Taquero Mucho opens in Dix Hills

High-quality tacos have come to Dix Hills and they're found at a casual new taco shop: Taquero Mucho. The popular food truck opened its first brick-and-mortar this month on Deer Park Road, in a storefront that previously held Red Cajun and Grill. 

Owned by Los Angeles-native Max Carballo, Taquero Mucho is currently on Newsday's list of Top Long Island tacos for its California style crispy tacos and al pastor, served on housemade corn tortillas. Carballo also recently opened a Mexican hot dog cart called Mama Rosita at his original Bay Shore location, where he's serving bacon-wrapped L.A. danger dogs. 

The new menu doesn't have danger dogs, but it does have a few new items, like pozole (available Sundays), a fried fish Veracruzana and a burrito bowl with chicken, shrimp and lobster a'la diabla for $34. Carballo seems to be most proud of his consommé de beef birria, which he'll serve Fridays through Sundays. He serves beef birria tacos daily, but this is a more traditional way to eat birria, as a soup with the tortillas on the side. 

"If you go to Tijuana, you have birria. You’re going to find tacos," he said. "But the more real way to eat it is on the street corner in a bowl, which is soupy and meaty. And then you have tortillas you dunk the tortillas in the soup." 

Feast on what we found to be the tastiest carne asada french fries. They go by the name papas locas on the menu ($16.15), not to be confused with  papa loca commonly served as a loaded Mexican baked potato.

But these are indeed some of the crispiest french fries you'll see, despite the fact that they're totally drowned in an onslaught of creamy and spicy cheeses and sauces. In places like San Diego where they're from, carne asada french fries are a staple of the 24-hour burrito shop, where they're a beloved drunk food. And while you can also get them at Taquero Mucho's food trucks in Bay Shore and Brentwood, it's not the quite the same. 

Here in this super-casual storefront, with wooden tables left over from the Vietnamese spot that preceded it, you've got a distinct feeling that you're in the Southwest at a late-night spots.

Taquero Mucho, 15 E. Deer Park Rd., instagram.com/taquero.mucho5. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, closed Monday. 

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.com

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.