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| - I should have bought a house in Sunnyslope. Los Reyes de la Torta and El Bravo in the same neighborhood. It's like a dream come true.
El Bravo has been on my list for a while now, and I finally made it a few weeks ago. The typical "not much to look at from the outside" place, but I found the inside to be, dare I say, charming with it's colorful walls and mural. Seat yourself and the wait is not long for chips and salsa. The salsa was mild, but tasted fresh. The hot sauce in the ever so popular in Arizona squirt bottle was a little hotter with good strong oregano flavor. Yes, they do charge for chips, but it's a buck. Nothing to get bent about, and the rest of the menu is priced affordably.
To maximize my sampling pleasure, I ordered a 3-way burro so that I could try both the red chile and green chile (both made with beef), beans, and tortillas without ordering too much. Pretty resourceful, I know. I also ordered the green corn chicken tamale.
The beans were good, but a little too seasoned for me. Not overly seasoned, but I'm a minimalist when it comes to beans. Salt does it for me. The red chile was made with shredded beef, while the green was made with cubes. Both were tasty, but I couldn't detect one being hotter than the other, but you know how 3-ways are. The tortillas were really good! Maybe a little less "floury" than say a Carolina's tortilla. Now the tamale was perfection. I'm usually never impressed by a restaurant tamale's masa. There's either way too much, or it's too tough or too soft, and it never tastes like home-made, maybe because they're restaurant-made. El Bravo has it down. I ordered mine without sauce, and it was served out of the husk, so I'm pretty sure they are made with only one husk. I like the 2 or 3 husk version so you can peel away the layers....mmm, mmm.
So, it's too late to make a long story short, but El Bravo is now my new favorite table-service Mexican restaurant for good ole Sonoran fare.
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