The enchilada is a hard dish to nail. We've found our favorite at a restaurant owned by the multi-generational Reynoso clan, who hail from the Globe-Miami area and create their dishes using family recipes.

From the first bite, you experience the distinctively spicy yet smoky flavor of fire-roasted green chiles. The Reynosos don't skimp on the meat -- in this case, lean and flavorful beef, devoid of any grease or gristle.

If we didn't know better, we would have licked the plate clean and asked for a look-see at the family cookbook. Such is the burden of good manners and proper restaurant etiquette. You might handle the situation otherwise.

Hot dogs are as American as baseball and apple pie, but for many Mexicans, your typical stateside hot dog adorned with ketchup, mustard and relish is about as bland as a wet dachshund. Thankfully, we live in a border state where the Sonoran-style hot dog can be purchased at hot dog stands throughout the Valley. Wrapped in bacon and smothered with pinto beans, mayonnaise, jalape--o sauce, guacamole, grilled onions, pinto beans, chopped tomatoes and mushrooms (as well as mustard and ketchup if you wish), the Sonoran-style hot dog would make Dagwood Bumstead proud.

But at Nogales Hot Dogs, located at three stands throughout Phoenix, it won't give him heartburn. The secret, says owner Hernan Rivera, is that instead of dropping the bacon-wrapped hot dogs in a vat of hot grease, he wraps the dog in bacon and bakes the concoction until it is nice and crispy.

Oink!

When it comes to Mexican seafood cocktails, whether it's shrimp and octopus or shrimp and oysters, Serrano's beats the square pants off SpongeBob. This large, homey mariscos spot near 32nd Street and Shea may not be in the hippest neighborhood in the PHX, but you'll have a hard time finding its equal elsewhere in the Valley, unless it's the no-frills place that the Serrano family runs near 16th Street and Osborn. The seafood tostadas are big and heaping with the ocean critters of your choice, and the oysters are fat, flavorful, and fresh from the Gulf -- unlike the anemic bivalves one is often stuck with here in P-town. Another specialty is a whole mojarra (tilapia) served Veracruz-style in a tomato-and-onion sauce, with head and tail intact. Believe us when we tell you that when you're finished licking that fish, it'll look bonier than Mary-Kate Olsen's butt. Wash it all down with a michelada, a Clamato-based cocktail cut with Corona, and you'll be crooning like a mariachi in Mexico City, Jack.