Best Place to Buy Edible Crickets 2011 | Oaxaca Restaurant | La Vida | Phoenix
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Best Place to Buy Edible Crickets

Oaxaca Restaurant

The corner of 12th Street and Dunlap Road doesn't exactly look like a hotspot for Mexican food, but tucked within Let It Roll Bowl is the new location of the old Mini Mercado Oaxaca. It's now called Oaxaca Restaurant, and though it does serve bowling staples like pizza, fries, and ice cream (don't eat these — the Mexican food is better), there also is an extensive menu of outstanding moles, tlayudas, empanadas, and other specialties. Excellent mole notwithstanding, what Oaxaqueños in the know really head to this place for are the chapulines, or edible crickets. For about seven bucks, you can score a bag of food-grade crickets that go great as a taco filling or just for popping by the handful. The texture is just like popcorn, and the flavor is reminiscent of tangy salt-and-vinegar potato chips. As the old tater chip saying goes, "You can't eat just one."

Best Sonora-Meets-Scottsdale Hot Dog

El Hefe

If the tableside taps, hot pink accents, and mural of a sexy chica with guns and tattoos a-blazing don't clue you in, El Hefe blends the chic, trendy ambiance of a typical Old Town bar with Latino machismo. The same can be said for the El Hefe Dog, a Kobe beef wiener wrapped in bacon and smothered with plump charro beans and such condiments as mustard, green chile salsa, and avocado. Quality meat makes for a savory base for the toppings, which overflow onto the wooden plate like a colorful foodie fiesta. Wrap the whole thing up in a soft hoagie roll, and you've got a man-size munchie that literally gives more weight to El Hefe's rep as a "super macho taquería."

Best Sonoran Hot Dog

Nogales Hot Dogs

The Great Bacon Craze of '09-'11 seems (thankfully) to be coming to an end, but if there's one place bacon still reigns supreme, it's lovingly wrapped around a Sonoran-style hot dog at Nogales Hot Dogs. At Nogales Hot Dogs they serve one thing and one thing only: mesquite-smoked, bacon-wrapped hot dogs loaded with toppings. This is not a sit-down restaurant, though, so keep an eye out for a food truck parked in a lot at the southwest corner of 20th Street and Indian School Road. They set up at around 6 p.m. daily and serve their Mexi-fied version of chili dogs late into the evening, for you night owls.

Best Quickie Mexican Breakfast

Guerrero's Mexican Food

Breakfast burritos are well and good, but they can be snooze-worthy, hardly enough to rouse us from a deep sleep. Platters of perfect chilaquiles, huevos rancheros, and chorizo con huevos, on the other hand? We're up and gunning for the door. Get your pants on, already! Guerrero's is a small shop that opens at 7 a.m. and offers a dozen different breakfast platters. Guerrero's chilaquiles are like Mom used to make, and their machaca with eggs will turn that morning frown upside down. Guerrero's even has burritos, if you simply can't part from the old tried and true.

Best Latin Brunch

Ticoz Resto-Bar

We spend all week eating yogurt and fruit for breakfast so that when the weekend rolls around, a bit of indulgence can be forgiven. When we're craving a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs morning meal with a Latin twist, Ticoz's weekend brunch is the only thing that satisfies. This chic, trendy lounge transforms into a classy mid-morning venue to linger over a rich brunch. The 3 Egg Gringo Breakfast, frittata, or French toast sticks should be enough to satisfy the breakfast purists. For the rest of us, there's pork chile verde huevos rancheros and our favorite, the Mexican eggs Benedict: two lightly sweetened corn cakes topped with spicy chorizo, poached eggs, and a rich chipotle hollandaise. Add a $3 mimosa or bloody Mary to make your stellar Latin brunch go down even easier.

Best Mexican Lunch

Los Compadres

Los Compadres
Cheap Mexican places are a dime a dozen, but not every location smells so good from the parking lot that we need only follow our noses to the entrance. And does the nose ever know. Los Compadres is a humble, family-owned Mexican joint that offers some of our favorite lunchtime specials, all priced at six bucks or less. Be forewarned that the lunch specials are mini versions of standard Sonoran fare, which means tiny tacos, bitsy burritos, mini tostadas, and the like, but one plate is still plenty enough to fill our belly. Plus, everything on the menu is less than $10, so you can mix and match your own lunch special or order a trio of sopaipillas to go.

Best Upscale Mexican Restaurant

The Mission

Lauren Saria
Mexican food doesn't have to mean burritos and tacos. One meal at The Mission in Scottsdale will dispel this notion completely, and do it with exotic Latin flair. We recommend you start with a blood orange or pomegranate margarita and an order of the guacamole, which is made tableside to your specifications and includes one of our crunchy favorites, pepitas. Or opt to start with the roast corn gordita, which includes some of the tastiest huitlacoche (corn smut) in the Valley. Then you can work your way through any of The Mission's fresh seafood or tender meat entrées, or you could skip right to dessert. The Mission's pumpkin bread pudding is so good, we won't tell if you do.

Best Use of Indigenous Ingredients

Kai

Jackie Mercandetti Photo
We're generally as happy eating indigenous ingredients like nopales (cactus) out of the back of a roach coach as we are supping at a fine-dining location. One exception to this rule is Kai, a restaurant dedicated to locally produced indigenous ingredients like cholla buds, aloe vera, saguaro blossoms, mesquite bean meal, huitlacoche syrup, and more. The food, ambiance, and service are unparalleled, as well they should be at a Five Diamond dining destination. So save up for a special occasion and head to Kai to indulge in treats like the Mesquite Bean Martini, Salad Inspired by Local Farmers and Children of the Gila Crossing School, or the grilled tenderloin of buffalo, accompanied by a smoked corn purée, cholla buds, sausage, scarlet runner beans in chili, and a drizzle of saguaro blossom syrup.

Best Mexican Fusion

Chino Bandido

Jackie Mercandetti Photo
We've all had days when it's downright hard to decide where to go to dinner, but the next time you're thinking of uttering the infuriating, "I don't know. What do you want to eat?" just quit the wavering and hit up Chino Bandido. Where else will you find Chinese BBQ pork, chiles rellenos, egg foo yung, and machaca all on the same menu? All you have to do is choose a protein (or some veg) and decide whether you want it in a rice or bean bowl (fried rice or refrieds?). Not digging the bowl? Try it in a quesadilla, burrito, or combo platter instead. And don't forget an amazing snickerdoodle cookie on the side!

Best Neighborhood Mexican Restaurant, Central Phoenix

Tacos Atoyac

Despite the number of Mexican eateries in the Valley, Sonoran-style food still reigns supreme. Stumbling upon a place that specializes in Oaxacan moles and other edibles can be a much-needed break from tired but true Sonoran fare. Tacos Atoyac at 19th and Glendale avenues is the real Oaxacan deal, and it just opened this year, so it still has that new taquito smell. In addition to the tacos and tostadas, Tacos Atoyac also boasts moles and some of best damn horchata we've had in a long time. Best of all, nothing on the menu will break the bank, and an entire family can feast like kings for less than 20 bucks. Bienvenidos, Tacos Atoyac!

Best Of Phoenix®

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