Sonora Rising

I moved away from Chicago... <checks watch>... 15 years ago. And while I keep half an eye on some old friends’ feeds and hear things from time to time, I’m not exactly in the know when it comes to what’s happening back home these days. Still, I know more about the Chicago dining scene than the average tourist from Arizona, so when local friends go for a visit, a request for restaurant recommendations usually lands in my inbox.

(This is going to circle back to Phoenix, stick with me.*)

I love it. I have a (very) long list that I give a quick refresh every time somebody asks, and one of my tippy top recommendations — if they’re going to have a car — is to do a Mexican crawl. I tell them to hit up Zaragoza for birria, Los Gallos II for carne en su jugo, Carnitas Uruapan for carnitas, Cemitas Puebla (RIP) for cemitas, La Chaparrita for street tacos and tepache, and so on.

Then I brace and wince when I get the reply, which is usually some riff on “I live in Arizona. Why would I want to get Mexican food in Chicago?”

“Trust me,” I say. “You will be glad you did this.”

Nobody has taken me up on it yet. And I get it. When you go on vacation, you don’t want to eat the foods of home. But what they don’t realize is that both might be Mexican, but these are NOT the foods of home.

And therein lies one of the creaking tentpoles of Phoenix’s aging, weird, semi-dysfunctional relationship with Mexican food. (*Told’ja.)

clockwise from top left: watermelon salad with cucumber, pepino melon, radish and peanut |  burnt sweet potato with queso de cabra, Proof sourdough bread, chiltepín corn crumb and cotija cheese |  grilled shrimp with sausage and beans and I don't know what, but damn, was it good

To put it bluntly, Phoenix thinks it knows a LOT more about Mexican food than it actually does. And not only is that confidence misplaced, but it actively prevents people here from learning more. The sliver of Mexican cuisine we see here is a subset of a subset of a subset of what’s out there. And the AZ-Sonoran food we know and (rightly) love is worlds apart from countless regional cuisines that are no less Mexican, but aren’t represented here at all, much less well.

In the decade+ since I moved to the Valley, I feel like I’ve seen that realization slowly percolate through the brain of the average Phoenix diner. Still, we know Sonoran, right? This is the Sonoran desert! This used to be Mexico! Sonoran is our thing!

Perhaps the best thing about Bacanora and René Andrade — and boy howdy, the list is long — is how they’re showing Phoenix that we don’t even know as much about Sonoran food as we think we do.

grilled octopus with salsa de tomatillo cruda, white macha, crispy potato, fresh cucumber, radish and chiltepín

clockwise from left: pollo asado with salsa verde, salsa roja, bulb onions, flour tortillas, chiles toreados, frijoles and papa al horno  |  scallop crudo with crema de macha, burned cabbage, onion dust, cilantro and radish  |  burrito with carne asada, tortilla, frijoles, cilantro, salsa roja and chile chilaca

René is paying homage to his roots here, cooking with incredible precision over live mesquite on one of those clanky, boxy traditional grills you’d find at any open-air taqueria. And if I weren’t too busy stuffing my face and if I still had professional photographers ready to do my bidding, I’d have a great picture of it. But you’ve seen it and you know it. What you probably haven’t seen is what’s coming off of it.

Check out the color on the sweet potatoes. We always think fire and meat, but as René points out, Sonoran cuisine is mostly vegetables. And here, that blistered, smoky char brings so much depth, paired with goat cheese and a little cotija, big chunks of toasty sourdough and — natch — a sprinkling of chiltepín. I have no idea what was going on with the grilled shrimp. All I know is that they were stupid good, served in almost stew-like fashion with soupy beans and huge chunks of gnarly, dark sausage.

He goes light, too. I loved his scallop crudo, mixed with lightly charred cabbage to introduce just a bit of fire. And his watermelon salad — oh, man, a gorgeous, sweet specimen hidden beneath shaved cucumber and pepino melon, lightly dressed and sprinkled with a little cheese and sesame and chile fire, studded with crunchy peanuts.

