Ask a dozen folks where their favorite Mexican food is in town, and you'll get a dozen answers. Sometimes it's the place nearest to where you live or work. Or maybe it's the spot that makes chimichangas or flautas just the way you like them. It could even be the restaurant that has put a trendy, nuevo twist on old standards. Given this endless multiplicity of opinions, and the impassioned debates amongst foodies inspired as a result, we think picking the Best Mexican Restaurant in Phoenix should be as unifying as watching the Olympics, enjoying fireworks on the Fourth of July, or learning to loathe the sight of Paris Hilton on TV. That's why Los Dos Molinos gets our vote for the Best Mexican in the PHX. Take an out-of-towner to Tom Mix's old house down on South Central, fill him full of schooner-size margaritas while you await a table out on the patio, and then buy him a plate of enchiladas guaranteed to have his eyes watering like it's the last episode of Friends, and that hombre will be impressed. Even the seemingly endless drive to get there, and the très tacky interior, will feel like part of a noteworthy, purely P-town experience. Favorite Mexican eateries are as common as paloverdes, but Los Dos Molinos is something more -- a landmark, a shrine, a gaudy cathedral to culinary greatness. Long may she reign. Readers' Choice: Macayo's

Barrio Cafe may be the ultimate proof of the existence of karma. This slammin' little eatery on 16th Street has been hailed by all and sundry, from the New York Times and Food and Wine magazine to nearly every rag in P-town, save maybe for Erotica Phoenix. All Barrio needs now is for Yahweh to part the heavens and reenact his Sistine Chapel shtick with a nekkid chef Silvana Salcido Esparza playing Adam with tattoos and breasts. But, hey, we ain't here to playa-hate. Esparza and business partner Wendy Gruber have earned all the plaudits, huzzahs, kudos, laurels, and six-packs of Corona they can carry. Barrio's thing is authentic Mexican cuisine prepared with a gourmet flair, in sauces that are so good you'll want to smear them all over someone you love á la 9 1/2 Weeks. We're especially enamored of Barrio's black-as-night mole, and its "delicate" green tomatillo sauce, for which we're willing to offer up our first-born, if need be (whenever we get around to procreating). The interior is vibrant and fun, with decorative local art on the walls, and there's often live music on tap. And if you happen to see a bearded dude in a white robe and sandals, nose-deep in a queso fundido, that's Jehovah, yo. Told you this place is popular.

As the name implies, La Hacienda has the atmosphere of a traditional Mexican estate; the decor reminds us of Like Water for Chocolate. Roving musicians provide the background to a menu that reinvents classic Mexican cuisine. The appetizer menu includes a sampler plate, "antojitos mexicanos," which includes squash blossom quesadillas and crabmeat enchiladas, but do not miss La Hacienda's version of Puebla's chile en nogada -- ancho chile stuffed with roasted chicken and dried fruits, covered in pomegranate sauce. Notable entrees include quail stuffed with duck and rack of lamb encrusted with pumpkin seeds accented by blackened tomato chile jam.

Some traditions are even better reinvented.

A visit to Carolina's is nearly a religious experience, one that's catholic, with a little "c," meaning it's almost universal in its appeal. Park yourself in front of the main entrance to the dingy, warehouse-like structure with its school-cafeteria tables and chairs, and you'll see what we mean. Every sort of person, regardless of class or ethnicity, walks through those doors: a businessman in wrap-around sunglasses, and a construction worker on a lunch break; a pregnant woman by herself, and a student on his way home from school; the fat man with food on his shirt, and the primly dressed grandma back from a church social; a mother with an entire brood surrounding her, and an indigent fellow who's scraped enough together for a bite to eat. They all place their orders at the main counter surrounded by a garish red-and-white menu, take their numbers, and sit politely waiting to be called. It's an amazing cross section of humanity, mostly brought here by the same thing: Mama Carolina's tortillas. Maybe the fat guy wants a machaca with egg, or the pregnant lady, a green chile burrito. The student, a chicken enchilada, and the homeless man, a cheese tortilla. But they're almost all wrapped in or are accompanied by those magnificent flour tortillas, as light as air, slightly chewy, and somewhat smoky. They have corn tortillas, too, but it's those flour ones that we revere above all else. No wonder Carolina's sells thousands a day.

Some Mexican restaurants try to be so authentic in their decor, they neglect the food. Other Mexican restaurants prefer to let their food speak for itself. At Tepic Restaurant, which opened earlier this year at Phoenix's original Denny's restaurant on Van Buren Street, the authenticity is most notable in the restaurant's tacos. Juan Romero, who spent two decades working in the Valley's restaurant industry, named the joint after his hometown in the Mexican province of Nayarit, which lies on the western coast of Mexico, south of Sinaloa. Customers either sit at one of the booths or at the old-fashioned soda fountain counter that still separates the kitchen from the dining area. If it weren't for the salsa bar at the corner of the counter, you would think you'd wandered into an old American diner.

That is, until you try the tacos, which are served on a warm homemade tortilla and come in five variations: carne asada (grilled steak), pastor (roasted pork), lengua (beef tongue), buche (beef neck) and cabeza (beef head). A bite into Romero's tacos is not just a run for the border, but an excursion deep into his homeland.

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.

We expect a lot from our "best" Mexican restaurant. First, there's the food, of course. And La Casa delivers in delicious style, with home-style breakfasts of chilaquiles con queso; or lunches and dinners of shrimp-octopus cocktail, ceviche tostada, and mixed skillets of fabulously seasoned chicken, beef and carnitas or seafood. It's all fresh and fun, with our favorite dish being tilapia fish with tons of real garlic swimming in butter, alongside stellar rice, beans and a warm flour tortilla. Second, we want atmosphere, and this place has it, from splendid colorful murals on walls, to loud, piped-in music, and mariachi tunes on weekends. Third, we want something to wash down with our festivities, and La Casa doesn't disappoint. We crave the aguas frescas, homemade with horchata, pineapple or tamarind. In the spirit of a real party, we slam from an impressive array of brandy, cognac, rum, tequila, whiskey and vodka. For a true Mexican fiesta, La Casa is the best.

Readers' Choice: Macayo's

We would love to take a tour of Acapulco Bay's kitchen. We think it must be enormous, to stock such an incredible selection of fresh seafood: red snapper, cabrilla, tilapia, shrimp, octopus, lobster tail, calamari, oysters, green mussels, scallops and crab. We'd love to dig through the chefs' recipe books -- the depth and creativity are astounding, with seafood prepared in garlic butter, spicy peppers and butter, salsa butter, Veracruz-style with olives and pickled jalapeños, breaded in cracker flour, grilled with peppers and onions, or with fresh mushrooms and cheese. Meat eaters aren't left out, either, with chicken dressed in Baja spices, marinated pork steak, carne asada and carnitas, glammed up with crispy vegetables, fresh chunked guacamole and spicy pico de gallo. We're pretty sure we could eat here every day for a year, and never have the same meal twice.