South of the Border >>

• Readers' Choices
  Best Margarita Spot Macayo's several Valley locations Best Mexican Restaurant Macayo's several Valley locations Best Salsa Blue Agave Oyster & Chile Bar Shops at Gainey Village 8787 North Scottsdale Road, Suite A-102, Scottsdale 480-607-9222 More >>
• Best Tortillas
  La Sonorense
  Grocery store tortillas tend to be thick and doughy, and bear as much resemblance to the real thing as does Roman Meal to a crusty loaf of French bread. While dreadful tortillas will do if you spread distractions like cheese and salsa all over them, you'd never just pop one in your mouth, plain.... More >>
• Best Cheap Mexican Food
  Guedo's Taco Shop
  Usually, we've got enough just in pocket change to cover the tab at this pink adobe taco hut that's always hoppin' to the beat of lively salsa music. Sometimes, the cooks get in the groove, singing along as they bang pots and pans. It's a short menu, with just a few quesadillas, tacos, burros,... More >>
• Best Day Of The Dead Crafts
  Museo Chicano
  Finally, a place for anyone who's been dying to find that elusive skeleton basketball player shooting a lay-up in midair. The Chicano museum, located downtown, has a great gift shop filled with Day of the Dead crafts, as well as a wide variety of Mexican artwork, books and furniture. Dia de los... More >>
• Best Margarita
  El Encanto Mexican Cafe
  Recipe for a good margarita: 11/2 cups gold tequila, 3/4 cup Triple Sec, 3/4 cup fresh lime juice, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 tablespoons kosher salt, 6 lime wedges. Recipe for a great margarita: Run, don't walk, to El Encanto. There's just something about the margs at Valley landmark El... More >>
• Best Mexican Takeout
  Albuquerque Tortilla Company
  Our casa es su casa. Just keep your cotton-pickin' hands off our comida -- when it's Mexican takeout night, that is. At this to-go-only place, we can buy the basics if we want to cook at home: corn husks, Mexican cheeses, chile sauces, three kinds of chorizo, masa, hominy, blue corn and white... More >>
• Best Az-mex Restaurant (1 Comment)
  Mangos Mexican Cafe
  There's a definite gluttonous appeal to most American-style Mexican places, with their dishes heavy with sauce, sour cream, guacamole and ungodly calories. That's okay when we're craving a good, old-fashioned bomb in our bellies. But we hate to sacrifice real Mexican flavor and spice under all... More >>
• Best Gourmet Mexican
  La Hacienda
  When it comes to Mexican cuisine, we Phoenicians are so caliente we sizzle. We're home to the only Mexican-style restaurant in North America that's garnered both Mobil Four-Star and AAA Four-Diamond ratings. Lounging like a Spanish Colonial estate against the McDowell Mountains, this place has... More >>
• Best Authentic Mexican
  El Tlacoyo
  Why is it Americans are so frightened when an ethnic restaurant promises to offer specialties of its homeland, then does? It's right there on the sign and menu at El Tlacoyo: "cuisine of Hidalgo," a state in east-central Mexico. This means scary-to-most-of-us goodies such as cheese crisp with... More >>
• Best Adovada
  Los Dos Molinos
  We get chills just thinking about the chiles at Los Dos. How hot are they? Well, the restaurants close for the month of July. Sure, the owners get some well-deserved vacation, but we think the real reason is to comply with Arizona's summer anti-burn laws. Los Dos' adovada ribs have been known to... More >>
• Best Mexican Bakery
  La Purísima Pasteleria
  When thinking of tinkering with tamales, we head to La Purísima for the fixings. With such marvelous masa, even the worst cooks would have trouble messing up a green corn or red chile beauty. But mostly, we come for the sweet, ready-to-eat creations. There's no better pan dulce -- warm,... More >>
• Best Tacos
  Lulu's Taco Shop
  Back in 1989, Gilbert was a sleepy bedroom community. That was also the year the town welcomed Lulu's Taco Shop. Since then, Gilbert has exploded into one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. Coincidence? We think not. Being in the same neighborhood as Lulu's authentic, Guadalajara-style... More >>
• Best Mexican Sausage
  Carniceria Chihuahua