Thing is, this is a sneak attack. These are all specials that come and go. If you look at the official menu, it’s just a few items that are exactly what people expect. But I think people are unprepared for just how good they are.

grilled 68-day Arcadia Meat Market ribeye, radish, lime, bulb onions
and quesadilla  |  the naughty bits of the same steak

The pollo asado is a helluva bird, swimming in jus and garlic and chiles and paired with a platter of salsas, rajas, beans and tortillas. And I just don’t see the point of continuing to go to steakhouses when you can get something like this: a titanic dry-aged tomahawk ribeye imbued with fire and an aggressive char, big and brash and bold and complex but so sweet and tender inside, complete with the naughty bits that only people like me want to eat, carefully tucked into the side of the platter.

I love this burrito because it shows just how far you can take a dish with careful technique. How is this meat so tender? How does he get this kind of char without turning the thing into ash? How are the same ingredients you find in so many burritos turned into something as good as this? And I mentioned it briefly in the last newsletter, but one of my absolute favorite dishes of the entire year was four-day-old leftover beans from Bacanora. I plopped them into a bowl, stuck them in the microwave, took a bite and completely fucking swooned. Beans. But there was so much going on —loads of garlic, the grassy scent of olive oil, smoky, meaty undertones, a hefty shot of oregano, fruity, chile spice... there was so much going on, the bowl practically vibrated. Or maybe that was just me, losing my fine motor control as my neurons overloaded.

You guys, there is something really special going on over at Bacanora. This is one of those places where it feels like something is happening. And what’s coming out is both old and new, not always strictly “traditional” but completely authentic in the best, truest sense of the word. In a town that always seems to think it knows everything about Mexican food, this is a wake-up call — a watershed moment — and I hope it’s just the beginning.

That Word... I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

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If You Want Something Done...

...........hm? What?......... OH RIGHT! The pastrami thing.

I mmmmaaaaaay have kicked off a bit more of a hubbub than I intended yesterday, so let’s get this out of the way up front. No, I have not discovered (to the extent any food writer ever “discovers” anything) some truly outstanding Jewish-American deli that’s been silently flying under the radar in Phoenix for years. But what I said was the truth — I did just have a couple of truly outstanding pastrami sandwiches, the likes of which I thought weren’t available in Phoenix. And while some of you are way ahead of me on this one, I’m hoping this might serve as a PSA for those of you as slow on the uptake as I was. Because right now I’m equal parts excited and PISSED — excited that I can now have a killer pastrami sandwich pretty much whenever I want, and pissed because I could have been eating this for years rather than kvetching that I couldn’t.

Lemme back up a bit.

When Phoenix food geeks start trading wish lists, a killer Jewish-American deli inevitably makes a strong showing. Thing is, this is an endangered species — even in its native habitats, like New York and Los Angeles — partly because the folks who know how to do it right are literally dying, and partly because great deli meat is expensive to produce. A pastrami sandwich at Langer’s is $22. At Katz’s, it’s $25. Meanwhile, here in Phoenix, people are talking about how a $25 lobster roll made with freshly steamed and shucked lobsters is a rip-off while losing their minds and waiting an hour for $10 worth of lukewarm, mushy, frozen lobster meat, a slice of sandwich bread and Cane’s sauce. This town has its virtues, but a willingness to loosen the purse strings for anything other than steak and booze isn’t one of them.

As a result, our deli options are... not that great. And I’m in the camp that decided years ago to save corned beef and pastrami sandwiches for when I’m traveling, because the options here mostly range from vaguely unsatisfying to downright depressing.

