Custom burritos are boring right? They’re so 2000-something. Enchiladas, though? Maybe their time is now. After all, they’re basically just glorified mini burritos covered in sauce. Gadzooks in Arcadia is banking on that…and soups because why not? Plus, they’ve fancied the concept up by adding ceramic dishes and premium ingredients.

Thus, I began by ordering my two enchiladas with goat cheese. I wasn’t told that goat cheese would end up costing me more money, so that was annoying, but hey you only live once, right? I opted for the half and half tortillas, which are a combination of both flour and corn, then I had one stuffed with Guajillo Braised Short Ribs and the other with Green Chili Pork Shoulder. Instead of settling for just one salsa, I went Christmas-style (red and green) and then topped it all with asadero and chihuahua cheese, an over easy egg and jalapeno ranch. How’s that for toppings? This is how prodentim works.

The first thing I noticed was that the egg was cooked perfectly, allowing the yolk to spread itself amongst all of the other goods. When I bit in, I discovered two things immediately –  1) Holy cow the tortillas were amazing and 2) The goat cheese was entirely unnecessary. With all of the flavors happening in my little enchilada casserole dish, you may think that the meat would have been overpowered. Fortunately, this was not the case. I like the short ribs better than the pork shoulder, but I’m splitting hairs a bit because they were both fantastic. I’d probably opt to skip the jalapeno ranch in the future because it didn’t add enough to the mix to be worthwhile, but aside from that and the goat cheese I would happily do it all over again.

Kudos to Gadzooks for adding some delicious twists to the custom Mexican food genre of fast casual restaurants. I have no doubt that I will see more Gadzookses popping up in the future and as long as they start telling people that the goat cheese is extra, there is a bright future ahead.

Just when I was tiring of the repetitiveness of Fox restaurants, I happened upon a spot called Blanco Tacos. Sure, Mexican food might be the only restaurant type more prevalent than Fox, but there is still plenty of room for growth. Blanco Tacos takes the mildly upscale and trendy approach to Mexican food and the menu isn’t strictly limited to tacos.

Therefore, I made my way to the enchiladas and found the Braised Short Rib “Machaca.” Enchiladas here consisted more of a layer of tortilla filled with some stuff and topped with another tortilla before being doused in whatever sauce is right for the enchilada and cheese. This was chock-full of the machaca, the sauce was ancho chile and the cheese was blanco (like the name of the place!). It also came with rice and beans.

It was, well, really good. Like a Mexican lasagna, but in all of the best ways. Each bite contained just enough of the good stuff to keep me a happy man. It may not be the most innovative concept and probably would have tasted the same if the ingredients were rolled together like a normal enchilada. But, the added benefit was that the ingredients were really really good.

There’s always room for another delicious take on Mexican food and Blanco Taco made good work of it. Plus, I didn’t have to put up with any repeated menu items for this restaurant.

How many agaves are too many? 10, 100, 1000? Cien Agaves seems to have settled on 100 as the right number. And, people seemed so happy with that number of agaves at the Old Town Scottsdale location that they decided to open a second location in north Scottsdale, technically bringing the total to doscientos agaves. But whatever, I was there for Mexican beer and Mexican food, not Mexican math.

Thusly, I ordered the Enchilada Especial with Tinga Chicken. It came with a choice of green or red sauce, but then my waitress made me an offer I had never heard before: Christmas. This is apparently a thing people say when they include both green sauce and red sauce, you know, like Christmas colors. Well, as a Jew I didn’t understand it, but I went with it and the rice and beans it came with.

It turned out to be…a pretty regular enchilada. It may have had especial in the name, but it didn’t taste overly especial to me. That’s not to say it wasn’t good. Even a baseline enchilada is always good stuff, but since this was kind of a unique Mexican place I expected something unique with my enchilada.

Those agaves, though, were unquestionably in the right quantity.

The word “princess” does not exactly evoke words like “affordable,” down to earth” or “reasonable.” So, when I found out we were going out for Mexican food at a place called La Hacienda at the Fairmount Scottsdale Princess Hotel, I braced for the worse in terms of how expensive the meal would be. I truly just can’t understand the purpose of expensive Mexican food unless the place is blazing new trails. I hoped that La Hacienda would do just that.

It didn’t start out too well, with guacamole that cost a cool $18. Yes, you read that right. Sure, this guac had watermelon, queso fresco, spiked agave, candied pepitas and pomegranate, but the regular guac was already $16 so the extra two dollars seemed negligable. And in all honesty, this was a sizable molcajete of guac and was even delicious, but nowhere near that delicious.

