Last week I drove almost 700 miles. I went up to Potsdam for a day and a half, came back home late Thursday night, and then Friday morning I woke up and pointed my truck 70 miles south to Corning. If you know me, you know I drive a lot for this — but even by my standards, that was a stretch.
So what on earth would drag me out of bed after all that driving and send me another hour and change down the Southern Tier? Root beer battered mahi fish tacos. That’s what.
I’d heard about them through the grapevine — someone making root beer battered mahi fish tacos down in Corning at a place called Little Boomers Burrito Bar. And as soon as I heard that, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to leave it alone.
A Word About Me and Seafood
If you follow me on social media, you’ve probably heard me say this before: I can be skeptical of seafood. Especially when I don’t know the restaurant, don’t know the chef, and we’re not talking about a higher-end spot. Bad fish is bad fish, and I’ve learned to be cautious.
But here’s what changed my mind before I even took a bite.
The owner talked to me about how seriously they take freshness at Little Boomers — and I mean seriously. They call themselves a “freezer-free” restaurant. There is no freezer anywhere in the building. That’s a commitment, and it comes with real trade-offs: they only offer the fish tacos on Fridays and during Lent, specifically so they can control the quality. You want one on a Saturday? Tough luck. Get there on Friday or go home empty-handed. No holdovers, no shortcuts.
When a restaurant is that serious about their product, you listen. So I did.
The Taco, From the Bottom Up
You get three tacos, each built in a flour tortilla. It starts with their house chipotle cream sauce as a base — and right away you’ve got spice and richness setting the stage. Then comes one large piece of mahi, battered in root beer and fried to a deep, even golden brown. On top of that goes their house slaw, which I want to spend a second on.
The slaw is thick, uneven, rustic. It doesn’t look like it came out of a bag or off a production line — it looks like somebody made it. That might sound like a small thing, but it matters. It tells you something about how the kitchen thinks about food.
The fish itself is the centerpiece, and it delivers. That root beer batter fries up with these sharp, irregular edges that stay genuinely crunchy — not that soft, soggy kind of crunchy that fades in thirty seconds. On the outside it’s got real bite. On the inside, the mahi is delicate and meaty at the same time, the kind of texture that tells you immediately that you’re working with quality fish. It didn’t need to prove itself. It just did.
They serve it with lime wedges, and I want to be clear: use the lime. A squeeze over everything pulls it all together — the creaminess of the chipotle sauce, the crunch of the batter, the meatiness of the fish, the texture of the slaw — and suddenly it all just clicks. It’s one of those bites where everything is doing its job and nothing is fighting anything else. Crunchy, flaky, meaty, a little acidic, a little spicy, a little creamy. That’s a well-built taco.
The Best Fish Tacos I’ve Had in New York
I haven’t had a ton of fish tacos across New York — I’ll be upfront about that. But these are without question some of the best I’ve ever had, period. The root beer batter alone is worth the conversation. The fact that they’re only available on Fridays and during Lent makes them feel like an event, which I think adds something rather than taking something away.
If you’re anywhere near Corning on a Friday, get yourself to Little Boomers Burrito Bar. And if you’re not near Corning on a Friday — maybe consider becoming someone who is. I drove 70 miles after 630 miles of driving earlier in the week. And I’d do it again.
📍30 West Market St., Corning, NY
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