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| - The restaurant is perfect for people who conflate all food south of our border with Mexican food (as if it weren't bad enough that people conflated all of Mexico's food with one, imaginary "Mexican" food - but I digress!).
The menus is varied, with plenty to please carnivores, omnivores, pescatarians, and vegetarians.
Everything we tried was great, starting with the oat drink. The only experience I've had with avena was at a Costa Rican place in Chicago - they served it milk-shake style. Here, the drink was light and refreshingly sweet, tasting like a healthier pineapple juice.
The Mexican tamales were the best I've had in Phoenix - fluffy and savory, with just the right touch of cheese and peppers. I can't wait to try the rest.
Entree-wise, try to order something with the aji salsa. It's like a little pico de gallo from hell - spicy to the extreme, but not in a stupid novelty hot-sauce kind of way. The spiciness is part of a delicious ride that will highlight the rich flavors of the rest of your dish.
I tried the shrimp-stew - which was delicious without being overly rich. There was a flavor that was familiar and strange all at the same-time. It was like meeting your long-lost mother, and then having her cook you the comfort food you would've grown up on if you hadn't been separated from her at birth.
We also had the plato sin carné. This is not the standard beans-rice-sad-salad vegetarian option that a lot of places serve up. There was a hearty lentil concoction served with perfectly cooked rice, an over-easy egg, perfectly cooked plantains, and - the crown jewel - some sort of vegetable mush-pudding concoction that the menu referred to as flan, covered in a little bit of what tasted like hollandaise sauce and served on a crisp lettuce leaf.
The varying textures and tastes of the flan/lettuce/sauce combo - which was nothing like the custard-y dessert I normally associate with the word - tasted even better as cold leftovers.
For who isn't normally inclined to drive from central Phoenix to the northwest corner of the city, Mi Cocina Mi Pais is perfect for a date night when combined with the dollar theatre a mile or two down the road.
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