to $200 off your mattress. All right, I'm with one of the owners, David here. Yo, what was your mission behind Planet Taco? What were you guys trying to do? So we wanted to make our own style tacos and so we could do it with making some recipes for New York tacos, nobody ever had before. We got a recipe for Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island. And then we took a little further. We got recipes, you know, international recipes. We even have some that we call out of this world that we call from Mars and Saturn. So, you know, taking it to a new level. So right now we got the Italy taco. All right, here I got the Japan one. You see a little tempura shrimp. Let's do it. The Italians in Italy, they would be impressed with this taco. One of the best fried shrimps I've ever had before. That miso ginger slaw is actually pretty tasty, man. This tastes like a fusion dish at like a new school Japanese spot. This one right here is good. All right, so for the next two tacos here, I have the Saturn one and you got the Cuba one. Man, this is grilled watermelon. I think this is really, really interesting. I haven't had grilled watermelon that many times in my life out of this world tacos. So there's actually mushroom and there's cactus and there's fried onions and the grilled watermelon. Man, that's actually really good. I never had that flavor in a taco before. Here I got the Cuba taco. They got whole pork, humans are known for their citrus flavors. And I think I'm on a beach in paradise after eating this. All right here, I got the Mars one. It's still all veggie, but it has grilled dragon fruit on top. And here I have the Venus, where it has a fried galamad. We got a little Chipotle mayo and we got olives. Let's go. Yo, guys, grilled dragon fruit in a taco. That's crazy. Yep, fried galamari in taco. I would have never thrown it in a million years. I would eat fried galamad in a taco when I did today. Now we're onto our burro themed tacos here. I have the Brooklyn, which is essentially based off the Ruben sandwich. It has corned beef and everything. And here we got the infamous chopped cheese taco. I think Aak was back there making the chopped cheese for us. We got a little pepper on there and a pickle for the culture right here. Chopped cheese in Brooklyn one. Just flavorful balance in this. I mean, can't go wrong with a chopped cheese taco. I've been looking to find different forms of the Ruben sandwich and I have found one of them. It is in taco form. This is good. I would say coming from the West Coast and living in LA for many, many years, I can tell you this, that in New York, there was not a super, super well established authentic taco culture. Meaning that, you know, it felt a little bit more comfortable for people to come in there and try something new and bring these weird wacky tacos, which is not wrong, but as long as they're executing at a high level, hey, I mean, you could do it. So some people will like it, some people won't, but the important thing is in this video, you are going to see that New York has both sides. Traditional, Tex-Mex, and wacky. All right, so for our next spot, we are going from a brand new wacky fusion taco spot. And now we're outside of a very authentic one. It started as a truck seven, eight years ago. Since then, it's been here as a brick and mortar. We are talking about tacos, Guadalupe Morelos. Right now, I'm just gonna say first, foremost. It smells like an authentic Mexican spot. I really never had an authentic taco, so I wanna see what it's all about. All right, Marco, you are telling me that this is your first authentic real traditional taco restaurant. Yeah, growing up in New York City as an Italian guy, it's not uncommon for me to never have an authentic taco before. All right, man. Well, let's show you something. Let's go. All right, you guys, we are in front of Guadalupe Morelos. This is one of the most authentic places in Manhattan. Now I know Corona Queens has some really authentic spots. We are looking at such traditional tacos from Puebla right now. This is the salted beef. Dude, I know that stuff from Puebla, that particular province of Mexico is extra authentic. Oh, so I'm getting a full taste of Mexico right now. Puebla tacos. Oh, I'm super excited to try this salted beef. Very simple, very balanced, taste authentic. Yo, this casino, this salted beef, this is it right now. This is a taco I've never personally had before. It's expanding my spectrum, expanding my mind. Who are you in this vast multiverse? All right, round two, we've got Tinga Pollo. Cone Asada. I had Cone Asada before, but not like this. This is just absolutely amazing. Very simple ingredients. I do think that the average taco in LA is