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.

Just recently, West Hollywood’s Pinches Tacos branched out to Culver City and my buddy, Waldo, decided we had to try it out. I didn’t really know anything about the original place, but I figured it had to be good enough to build a second location. Since he was picking up, I checked out the menu online and found two tasty-looking tacos. The first was Pollo Mole and the second was Carne Asada. The menu was pretty vague about what came in each, so asked Waldo to order them without vegetables. He is a firm supporter of the unvegan way, so he was happy to get them ordered correctly.

When he brought them over, I found that the tacos had been rolled up into nice little bundles just waiting to be unwrapped. The first one I opened up was the Pollo Mole. It had been prepared just the way I like it, without a vegetable in sight. The chicken was shredded and the mole sauce was all over the place. The sauce turned out to be pretty good, too. It’s not easy to make a good mole, but Pinches was able to pull it off. After tackling that little beast, I unwrapped the Carne Asada and stared in disbelief at the onions that were tainting my taco. Waldo assured me that he had ordered it without those vile vegetables, and I had no choice but to believe him.

It took me awhile to brush all the onions away, and when I was done, I had a passable carne asada taco. It was good, but it had taken too much work to make it that way. I hoped that the onions were just a bit of a kink since they had recently opened, but putting onions in a taco should never be tolerated. It’s unfortunate, too, because without those onions, Pinches Tacos could have been great.