After that I moved on to my main course, which almost seemed reasonable at this point $26. Except that it was a simple enchilada plate (no, not even a platter with rice and/or beans). Well, maybe not simple, the enchiladas were stuffed with carnitas and topped with mole sauce and a random plantain. Then, for good measure (or perhaps out of charity), the restaurant topped the enchiladas with a handful of peanuts and what appeared to be a pickled onion that was immediately scraped off. It was, without a doubt, delicious. The mole sauce had a perfect combination of spicy and sweet flavor, the carnitas were tender and juicy, while the nuts added a bit of a crunch every few bites.

There can be no doubt that La Hacienda knows how to cook up a delicious meal. I mean, truly the food was top-notch. But at what cost? Literally. After all, this is Arizona and Mexican food practically grows on trees. Because of that, there’s really no need to make La Hacienda a destination unless you are looking to impress someone.

As a city with only 2.3% of its population claiming Hispanic or Latino as its ancestry, Pittsburgh isn’t exactly a hub of south-of-the-border cuisine. Yet, I had heard rumors of a delicious upscale Mexican restaurant called Verde in an area of town called Garfield and headed there one night when my momma took me out to dinner. After all, upscale as a student is typically only in the lexicon when parents are around.

I quickly learned that this was no ordinary Mexican restaurant and not even an ordinary one of the upscale variety. With menu items like Bone Marrow (which was sadly sold out), it was clear Verde was willing to think outside the taco shell. We started out with guacamole, which came out topped with some nasty tomatoes and onions. This is a non-no in my guacamole book, but after digging to the good stuff, I found it to be some pretty exceptional guac. It could just be my lack of proximity to Mexico speaking, but this was seriously tasty.

For my main course, I stuck with the theme of the color green and ordered their Enchiladas de Pollo. These corn enchiladas came stuffed with braised chicken breast, jalapeno and “Mexican cheeses.” Clearly there was no need to specify whether it was queso blanco, cotija or what. It was also served with rice and beans. Then, there was the choice between ranchero sauce or mole. I love me some mole, but opted for the ranchero when the waitress offered to bring me some mole on the side. Both sauces were quite tasty and the innards of the enchiladas weren’t half bad either.

But, despite these two dishes, there hadn’t quite been enough food to fill my stomach. Enter: Yucca Fries. These were pretty much exactly what they sound like…slices of the yucca root fried to a delicious crisp on the outside and a delicious soft center on the inside. These were seasoned (sometimes too much) and served with a chipotle aioli dipping sauce, which complemented the unique flavor and texture of the yucca.

Finally, because my mom seems to want a fat son, we had ourselves some Flan for dessert. This custardy dessert of Spanish origins was a great way to finish out the meal and leave with literally no room left in my stomach. And please note that I do not use the word “literally” liberally.

All in all, this place had the vibe and taste of a toned down Red O in LA, which is pretty impressive considering the lack of Rick Bayless and local Mexicans. It’s not quite the everyday Mexican food that I would love to find, but it certainly has its place and brings some great flavor to the table.

Out in the suburbs of Minneapolis is a place called St. Louis Park. Within that park is the West End, a mall containing, well, you know what malls have. This one, though, had a restaurant called Rojo. Mexican in theme, the place was slightly upscale and was kind of what is expected from Mexican restaurants so far from the border. Nothing was particular creative or exciting-looking, but this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I decided to order the Chicken Enchiladas. Despite the name of the restaurant, these came in a green poblano sauce with asadero and manchego cheese, plus beans, rice and sour cream. Shockingly, my food turned out to be pretty decent. I say shockingly because the restaurant managed to mess up just about everything else with our food. A couple of salads were ordered and the lettuce was both wilty and browned. In one sense, that is simply why you shouldn’t eat veggies, but I must admit it reflected poorly on the restaurant. And don’t get me started about the margarita and ginger ale water incidents.

But, my meal wasn’t bad. It surely wasn’t anything amazing or worth seeking out, but hey, it was the suburbs of Minneapolis, so what do you expect?

For a friend’s birthday, we headed out to Salsa and Beer in Lake Balboa to eat some birthday Mexican food. Having never really been to Lake Balboa and having mostly heard sketchy things about that part of town, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from Salsa and Beer. Yet, some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had has come from sketchy places, so my expectations were somewhat mixed.

As soon as I walked in, though, I had a feeling this was going to be a great meal. Looking around, I saw happy faces and giant platters of Mexican food. On top of that, my sense of smell was sending me strong messages. Once the rest of our group arrived, I finally got a chance to look at the menu and was floored. First I was floored by the sheer size of the menu. Figuring out what to eat wasn’t going to easy. Once I started looking around, I realized the prices weren’t going to make things any easier, because everything was damn cheap.