much better than the average taco here in New York City. But I'm telling you, if you sniff it out, you'll look through the nooks and crannies and especially use Yelp, you can find some gems. And Guadalupe Morelos is a gem. We are in front of Los Tacos number one. This opened up eight years ago in Chelsea Market. And for the longest time, it was considered the only good tacos in Manhattan. So five years ago, this was the only spot where you can get authentic taco, but now this spot's all over the city. You guys, this is their second location in Tribeca, but we have to check out the originator that really kicked this trend off. All right, you guys, we're looking at the spread here at the legendary Los Tacos number one. What you got over there, Marco? Yeah, we got the Cone Asada, which smells tremendous right here. And over here, we have Autobotta we have right here. This over here is Nopal, which is actually the vegetarian option. It's cactus, grilled cactus. And of course, last but not least, you got the Pollo Asada, aka the grilled chicken. Okay, so I asked them to give me a mix. We've got the carne asada with a corn tortilla. They're a little bit more famous for their flour tortillas because they are Tijuana style. Tijuana style is a style that's already been a little Americanized off the jump because it is so close to the border. Let's check it out, guys. These could be still the best tacos in the city, but I don't know. We got a lot to eat. I think they are, let's do it. Oh my God, wow. This is really good. I love like the kick it has to it, really good. The meat is super grilled. It tastes like a steakhouse. And actually the one spot it reminds me of is Asadero Sinaloa, which is a spot in our hometown of Kent Washington that is famous for being a Mexican steakhouse. I love these corn tortillas. They're made in-house and they actually really puff up while they're cooking. And you can see it in the kitchen where it's on the stove. It just puffs up and then they smash them down to push the air out so you know they're fluffy. And of course the amount of guac, you know, that's very Tijuana style. When it comes to the battle between the flour tortilla and the corn tortilla, they always say that if you eat the flour tortilla, that is more for the Westerners, the gringos, or the Americanized Mexican kids. But if you eat the corn, that's obviously more traditional. For those out there who don't like the corn tortillas, definitely try this one because this one is fluffy and chewy and delicious. Here we got the flour tortilla. This is what they're known for. This is chewy, it's light, it's see-through. It's made with some lard so you know it's tasty. This is the chicken one, the pollo. Let's go. Let's go. That tortilla feels like the tortilla I get when I eat like peaking duck sometimes. Like the really thin one, except even a little bit more flavor. This is definitely my favorite boil taco I've ever had before. Definitely worth coming here. We have got so many spots to hit up. Like we said, there have been a thousand Mexican spots that opened up in the past 30 years in New York City. Every level of authenticity, new concepts, fusion concepts, ultra-modern concepts, ultra-rusted concepts. Let's check it out. Okay, so our next two spots right here, I got El Cabrón right next to me. And then right here we got taco recipes. When I first came here, it was just this little window where you can only order like a shrimp taco and al pastor taco and a steak taco and that was it. So they expanded. Here in my hand, I actually have a lamb taco from El Cabrón and then you have a steak taco from taco recipes. Two very different tacos. This is more your Americanized elevated taco bell right here. And then this is your authentic Mexican. All right, so you're gonna try that. I might take a bite of the other end of that, but you're gonna try this, all right? Do you want to mean in the middle? Street taco from Mexico? Tex-Mex. Like this is what I normally make myself on taco Tuesday. So this is a lamb taco. Not a lot of spots have lamb taco. I never had a lamb taco, this is my first time eating it. You just had a Tex-Mex taco steak and then you had a lamb taco right there. Very, very different. You could tell this is very authentic and this one I wouldn't eat on taco Tuesday, but I would eat it on Monday. You gotta try that. My God. The lamb taco is hitting very good, very saucy, very savory, almost like a beard of a lamb taco. All right, we got seafood. I have a fish one. I have this spicy shrimp. All right, let's do it. Wow, that's really good. I think El Cabrón, I think their fish tacos are the best authentic fish taco I've ever had. All right, so it's not that common to see a very Tex-Mex