  If you ever catch owner Arturo Lom up to his elbows at the sausage machine, you'll know why we love this place. The aromas of garlic and spices seize your olfactories long before the chorizo links ever hit the grill. Lom likes to mix lean cuts of beef and puerco and he stuffs them into genuine... More >>
• Best Hot Sauce
  Arizona Gunslinger
  For the wickedest, wildest, put-hair-on-your-chest hot sauce you can get, look no farther than right here in the Valley, where Gunslinger is made using all-natural ingredients. Gunslinger habanero pepper sauce does the job and then some, boiling over with the potent chile, a hundred times hotter... More >>
• Best Top-secret Hideaway Mexican Restaurant
  Mini Mercado Oaxaca
  Now this is a jewel of a secret, deserving of only our closest friends. Virtually nobody except Oaxacan transplants knows about this charming mini market, restaurant and takeout station, but it stocks everything we need, including the elusive chapulines -- real grasshoppers roasted with garlic,... More >>
• Best Place To See Flying Saucers
  Rosa's Mexican Grill
  Rosa's prides itself on its authentic, Baja-style Mexican food, and one of its best-selling dishes is a gift from the heavens called Flying Saucers. An eight-inch crisped flour tortilla is buried under mounds of beans, lettuce, sour cream, guacamole, salsa fresca, cheeses and our choice of beef,... More >>
• Best Carniceria
  El Tarachi
  The recent boom in these small Mexican meat markets has filled the Valley with scores of places to get your adobada and ranchera. Yet we prefer the sizzling variety of this bright place. The smiles behind the counter take you back to butcher stores you probably knew, when Joe -- now Jose --... More >>
• Best Tequila Selection
  Coyote Grill
  Gone are the days of binge-drinking whatever rotgut tequila could be thrown back with a lick of salt and a suck of lime. Now, we like to taste our tequila -- sipping it like cognac, even. And the best place to savor tequila is Coyote Grill, with an impressive list of 110 varieties, including... More >>
• Best Carnitas
  Arriba Mexican Grill
  Arriba Mexican Grill has been serving up New Mexico cuisine at its Phoenix cantina for years. This year, its owner took a bold move and expanded to two other Valley locations. They're as packed as the original. One reason, we suspect, is word of mouth about Arriba's breathtaking carnitas. The... More >>
• Best Mexican Restaurant
  Pepe's Taco Villa
  Best Mexican restaurant in Phoenix? Them's fightin' words to most folks. And people here cling to their favorite joints as if they were family members. We've got no problem proclaiming a winner, though. While many Mexican restaurants have a few remarkable specialties, at Pepe's everything on the... More >>
• Best Mexican Seafood
  San Carlos Bay Seafood Restaurant
  How the Sea of Cortez came to splash onto the shores of McDowell Road and the Squaw Peak Parkway, we'll never know. We're just glad that it did, bringing with it the magical cookery at San Carlos Bay. The oceanscape-painted building is deceptively small, yet the kitchen cranks out an impressive... More >>
• Best Mole
  El Tepeyac Azteca
  Mention anything involving even the ghost of chocolate, and most people come running. Mention mole, though, and most folks stumble, not quite sure what we're talking about. There are millions of recipes for mole, each as diverse as the genetic code for babies. But generally, mole is a rich,... More >>
• Best Paleteria
  Flor de Michoacán
  Drive around downtown Phoenix on a summer day, and you'll spot several pushcart vendors selling paletas, those distinctly Mexican frozen-fruit bars. But Flor de Michoacán is one of the Valley's few true paleterias, the kind of shop found within a five-block radius of practically any Mexican... More >>
• Best Fish Tacos
  Acapulco Bay Company
  Behold the unassuming fish taco: little more than seafood and tortilla. But in the right hands, a fish taco can be a feast. We worship the masterful mitts of the chefs at Acapulco Bay Company, where the tacos de pescado bring mountains of grilled white fish that's been spiced with slow-burning... More >>
• Best Chips And Salsa
  Los Sombreros
  Somebody's having fun with the chips at Los Sombreros. While we enjoy the kitchen's traditional crispy chips, fresh and gently salted, we're also presented with clever little nibbles that look like wagon wheels. They're noodles, we're told, the dough thin and fried to a feathery lightness.... More >>