Running off to catch a 6 o’clock movie on East 86th Street, I ask my assistant for a list of new restaurants nearby - Insatiable Critic.com on my mind, always. Top of the list I see tacos. Just my mood. First sight of Cascabel Taqueria through the window makes me anxious: it’s tiny, crowded, a little queue of people waiting.  Second glance makes me laugh: The masked wrestler floating above the mirror. Action toys and woodcuts of masked bruisers all around.  Some cultural quirk I’ve overlooked?

       Is there room at the counter? “You have to order first,” a waiter says. Steven is about to leave.  We are not born-to-queue folks.

        "You can sit here at the counter. I’ll take your order,” says the man who seems to be in charge. (Recognizing me, I later learn.) I pull Steven in from the cold. Our host puts a thin metal stanchion holding an image of a salsa bottle in front of us. “That’s so the waiter knows who gets what,” he says. Behind him there’s a platoon of beers in the fridge but no non-alcoholic brew for Steven. He settles for an agua fresca – grapefruit squeezed to order with a splash of soda and a big $6 pour of Malbec for me.
 
        We wait, studying the bottled salsa options, an ever-so-slightly extended interlude that suggests humans are assembling our dinner.  And then it comes, everything we’ve ordered lined up on a metal tray, fish tacos for me, carnitos for Steven, a big fat juicy beef rib, and, in a brown paper bag – a just baked cheese empanada.
 
       “But I ordered a quesadilla,” I protest.

       “This is a quesadilla autentica,” we’re told.

        What do I know? One month in the Yucatan does not make me Zarela. As empenadas go – we had a range of them, good and evil in Argentina – this one is exceptional, delicate and crumbly with epazote at its sweet cheesy core. Ringlets of palm heart and bits of olive add oomph to the crisp fried yellowtail belly taco with olive and onion. I add a squirt of spicy tomatillo sauce. That’s pleasing too. Slow roasted Berkshire pork butt with pickled red onion and roasted chile de arbol in splendid soft corn tortilla makes for maybe the best carnitos taco I’ve ever bitten into.  I try a dab of the searing devil sauce.  The heat bounces off my taste buds straight to my brain. Oh, how my tongue loves diversity.

        I send back the big fat braised beef rib because it’s not really hot. Could be Steven took too long shooting the photograph or it cooled while I was kvelling over the tacos. A fresh costila de carne arrives, properly hot, perfumed with cumin and pastila chile puree on a puddle of lime cream. Shaving of radish and flutters of cilantro cut through the rich fattiness of the meat. I clutch the menu wanting to try everything but I’m already too high, can’t handle another sensation, no, not even dessert. We haven’t paid the check yet, $40 all in, and I’m figuring out what night we are free to come back.  I will reserve the big party table up front and come with a posse of friends.

        Not everyone I invite gets a giggle over the Masked Wrestler theme or notices the little marker on our table to guide the runners.  And only a few dare the salsas in a box with the house motto: “Eat. Drink. Love Tacos.”  The two size zeros are only willing to risk a chicken taco and maybe the shrimp. They refuse to try the fish (“Is it fried?” one asks), the pork butt carnitos (“Pork.” Accusingly.), the spicy house made chorizo with smoked paprika (“Too spicy”), and the lengua, braised veal tongue with spring onion, garlic oil and Serrano chili (“EEEowww, tongue.”). I’m not sure they dare the carne asada, put off perhaps by crisp fried onions sprinkled on top, ignoring the fact that it’s nothing more than grilled hanger steak with oyster mushrooms and crema fresca (“Fried onions? Cream?”) and of course they won’t even look at the smooth guacamole under a lid of pillowy fried tortilla, ready to break off for scooping. Frankly I prefer my guacamole chunkier.  But at least they might admire the beauty of that ballooning chip.

        Happily the cognoscenti sip Negra Modelo on tap, devour the tacos, and revel with me in the marvelous gorditas – honey-chipotle glazed pork belly in a small corn “muffin” sandwich with an inspired crunch of cucumber.  I order a flan, just to taste – it’s a bit coarse.  But everyone takes a donut hole sized churro and dips or sips it with a tasting cup of chile-spiked hot chocolate. What a coup. A dinner party that costs just $145 to feed five certifiable eaters and two x-rays, with a generous tip.

       A purist might argue that pork gordita with cucumber or a fish taco with hearts of palm isn’t autentica. I’m not an expert. I’m a mouth that’s been appraising food for 40 years, well 42 now,  and I’m happiest when it tastes great even if it’s polluted by a little fusion or French technique. Still, I am surprised to learn that none of the three partners are Mexican. The charmer at the counter, David Choing, is Cuban-Chinese and was almost born in Spain where his parents were living when they decided he ought to be delivered in America. He grew up on the Lower East Side. Chef Todd Mitgang is of Russian-Rumanian descent and prepped at Kittichai. He closed Crave Seviche after the crane collapse near Second Avenue. The two of them watched entrepreneurial expansion close-up working with restaurateurs Simon Oren and Andrew Silverman. A third partner, interior designer Elizabeth Gaudreau, came up with the concept and the look.

         “Nation’s Restaurant News said tacos were next,” Choing recalls. Indeed, they’re not the only taqueria in town with a masked wrestler theme. “We wanted to do something affordable for the times, easy to clone.  Danny Meyer isn’t opening expensive restaurants.  He’s opening Shake Shacks everywhere,” Choing comments.  “I wanted to see a line out the door.”  And that’s what they’ve got.

        The liquor license has just come through a week later when we return for the third time. (Confession: I asked if he could time a table for us at 8 and he did). I want to taste platos grandes ($12 to $14.50) even though I’m not likely to order even the fine hanger steak a la plancha with house made crema and refried beans, or rotisserie chicken asado with creamed corn and a toasted cascabel chili to crumble for extra heat.  I think I’ll always be here for tacos. (Though I ask to take the leftover chicken home for lunch).

         Now Choing has Kaliber in stock for those like Steven who have already had their lifetime supply of alcohol. Our friends drink very tart orange and lime agua frescas, surprised in fact by the sophistication of so little sweetness. I discover tortilla soup with chicken and a charred pasilla chile to crumble into it, just $5, a sane choice but only if you’ve sworn off pork belly. We share two orders of grilled corn frosted with “Mexican aioli,” lime and the mild Mexican queso cotija cut in four pieces. The corn is sweet. I eat every morsel but I am thinking how sublime it will be when local fresh corn is back. And I’ll want an encore of puerco en adobo, marinated pork butt with cucumber, sautéed onions and tamarind to roll up in the tortillas kept warm in a small brown bag on the metallic tray. Eccentric those trays. They remind me of an Indian thali, or a school cafeteria. But with the masks, the action figures, the house made salsa boxes and the flying wrestler, Cascabel Taqueria is looking like a hot little brand. I’m hoping the Upper West Side seed will be next.