NYC NOW - Craving Tacos on Thanksgiving?

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Time is running out for the city to stay on schedule with its plan to demolish part of a public housing complex in Chelsea. Meanwhile, Downtown Manhattan has gone from “taco wasteland” to ‘taco revolution,” that’s according to food critic Robert Sietsema. He talks with WNYC’s David Furst and makes the argument that great tacos are now very much on the menu in the neighborhood.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Junae Pierre. Happy Thanksgiving. I don't mean to sound cheesy, but I'm so grateful to have you with us. There are thousands of podcasts out there, so thanks for taking the time to listen to this one. I'm thankful for so much more, and we'll get into that a little later. First, here's your news headlines from Michael Hill. Time is running out for the city to stay on scale.

with his plan to demolish part of a public housing complex in Chelsea. Deputy to my seat reporter Joe Hong has more. Two buildings within the Fulton and Elliott Chelsea houses were set to be demolished for a redevelopment project by the end of this year. But a lawsuit filed by the Residents Association argues that the city needs to go through a month's long public review process before the demolition. Then there's the two tenants who refused Nij's offer to relocate them to another apartment during demolition and construction.

A judge sided with them last week and suggested NYCHA take them to housing court. Housing officials say the resistance represents a small minority of residents and that the plan can stay on schedule. The last few balloons and floats are making their way along the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade route. Spectators have come from all over the world.

Ten-year-old Isabella Chanchery of Westchester says she was most looking forward to one specific float rolled by featuring a mischievous-looking plush toy. The potmart balloon, it has looboo, skull pandas, Molly. And she had a special message for all of us. I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving. Indeed, indeed. More Code Blue advisories to come this afternoon till 8 in the morning.

Outreach teams will canvas all five barrels to connect homeless New Yorkers to shelter. Officials say if you want to get someone out of the cold, call 311, request help. Across the Hudson, Newark's Code Blude runs all the way through Saturday morning. 46 and partly sunny going up to 47 today, cold with winds gusting to 32 miles an hour, mostly clear and freezing tonight. Many of you may be carving a turkey or loading up on more mac and cheese today, but I bet you'll be craving tacos soon. There are a few much-try spots in downtown Manhattan. More on that after the break.

Downtown Manhattan has gone from Taco Wasteland to Taco Revolution. That's according to food critic Robert Sitsima. In his latest article, Robert makes the argument that great tacos are now very much on the menu in the neighborhood. Although that wasn't the case a couple years ago. My colleague David First talked with the food critic about all things tacos. Hey, Robert. Hey, David. Well, compared to other neighborhoods, downtown wasn't really where you came for great tacos, right?

Oh, never, never, never. I mean, we had a few Pueblo and taquerias and these served the kind of southern tacos where they use kind of commercial white corn tortillas. And that was because their heart wasn't really in it. They wanted the Harachis and the sopas and the things fashioned by hand. All of a sudden, we have these takareas. Many of them originating in Southern California, and in Mexico City itself, they make the tortillas, corn tortillas from yellow corn, and they make them fresh. In some places like this place, Tacos 1986, which is San Diego chain and LA chain, they actually make them as you watch and then use them to make your taco just right there. I am so ready for this, so where are we going to start?

Let's start at Karen Yito, which is a branch of a place in Mexico City. Here it's on a university place around 10th Street. And what they do is that they add Thai and Chinese flourishes to tacos, which sounds like it might not work, but just sink your teeth into the pastrami taco with Chinese mustard. Wow. Once again, on a fresh tortilla that you see them making right through the kitchen window, Taking a taco and making it from a tortilla that is made right before your eyes, it's like eating a piece of fresh bread that's just out of the oven.

I mean, it's just, it's a revelation. Is there a particular location that maybe captures the spirit of downtown in its taco choices? The real interesting feature is the diversity of these places, that these places are taking tacos to new places and they are very modern. One place that's taking the taco backward into history is this place called Karnitas Ramirez, which is an Avenue B and 3rd Street. They have striven to be the most authentic pork tachorea in the entire country, I think.

I don't know any place, and I eat tacos everywhere I go. I don't know any place that has as many pork choices. You walk in there and there's this beautiful window. and the window has craned on it all the different pig parts. You know, they have standard things like the pork leg, which will taste to you just kind of like pulled pork, and it's absolutely delicious. They'll throw a couple of pieces of crisp skin on top of it at your request.

But they have things like pork face and pork ear and pork nose, pork uterus, and pork brain, which is kind of so runny that they have to wrap it in a separate tortilla and put a toothpick through it. Are these popular choices? They don't sound like they'd be flying off the shelf to me. Well, David, there's been a kind of a group of foodies that we might call adventure eaters, not to mention people from Mexico that take these pork parts for granted. I mean, this is what Fergus Henderson was talking about in his nose-to-tail eating.

Nothing goes to waste in the modern world that are at this taqueria, and people have developed a taste for all of these different pig parts. The food is beyond good. I think we have time for one more taco spot. Where could we go? Well, let me mention two places. I can't control myself here. One is Wayne and Sons, which is right on 2nd Avenue in the East Village.

It's a place run by Texans that makes only flour tortillas. They make them there. They use fillings that are like velvita cheese and stuff like that. The other place is El Chateau, which is named after the owner's dog. and there's two of them. There's one on McDougal Street and there's one in the new timeout food court, which I highly recommend

near Union Square. And there they have this kind of brisket taco that is just like out of this world, juicy and compact, and they have a salsa that they make there that's made out of crushed onions that is

just absolutely out of this world. That sounds incredible. What's the name of that place again? The one named after a pet? after a dog, yeah, E-L-C-H-A-T-O, El Chateau. Okay, for Robert's full list of great tacos in downtown Manhattan, you can check out his substack, Robert Seatsima's New York. That's food critic Robert Seatsima, talking with WMYC's David First. Before we get out of here, I'd like to introduce two colleagues who I'm also thankful for,

senior producer Jared Marcell and assistant producer, Iru Ekpanobi. Welcome you to. Hey, Janae. Thank you. Eru, you're remote this week as you visit the fam for the holidays, but what are you thankful for? I am thankful for my family, who yes, I am visiting. I'm spending a lot of good time with my cousins. And there's been a lot of talk this year about the cousin walk. If you all haven't heard of that, look that up. But I'm grateful for this unseasonably warm weather and actually getting to go on a real walk with my cousins. Not a cousin walk, but a walk with my cousins. Nice.

What about you, Jared? Well, I am also thankful for you, Janay. I'm especially thankful for I, the newest addition to our team. And I'm also thankful for our engineers. Shout out to Wayne, Laura, Owen, Amber. Everybody. Everybody.

Thankful to the listeners. And New York City. Thankful for New York City. Thank you for New York City. But I, too, am thankful for Eru, as I said earlier. But with Erieu comes some new changes for the NYC Now team. You want to talk about that, Jared? Yeah, absolutely.

You all may have noticed that we have gone down to one episode a day. And we're going to see some more changes in 2026. It's going to be fun, exciting, and we hope you like them. The best is yet to come. Thank you so much, you two, for joining me today. And thank you for all that you do for this. this podcast and for the WNYC newsroom. And to the listeners,

thank you so much for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Jared's going to finish up his ox tales and Iru's going to go on that cousin's walk. Whatever you decide to get into, do enjoy the holiday. We'll be back tomorrow.