Taqueria Coatzingo is Changing Lives with Their Guacamole

I am not a Queens native, but after going to school and subsequently living in Queens for four years, I feel like I have done my fair share of exploring and have come to know the area quite well. One area I had never been to, however — my favorite stop on the F train home from Manhattan because the most people get off and there is finally room to breathe — is Jackson Heights.

I visited Jackson Heights with the sole intention of having some great, authentic Mexican food. My friend Sarah, who is a fellow Taco Literacy classmate, and I headed Manhattan-bound on the F train one Monday afternoon to have lunch at one of Jackson Heights’ absolute gems — Taqueria Coatzingo.

Taqueria Coatzingo was opened in Jackson Heights in 2004 and has been steadily attracting Mexican families in the area who are in search of real Mexican meals along with taco lovers from all walks of life in the heart of a primarily-Southeast Asian neighborhood ever since. The cuisine served, and perfectly prepared by a group of cooks who can be seen cooking at the grill if sat towards the entrance, is from the Puebla region of Mexico — where the small village of Coatzingo is actually located. This is a taste of home for those from Coatzingo, and I personally felt honored to be able to partake in such an experience.

Walking along Roosevelt Avenue heading towards the taqueria, I found myself surprised. This was about as (what I would call) “Manhattan-y” as Queens could get. Within the three blocks that it took us to reach Taqueria Coatzingo, smells varied from Indian spices to more recognizable Mexican aromas as we passed different stores and restaurants — and I knew I was in for a treat. Before even glancing at the menu, I knew this restaurant would be the most authentic experience with Mexican cuisine that I — a white Italian girl from small-town, New Jersey — had ever had and, as a lifelong lover of even the most inauthentic Mexican food, I was excited.

Taqueria Coatzingo’s storefront is fun, inviting. There is a neon “TACOS” sign lit up in the colors of the Mexican flag in the window and I remember saying to Sarah, “Ooh, cute.” I was a little worried that we would stick out like sore thumbs and feel uncomfortable — two little white girls in Lululemon pants, the most Hispanic part about them being having gotten A’s in high school Spanish class — but our waitress was incredibly friendly and the environment in general of the restaurant was just as inviting as the storefront window.

The table at which we were sat was directly under a collection of neon green lights that lit the front-most part of the restaurant. This is evidently a very iconic feature of Taqueria Coatzingo but, not knowing this prior, I remember remarking that I liked it. In an odd and seemingly reasonless way, it made me feel more relaxed, it gave our table an inviting vibe — this was not an Americanized, souped-up version of a Mexican restaurant, lit by candlelight and colored glass chandeliers like my favorite cantina-bar back home in New Jersey (I still love you, River and Rail) — this place was about to give me the best Mexican meal of my life.

And it sure did.

Upon looking at the menu, I was overwhelmed. I physically could not read through all the pages fast enough but, without even seeing it listed on the menu, we immediately placed an order for chips and guacamole. We needed it, and we needed it now.

Guacamole, one of God’s greatest gifts. Despite being widely accepted into American culture as a well-known and widely accessible Mexican food and being popularized by barely-Mexican chains such as Chipotle, even sparking memes and trends in pop culture about “guac being extra,” guacamole is about as Mexican as it gets in its origins.

Originally an “Aztec source of sustenance,” guacamole in its primary form was made up of mashed avocado, tomatoes, and green chile peppers and was eaten on a tortilla. Like pretty much all good things native to the New World, colonists stole the Aztecs’ recipe and added the most well-known ingredients to the mix: lime, cilantro, and onion. This Spanish conquistadors’ rendition is the form of guacamole that we are most familiar with in America today.

The word “guacamole” itself, while Spanish in origin before being adopted into English, has roots in the native Aztec language Nahuatl. The Spanish word for avocado, aguacate, is derived from the Aztecs’ ahucatl and mole, Spanish for sauce, comes from the Aztec word molli. The Aztecs called their dish ahuacamolli, an amalgam of their language’s words for avocado and sauce, respectively. After the Spanish adapted the recipe for more European palates with their famous additions, they similarly followed suit linguistically, mashing their words for avocado and sauce next to each other (but dropping the “a-” and “-te” in aguacate), fully taking the reins of the dish and giving life to what we know as guacamole today.

The Spanish’s added ingredients to the Aztecs’ ahucatl are, however, like those ingredients themselves, not linguistically derived from the Aztec language. Debatably the most important ingredient in guacamole — and my personal favorite — is lime. La lima in Spanish, this word has its roots in Arabic, stemming from the identical word lima meaning citrus fruit. Followed closely behind lime in importance is onion — in Spanish, la cebolla, a borrowed and altered term from Latin’s cepa.

These two ingredients, besides avocado of course, were most prominent in Taqueria Coatzingo’s guacamole. I am notoriously picky when it comes to onion in my guacamole — there is nothing worse than taking a bite through a huge, overpowering onion hidden amongst mashed avocado and, honestly, I prefer it entirely without — but Taqueria Coatzingo chops their onions so finely that I was entirely unaware when I had one in my mouth. And don’t get me wrong, I was very happy about this. The onion flavor was perfectly mild but its sharpness still cut through the fattiness of the avocado, matched ideally by the acidity from just the right amount of lime, making it so there was no limit to how much one could eat, no such thing as “I’m too full to have any more.” The limitlessness of this guac was also aided by its lack of spice; many guacamole recipes include jalapeño as well and I personally love spicy foods, so this is something I would have welcome, but at no point was there even the slightest heat in any bite of guacamole (and I took many, many bites, so you can take my word for it).

The last Spanish addition to guacamole was cilantro, which is called “coriander” in English but is referred to as “cilantro” across America, coming from the Latin word coriandrum. But I must admit, if Taqueria Coatzingo added any cilantro to their guacamole, I was completely unaware of it. Cilantro, similar to onion, can tend to walk the fine line between just enough and way too much, and I did not feel as if I ever ran that risk when eating this guacamole straight up with chips — another thing I was happy about. Taqueria Coatzingo piled all of their tacos high with guacamole, however, and the tacos were sprinkled liberally with fresh cilantro, so this alone provided the floral cilantro kick that one may crave in guacamole.

It sounds like an exaggeration, but this guacamole can be life changing. For someone who idolized Chipotle’s mass-produced version for years, the mound of guacamole that was placed in front of me at Taqueria Coatzingo last week practically spun my head around. It was perfectly smooth and creamy, mild but the flavors were amazingly balanced — a flawless execution of something so simple and so well-known, but so truly Mexican and truly delicious.

If you are a fan of guacamole, from Sabra brand to chains like Chipotle to homegrown and homemade, do yourself a favor and order a side from Taqueria Coatzingo. I really loved the tacos that I had there, but it was the chips and guacamole that I could not stop picking on — literally, could not physically pull myself away from — until our waitress removed them from our table.