So recently, I’m sitting outside at Little Miss BBQ, the OG on Uni, throwing back a stupid amount of meat with some friends who have all gathered because the lines there have been weirdly short lately. (Seriously. I don’t know what’s up, but now is the time to go.) It’s a Thursday, which means it’s pastrami day, and I’m bummed because I was hoping for a beef rib and I got my days mixed up. No matter — the fatty brisket is banging, the cheddar jalapeno sausage is oozing and I’m a happy camper. But I have this friend who is super into the pastrami, and he offers me some.

Normally, the pastrami is not my thing. Objectively speaking, I have always recognized its excellence, but it’s fierce and complex, and when I’m going for BBQ, I’m usually just looking for something more straightforward and primal. No shade here, just preference.

But I try the pastrami, and I immediately think, yeah, the brisket is still the right call for me. This is a little more belligerence than I want on my BBQ plate. But man, I wish somebody would make a deli sandwich with pastrami like thi........ like th........ I.................... oh man, I have an idea.

I am fully aware that this is NOT an original idea. But I come back the next week, this time armed to the teeth, and I set up a little sandwich shop on the patio outside. I order three pounds of fatty pastrami, and I ask the cutter to go as thin as he can without shredding the meat. It’s thicker than most delis, even the ones that hand cut, but that doesn’t matter because this bad boy has never known a refrigerator. He’s been held warm since the moment he emerged from the smoker and his thick musculature is supple and jiggly, like a sumo wrestler stepping out of a steam room. I take my bounty outside and get to work.

East Coast: Straight up pastrami sandwich, zero frills. I bust out a loaf of deli rye acquired at Noble Eatery. (It comes and goes, apparently. Call to check.) I grab a bottle of the most stupid basic mustard I can find, some good ol’ French’s yellow. (Should probably be spicy brown, I know, I know, moving on.) And in 30 seconds, I’ve transformed my bounty into a mighty fine lookin’ pastrami sandwich.

West Coast: The #19. Sort of. I bring a batch of Russian dressing that I whipped up at home (5 mins, easy peasy), spread it on the same rye, load pastrami on one side and Little Miss’ house slaw on the other, and toss on a couple slices of Swiss cheese. But an ice cold slab of Swiss cheese on a hot pastrami sandwich is one of my pet peeves, so I come prepared:

No sizzling char or anything, just enough fire to force it to surrender.

And friends, ten seconds later I am swaddled in tender, sweet, smoky bliss.

My creamy concoction is a dream, that contrast of hot and cold, a funky whiff of Swiss and a litte piquant pop from horseradish and paprika, tag teaming Scott’s vibrant pastrami rub, mellowed out by drippy slaw and a lightly tart mayonnaise base.

But the minimal version — good lord. I don’t want to get carried away. This is the first pastrami sandwich in Phoenix that I really give a damn about, and that, no doubt, plays a part in my assessment. But this is one beautiful, majestic beast. Purists gonna nitpick, but don’t miss the forest for the trees, here. The Noble loaf is the perfect partner — a gentle rye with a bit of a cornmeal crust and tender crumb, gently cradling thick-cut pastrami with the silky melt of Scott’s signature brisket. The thing practically dissolves into a puddle of sweetness and spice, a thick aroma of coriander and smoke that wraps around your head, with a lick of vinegary mustard to cut through that intensely rich and buttery beef fat.

At this point, some of you are angry with me for the tease. And I, uh... probably deserve it. But here’s the thing. If I had found some little stand or food truck or pop-up that was selling these sandwiches, everybody would be getting in the car right now. I get it. I need that fix as much as you guys. And as it turns out, all you have to do is show up at LMBBQ Uni on a Thursday with a couple slices of rye and a couple packets of mustard.

I think that’s worth getting excited about.

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Smarter Than Me

Well played, anocifera... well played.

Good Times, Good Times

Woooo, the further away I get from having an editor, the wordier I get. But before I bail on this edition, a quick reminder to tell your reps to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. As the saying goes, we might be done with the pandemic, but the pandemic sure as shit isn’t done with us. (Or something like that.)