New York Magazine recently covered Cascabel Taqueria on the Upper East Side (2nd Ave. between 80th and 81st). You can view their complete menu here. It looks quite unique and affordable, the tacos, several varieties available, are two for $7.50. The 'pescado' with tuna, hearts of palm and olives sounds great - - I'd pass on the 'lengua' braised veal tongue however!
Here's what they had to say about it:
"The counter is manned by a preternaturally friendly staff, who take orders and ferry food to tables on rectangular tin plates that evoke the army or a camping trip. There are unexpected niceties, like frosted glasses for microbrew beer, $6 glasses of wine, vibrant housemade salsas in chilled caddies, and copies of the daily papers incongruously stacked alongside old issues of Box y Lucha magazine on a room-dividing condiment rack.
The menu is extensive and, in keeping with the theme, freestyle. By that, we mean more inventive than traditional, a fact you can attribute to the background of chef-partner Todd Mitgang, who formerly ran the equally unbridled Crave Ceviche Bar and cooked at Kittichai. His tacos are not the sort you'd find on a Roosevelt Avenue street-cart crawl: They might utilize the familiar double soft-corn tortilla construction, and the kitchen might fetishize chile peppers of all shapes and sizes, but the flavor profiles ultimately approach fusionville. Of the eight taco varieties, which come two to an order garnished with lime and roasted serranos, the housemade chorizo made with four types of chiles is the star--crumbly and delectably smoky. Pollo chipotle is lighter on spice than the name implies, the tender white meat seemingly pulled from the spice-rubbed rotisserie birds Mitgang serves as an entrée and intermingled with fried-chicken skin for crunch. The excellent lengua, or veal-tongue taco, is drizzled with garlic oil, and the carne asada strews achiote-marinated hanger steak (also available as a tasty but slightly tough entrée) with a blizzard of fried-onion flakes. Fish-taco aficionados will look askance at this version; neither crisp nor particularly moist, morsels of cornmeal-crusted yellowfin tuna are heaped with slivered olives and hearts of palm. It's a nice try, if not an entirely triumphant effort. "
(Read more: Robin Raisfeld and Rob Patronite on Cascabel and La Lucha -- New York Magazine Undergroud Gourmet Review http://nymag.com/restaurants/reviews/underground/62363/#ixzz0ZD3qGcTe)
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