Comments (0) Best Tamales - 2012
El Bravo
For 30 years, this Sunnyslope restaurant serving Arizona-style Mexican food has been one popular joint. And with good reason: This is where you take the family for inexpensive renditions of the staples, especially the tamales. What makes them so good? Well, for starters, there's the key ingredient: masa. Here, it's a little sweet, moist, fresh-tasting, and light — none of that super-dense dry stuff. Then, there's the meat, tender shredded beef or juicy chicken. Finally, there are the sauces — including a very good red that covers the beef tamale. It's smooth, rich, colorful, and mild, but also deeply flavorful, as if it had been cooking for hours. But the green sauce is where it's at. Covering the chicken green corn tamale, this tomatillo-based gravy has a nice, peppery kick. And true to form for old-school Arizona-style places like this, everything is covered in melted cheddar cheese. Better give us a dozen of those tamales to go.
