Taqueria El Sinaloense
Taqueria El Sinaloense, located just steps from the 90th Street–Elmhurst Avenue stop on the 7 train, was my first transcendent taste of Sinaloan specialties. This is what we talk about when we talk about tacos.
This charming taqueria opened in November 2017, and is nestled between a tattoo shop and hair salon (upstairs are immigration attorneys’ offices) on a street lined with other taquerias, bailar bars and street vendors selling churros, tamales and elote. The owner, Elvía Castelán, buoyed by the success of her first restaurant across the street, Taco Veloz, wanted to open a second.
Castelán’s niece, Wendy Castelán, who is a server on the weekends, said other restaurants in the area serve more traditional Latin American food, and Castelán wanted to do something different, to bring some of her Sinaloense home traditions to Queens. Though she’s from Puebla in Central Mexico, her family has roots in Sinaloa, the northwestern state marked on maps of Mexico on the restaurant’s window, and again, inside. There’s a sizable Sinaloan community in the borough, and Wendy says, “Customers say that we’re the only restaurant where they feel like they’re home.”
The chef, América Rodríguez, whimsically stumbled into her job helming Taqueria El Sinaloense’s kitchen. Rodríguez, who formerly worked in law in Mexico, was looking for a new job when she passed by the site of the restaurant while it was under construction, and thought, “Why not ask if they need any help?” Though she’d never worked in a professional kitchen before, she inquired within, and the rest is history (her-story?). Castelán asked Rodríguez where she was from (El Rosario, in Sinaloa), and they collaborated on a menu. Most of Rodríguez’s dishes are family recipes she learned from her mother.
While the entire menu is a wonderland, some of the most popular, and quintessentially Sinaloense, offerings are chilorio (decadent pulled pork crisped in lard) and frijoles puercos (smooth, queso-consistency beans stewed with lard, olives, chilies and chorizo bits). People travel all the way from Long Island and Staten Island just to try the chilorio. Then there’s the taco Sinaloense, beef and perfectly fluffy scrambled eggs packed into a house-made flavorful tortilla that’s good enough to eat sans filling.
On a Friday night in April, the small, bright space was full of families and friends. A table full of men who appeared to be coworkers basked in each others’ company, cheersing glasses of white wine and bottles of Mexican beer. Their backpacks lined up against the wall made me think of children on a school trip.
Everyone seemed to know Castelán and the server, Elsa, who bustled through the restaurant with a wide magenta-painted smile, and purpose.
One family seated by the kitchen seemed particularly friendly with Castelán; she walked out from the kitchen and kissed the adults on both cheeks, pulled up a chair and began talking animatedly—I later learn that this is her adult son and daughter. By creating a space where she feels at home, everyone who walks through the doors of Taqueria El Sinaloense feels that same ease.