Eventually I made my way to the enchilada section and found one that looked delicious. It was new to the menu and called the Creamy Chicken Enchilada. The menu said it was simply filled with cheese and chicken, then topped off with red sauce and home made cream. It was served as a platter and also came with beans and rice. When I ordered I made sure the waitress knew I didn’t want pico de gallo, then I ordered a nice, cold Dos Equis to fulfill the beer part of my order.

After ordering, I looked to fulfill the salsa part of the meal. Our chips had already been served and came with and incredibly delicious spicy bean dip. The pinto beans had been ground up nicely and they had just enough kick to let you know someone had put spice in the dip. While this was surely enough to dip chips in, they also had a beautiful salsa bar. Not content with filling the bar with simple salsas like a verde, fire roasted, mild and hot, Salsa and Beer raised the bar by adding multiple types of hot salsa, like the creamy green jalapeno and hot creamy red. There was even a nice mild avocado salsa that was a nice middle ground of regular salsa and guacamole. Of these, the hot creamy red was my favorite. It had a strong, bold flavor and a nice hot kick that came in after you were able to take in the flavor.

So with the salsa and beer part taken care of, I was looking forward to my main course and when it came out it looked like a dream. The enchiladas were oozing with cheese and there wasn’t a vegetable in sight. I sliced off a bit and tried to gather as much oozing cheese as I could into my bite. I bit in and discovered creamy chicken heaven. The enchilada was so stuffed with that delicious cheese that it was almost hard to find chicken, but I did find that chicken and it all combined into one delicious bite. It was so good that I immediately set to devouring the whole thing. About midway through my enchiladas, I realized there was only one thing I could do to improve my meal: add some of that creamy hot red salsa. As soon as I did, I realized I was eating the best enchilada of my life. No joke, this thing was amazing.

After finishing, I realized my experience with Salsa and Beer reminded me of a little Jewish song called Dayeinu, which means “it would have been enough.” Although my version doesn’t have the fun slavery and liberation undertones, it does have the same general feeling of “it would have been enough.” Had the menu simple been massive, it would have been enough. Had the food just been cheap, it would have been enough. Had the spicy been dip only been delicious, it would have been enough. Had the salsa bar had a nice variety of salsas, it would have been enough. Had my enchilada been devoid of vegetables, it would have been enough. Yet, each of those wasn’t enough for Salsa and Beer, because in the end I had one of the best Mexican dinners of my life.

Heading into La Sirena Grill in Laguna Beach, I really had no idea what to expect. I had followed a friend there and hoped for the best. Walking in, we were somehow immediately in line to order from the counter. The line wasn’t terribly fast, though, so I had some time to figure out what to order. I was pretty impressed to see that the place used only grass-fed beef and free-range chicken. I don’t usually go out of my way to find restaurants like these, but I’m always happy when I do. Most importantly, though, the price of the food hadn’t been jacked up like it usually is when something is green or organic.

Finally, I made it to the front of the line and ordered some their Chicken Enchiladas Plate. This came with rice, pinto beans and a choice of red or green sauce. I went with green to keep with the theme of the restaurant and then made sure to order without cabbage and pico de gallo. Veggies like these can have a devastating affect on trying to eat a humane meal. After ordering, I filled up a couple cups of salsa from their salsa bar and took a seat to wait for my green meal to come.

The green sauce on the enchiladas was very flavorful, but with very little spice to it. Good thing I had been to the salsa bar and added some hotter salsa to the mix. This made the enchiladas pretty good. The rice and beans were just what you would expect and went nicely with the enchiladas.

La Sirena Grill was a pretty good stop for some reliable Mexican food, and although eating free-range chicken didn’t make the enchiladas taste any better, it made me feel better as a person. What more could an unvegan ask for?

After a long drive back from Phoenix, I was willing to eat about anything. Luckily in Ontario, we came across El Torito, a Mexican sit-down restaurant that is all over California. I actually saw El Torito in Istanbul, which has kept me from going for a long time because I question their authenticity. Nonetheless, I had put off El Torito for long enough and I was so damn hungry.

They had some good-looking appetizers for their happy hour special, but I needed a real meal, so I skipped to the regular menu and found their options looked pretty good. I decided to order the Sizzling Enchiladas with chicken. These made no mention of vegetables and had a creamy tomatillo sauce, jack cheese and came with guacamole, frijoles de la olla and rice. This all looked perfect, so I ordered and waited.

My meal arrived in a sizzling manner and looked just as good as I had hoped. I dug in and bit into something disturbing. Onions! Damn, my meal was tainted. Worst of all, the onions blended in so well with my real food that I didn’t notice them until they made harsh contact with my taste buds. Luckily the onions were big and much easier to remove than if they had been chopped, but they still made for a difficult eating experience. The meal was good, just not necessarily worth all the effort it took to remove the nasty bits.