Yola's Cafe

Don't blink, or you'll miss Yola's Cafe. This Mexican hole in the wall, located a few steps below a busy stretch of Metropolitan Avenue in second-stop Williamsburg, Brooklyn, isn't much to look at, but the food is so good that it's rapidly becoming one of my favorite restaurants in New York. I've always been a fan of their big beefy burritos, but lately I've been working through their recurring daily specials, all of which impress. Corn shuck-wrapped tamales come stuffed with tangy chicken or sublime adobo pork. Fish tacos, each with a perfectly flaky flounder filet swaddled with salad and guacamole in two flour tortillas, could easily be served at a fancier restaurant at twice the price. Yola's is mostly a take-out and delivery place, but there are two tiny tables as well as four revolving bar stools set against a six-inch-wide counter. To kill the seven or so minutes it takes for your order to be ready, go to the bodega next door for a $3 quart of Tecate (last cooler on the left, bottom shelf), pound a tequila shot across the street at the Subway Bar, or just enjoy the hilarious Spanish-language soap operas on the TV.

Yola's Cafe [Menu Pages]

-- Victor Ozols