Mexican spot next to a very authentic Mexican spot, but you have both tacos. Which one do you prefer? It depends on the day I'm having. I've grown up always eating more of like a taco recipe, more your less spicy, more American-style taco. But you know, in late night, drink some beer, you get all the flavors, it's amazing. You gotta come to El Cabrón. But at the end of the day, I'm gonna try an American and I'm not mad about eating a nice crunchy shell. You can't go wrong. All right, so our next spot is Ja Ja Jazz. All right, it's on Canal in East Broadway in the Lower East Side and they are serving hip vegan tacos. And I've only been eating real tacos the last three years, and now I'm eating plant-based tacos and they're the best. And that's how you know that New York City is changing. What's going on, everybody? I'm here at Ja Ja Ja. Could you quickly tell me about Ja Ja Ja and what you guys were trying to do? So what we try to do in general, like we don't really use any of those products and we just trying to get vegetable tasting certain way. And in Mexican cuisine, you can actually do that because you can use all the spices, you know? We just wanted to simply enjoy our food. We are not trying to subsidize anything, just trying to make all the food, vegetables and everything we have to taste delicious. Cauliflower taco. Wow. It reminds me of a Shimbaha taco. And this is actually my go-to right here when I come here. That's some good fried cauliflower. If you were to tell me that this was cauliflower, I wouldn't have believed you at first, honestly. So tasty. That's good. I'm going in for a second bite. Well, spicy tofu skins. Man, I imagine this to be kind of like their al pastor. Oh, absolutely. Very different type of taste. Very, very good though. It says so much about the neighborhood because they're in Chinatown and we eat these tofu skins all the time in hot pot. Really? And in a lot of dishes. That's good, man. Yo, that's the best tofu taco I've ever had. And this is my first time ever having a tofu taco on. I give it 10 out of 10 right here. Vegetable chorizo. No meat substitute. I know that looks like beyond meat. It's all vegetables though. That's it. Oh, man. Oh my God. It's like you're eating meat. I can't tell the difference at all. Yeah, you know, I might have to go over to Terry one day. Bro. This is so good. This one might be, this is my favorite one so far. So far, I'm going to have to agree with you. This one's the best so far. Fish taco. But there's no fish. I'm going to put a little bit of sauce on top of it. Let's go. I've never had anything that tastes like that. It has almost the texture of a potato. But really, it tastes more juicy. This is something that I feel like I would eat on vacation. Mushroom tacos. With what I believe is a beet juice tortilla. Oh, I never had that before. Yeah, that's a red tortilla. It's probably from Beets. Yes. Beets are a great natural diet. And it's healthy. I'm not a huge fan of mushroom, but I'm going to give it a go right now. Really, y'all? I think you all like this one. This one was fire. I don't see mushrooms. They finessed that. Wow. Yeah. Maybe top three. That's top three for me. That was good, guys. Mushroom lovers. Make sure you get this one. As we continue on this modern New York City taco crawl, I do think it's really important to reference what was available before. Most people are familiar with the hard shell American style gringo style taco. And this is probably one of the best places to get one, San Loco. This is owned by a Filipino for 20 years here in the Lower East Side. I'm talking about hard shells, cheddar cheese shreds, green lettuce. One of the more interesting things, though, about San Loco gringo tacos, Andrew, is that they actually have some legitimate Mexican street tacos, but they also have your gringo style that probably anybody in Middle America is familiar with. And not only that, they do a double-decker taco. That is a soft shell taco, a layer of beans, and then a hard shell taco. Old school American gringo tacos. It's better than Taco Bell. I don't know about you guys out there. Let me know in the comment section below what you guys think about the American gringo style of tacos that's been around since 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. 