Press

Hispanic Heritage Month is in full swing since it began on Sept. 15, honoring the vibrant cultures, cuisines, and contributions of Hispanic and Latin Americans around the globe and the world’s most diverse borough is the perfect place to celebrate.

Heading out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant can be a real treat. Under the right conditions, you can expect a night of excellent food. However, there are some mistakes everyone makes eating at Mexican restaurants — and these can leave you feeling unsatisfied with your meal and wishing you'd gone elsewhere.

Leonila Cazares and her husband Carlos Vazquez can often be found underground in an Astoria basement. Over a two-day period, they boil down dried kernels of corn, before straining it and grinding it, all to make the cornerstone of Mexican cuisine: tortillas. But this isn’t the inner workings of a tortillería. This is just the day-to-day operation of the Mexican restaurant Mayahuel.

A crisp refreshing standout from Mayahuel in the Astoria area of New York City, the Mayahuel salad is made with lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, onions, cucumber, queso fresco, and freshly grilled corn, then the ingredients are tossed in a bright house-made dressing of Dijon mustard, honey, lemon juice, and emulsified oil.