Los Hamptons Edition: LA HACIENDA 48 Jagger Lane, Southampton, (631) 287-6814

Located across the street from the “Fresh” supermarket, La Hacienda is a no frills kind of place. As my girlfriend puts it, “La Fondita has a cute ambiance and La Hacienda is all about the food;” food and drinks are served on Styrofoam plates and cups (nuff said). They were recently mentioned in a NY Times article along with other restaurants in the area and I think this has brought in a new breed of customers. When we showed up the staff seemed a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people lined up to chow down.

What to get:
The tacos are delicious. All I can say is it’s the best tongue taco I’ve had so far in the state of New York. The carne asada tacos are better here than at La Fondita, the meat is good and the tortilla is not dry. The asada torta ($5.00) is decent, the bolillo bread which is often used for this Mexican sandwich was soft and smooth.

What NOT to get:
Hard shell tacos, you the douche with no neck driving the Porsche, you made it this far so please don’t be a schmuck and order hard shell.

Los Hamptons Edition: LA FONDITA (open May-October), 74 Montauk Highway, Amagansett, (631) 267-8800

I know this isn’t New York City but there’s a small taco scene out in the The Hamptons that’s legit. After deciding not to wait forever at the Sunset Saloon in Montauk, I drove over to “La Fondita.” Perusing through the menu I quickly noticed I was now dealing with the real thing, which surprised me that a place like this would be in the middle of Amagansett. Are these East Coast Güeros finally wising up to the ways of the West?

I sampled every taco on the menu even after getting weird looks by the skinny bitches (hey I’m thin too). I’ll start off with the tongue tacos because I love this taco the most, it’s simple yet in my opinion it’s the hardest taco to get right. The meat needs to be tender and some shred the beef so it doesn’t harden. La Fondita’s tongue taco was okay, I wasn’t blown away. In fact the tortilla on all the beef tacos I ordered were a bit on the dry side, which distracted from the meat. The tacos were okay, a place like this would be run of the mill in Los Angeles and for a lot LESS.

The taco to get here is the Tacos de Camarones, Shrimp tacos. La Fondita hit the ball out of the park with this one. The taco is filled with several shrimps; the corn, cilantro, onions, and red pepper add a lot to this taco.

The corn (elote) here is amazing, I think because it's locally grown and the corn in Long Island tends to be good. Make sure to wash the the shrimp taco and the elote down with some expensive horchata ($3.75 ouch). I’m going back this weekend to sample their Pozole, stay tuned.