50 years old, I kind of like them. Is it wrong to really like these type of gringo tacos? Because it's kind of like really liking orange chicken, like if you're talking about Chinese food. It's not wrong, but you probably want to acknowledge that it is the American version. But I mean, since these have been around, and I do think originally this Tex-Mex style of taco was cooked by Mexicans in America. So, you know, it's not like inauthentic or anything. Let's go. Mmm. I think the thing about these kind of tacos or Panda Express food that makes it a little bit more authentic is because it is cooked and created by people of that ethnicity and culture. It wasn't created by Americans, but it was kind of created for Americans. So I guess my question is, should you want the more authentic thing? Or is it okay to like the Americanized thing? But maybe just as long as you acknowledge that it's American. You guys, let me know in the comments down below. This is always an interesting topic to talk about when it comes to Mexican food and even Chinese food. Here is the plain hard shell taco. And me and David have, we have very fond memories of taco time. Del Taco, Taco Bell. So this is their version. Way better than the fast food one. Man, I would recommend you got to try this one if you come to San Loco and get the gringo tacos. No. All right, everybody here, we have your beloved soft shell taco. There's no crunchy taco shell in here at all. Now how a lot of flavor. I think I liked the crunchy one better, but this one was good too. And of course they do offer the authentic street style tacos. So here you got like a pastore and you got your carnitas right here. I'm gonna just drizzle a little bit of Verde on there. Okay, okay. All right, here at San Loco, I just tried the gringo tacos. And then I just had the street tacos, which are, you know, more of the ones off the truck and more traditional at the moment. Overall, if you're coming to San Loco, I say go for the crunchy tacos. Just get the gringo Mexican food and just enjoy it for what it is. What I like about San Loco is that it's one of those 20 plus year old kind of Mexican American spots that really goes to show you how far Mexican food has come, you know, especially in New York City. Over in LA, they've had street tacos for over 20 years. But out in New York, I mean, to see this kind of spot juxtaposed to the more authentic spots, there's this whole Mexican food boom. And it is definitely relatable to other cuisines. Chinese American food was the kind of staple of New York first, but now obviously people are getting more of a taste of the more authentic and higher end stuff. So, you know, this is just how culture moves and it's really interesting to see. So shout out to San Loco if you guys ever go shop at round two, just hop right over and grab some nostalgic tacos. As you can see, we're at Pink's Cantina. It's sort of the express concept of this larger spot called Pink's. And they kind of like have their own idea of what's like a New York taco. So they're not claiming that these are ultra authentic, but they're like sort of just having their own imagination. Let's check this out. This is the al pastor. They've got pineapple in there, overall pretty solid. For me, I'm a little bit more partial to chicken tacos. Oh, so full of stuff is kind of falling apart. Oh, wow. So these taste a little bit more like lost tacos, which is more of the DeSado style, the stewed style. So I don't know, we're gonna keep trying to end doing one more chicken one. So this one's called the food truck. I've actually never had a taco like this. There's chicken, asada, and al pastor in one taco. Yo, this beef one is the ground beef one. It's like a higher quality version of what you get at Taco Bell. It totally tastes like Taco Tuesday. Taco Tuesday! All right, so overall, I would say if you guys are really into Americanized tacos, such as the Cue Doba or Baja Fresh version, you're gonna want these. But if you're looking for authentic Mexican food, I don't know if it's gonna cut it. I'm not really sure what a New York taco is at the moment. So you know what? Maybe we gotta go hit up a few more spots and find out. We're here at Yellow Rose, which is a new Tex-Mex spot in New York City. It opened up pretty recently. The owners are from San Antonio. It's interesting because I think that there hasn't been a lot of Mexican penetration into Manhattan. I know in Corona Queens, they've always had a very large, authentic Mexican population. And that's sort of where you see everything. But as far as Manhattan goes in, barely anything. Of course, this food, it does have deep roots in Texas. Guys, this is the carne asada beef with cheddar cheese. So obviously the cheddar cheese being the more American Texas side of things. Tex-Mex is like over a hundred years old. This is the chicken verde, green chili sauce, cooked in with chicken pieces. Very simple. It's just saucy. It doesn't even have the other elements of a regular taco, Tex-Mex tacos. This for a Tex-Mex taco in New York, I'm gonna go ahead and give this one a 4.5 out of five. Yo, I gotta tell you guys, this flour