In past years this slender but well-stocked grocery somehow shoehorned a small kitchen into the space by the window. More recently the kitchen migrated to the sidewalk, where a Pueblan lady prepares tacos, quesadillas, gorditas, and the like "todos los días."
This picadita ($4), a tortilla dressed with black beans, spicy red sauce, lettuce, and crumbled cheese, featured pork that had been picada — "chopped" — while on the griddle. The tortilla itself is on the thicker side. In some quarters, this same item is called a sope — or even a pelliscada, after the way that the lip of the tortilla is "pinched" upward to help contain the toppings.
Previously: It's not unusual to see a worker shaving nopales, the spiny pads of the prickly pear cactus, on the sidewalk next to La Lomita's small, colorful outdoor produce display. And where you see nopales, you'll often see tuna — the purplish fruit of the prickly pear. On a prepackaged fruit plate (a number of years ago, $2.50), the peeled tuna was accompanied by slices of orange, pineapple, and cantaloupe and a handful of grapes. Even though the sweet, juicy flesh of the tuna is heavily populated with small seeds, taken as a whole La Lomita's fruit plates are a great deal: Judging by its heft, mine weighed about a pound and a half.
La Lomita del Barrio
209 East 116th St. (Second-Third Aves.), Manhattan
212-289-8138
