Margaritaville: Lucy Mexican Barbecue's version.   (Photo: Kenneth Chen)

Mexican Excess

“They’re coming over the top, they’re carpet bombing us!” cried a small, desperate voice at the end of our table as the quesadillas and tacos and great barges of guacamole began cascading down around our heads. Wherever you go, supersize dining seems to be all the rage in Mexican circles. Take LUCY MEXICAN BARBECUE, the newest restaurant to grace the ground floor of ABC Carpet & Home, where the large, somewhat uneven menu is redeemed by beefy, elemental dishes like slow-roasted barbacoa of lamb shoulder folded in banana and hoja santa leaves, and by two varieties of pork ribs, one dunked in a sloppy guava-and-ancho-chili sauce, the other, more chaste, crispy variety touched with a healthful tomatillo-avocado purée.

Before tackling a robust dinner of potato-and-chorizo quesadillas followed by chili-rubbed goat at SUEÑOS, in Chelsea, you might want to fortify yourself with the house “Double Secret Probation” margarita, which costs $30 and is almost worth every penny.

Tacos Swell: The city's finest Mexican treats at Pampano Taqueria.   (Photo: Joe Scafuro)

For the finest tacos in New York City, go straight to the nameless midtown office tower at 805 Third Avenue, take the escalator to the below-ground atrium, and stand in line with the rest of the salivating lunchtime salary folk at PAMPANO TAQUERIA. You’ll find ten varieties of freshly made corn or flour tacos (try the ones rolled with hanger steak or chunks of shrimp and chile de arbol salsa), along with cheesy quesadillas filled with pieces of red snapper, and giant, wet-bottomed Mexican sandwiches (called tortas) loaded with shredded chicken and laced with creamy tomatillo salsa, or steamy ropes of pulled pork. These formidable creations are wrapped in yards of a silvery cellophane so you can consume them on the fly, in a messy lather, as I did, or surreptitiously in the privacy of your own cubicle.