tortilla is house-made and it's so soft and fluffy and chewy. I think Tex-Mex kind of gets a bad rep because it's not authentic enough or traditional enough. But you always talk about how you like Taco Bell and Taco Bell is based off of Tex-Mex. Right, Taco Bell is essentially its own version of Tex-Mex. Oh my gosh. I'm not gonna lie, man. So far, I've been impressed. Dave, this is the poblano pepper soup right here. Yellow Rose did a hell of a job recreating Texas. You know particularly where they're from, San Antonio. It has a very deep history of Tex-Mex. So that's the deepest. What? All right, Andrew, overall Yellow Rose a caricature recreation, but it did a good way of San Antonio, Texas, in East Village, Manhattan. Do you think it's gonna work? Well, I think it has a chance. Mexican food is on the rise around the city and there's different styles of Mexican food and this is the more Americanized version, but it has deep roots in history in America. It's really high quality and people at the end of the day in New York respect high quality and tasty things. It does kind of fit with this one trend I've been seeing in East Village a little bit where people are sort of taking an exaggerated version of something that does not exist in an urban environment and then transporting in here. They're bringing an experience here. If you're going on the interior, they have the saloon doors, so they're trying to transport you into a different place. There's so many Texas transplants in New York. It's got a good shot. I will say this, as somebody who is pretty well traveled around America, it's cool to see things that remind me of my last trip to San Antonio in New York. While this was maybe the best but most expensive Tex-Mex tacos I've ever had, I gotta say for people who grew up eating some Tex-Mex, it's nice to see. All right, you guys, of course we did an episode in LA about how the Biria tacos were really taking over the whole taco hype scene. It has made it all the way to New York City for a while. It was only in Corona Queens. They finally opened up one in the most hyped food area, Andrew Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Guys, we are outside of Biria Landia. This is the most famous Biria tacos in New York City. David, the big question is, how do the Biria tacos in New York compare to the ones in LA? Well, conventional wisdom would say that LA is closer to Mexico, but we'll find out. All right, you guys, the battle of the Biria tacos is going down. David, here you have the Biria tacos. You have the consomme. You're gonna dip it in this. These are also cooked in consomme, by the way. New York Biria. I love how the tortillas have been cooked. They're crispy, a little bit chewy, but they break down easily. Man, the shell was definitely better than LA. I like these better. Yeah. I think without the cheese, they're still really strong. And I don't necessarily think 100% that it needs cheese right now. You'll need a Tijuana cheese crust. I don't know, I'm just saying it tastes so good. I'm gonna go ahead and say this. I think the goat with the cheese in LA still beats it out by one notch. This comes in right in second, and everything else in LA would come in third and fourth. That's how I'm gonna say it. Okay, I'll take it. Like we said, guys, I think most Mexican trends start in LA or San Diego, maybe Chicago, and they come to New York, but by the time New York gets it, I do think they get a pretty high tier version. I mean, let's be real, guys, there is a rising and pretty sizable population of Mexican people in the New York area, particularly Queens. So of course, the food is still gonna be authentic. Hands down, I'll say that Biria, Landia and Williamsburg via Queens, New York was the best taco that I've had in this video. Drop that. In the foodie world, it's been long known that NYC tacos were pretty subpar, but in 2021, I think it's changing. Will it ever beat LA's cheap taco game a variety of Mexican cuisine? Absolutely not. Will LA ever beat NYC's pizza game? No way, but the interesting thing is the lack of old school traditionalism allows for a lot more diversity and oddball flavors to exist. Avocado, kale pizzas in LA cannot be found on the East Coast, and grilled watermelon, dragon fruit tacos in NYC are nowhere to be found on the West Coast. Hopefully one day, everywhere will have everything, and the people can decide without any attachment to the old ways, but for now, it's cool to see both sides. What do you guys think? Would you guys try these wacky tacos? Let us know in the comments section below. How am I going Taco Bell anymore? We are talking about tacos, Quatla Morelos, Quatla Morelos. Tacos, Quatla Morelos. Here we go. Wow, delicious.