Bountiful Mexican

You’d think there is some sort of Arizona law making it illegal for
any Mexican restaurant on the southside to serve bad food. Yeah, there
are a few violators—as the saying goes, laws are meant to be
broken—but the vast majority of southside Mexican joints seem to
abide.

El Doradito (also called El Dorado, or El Dorado Tortilla Factory,
depending on where you’re looking), on South Park Avenue between
Irvington Road and Fair Street, follows this law (albeit with a
crushingly notable exception), if our two visits are an accurate
representation. However, I can’t really recommend El Doradito; after
all, the place is surrounded by equally good and better Mexican
restaurants, in my humble opinion.

Take our dinner visit as an example. We walked in on a recent
weekday evening, and for much of the visit, we had the entire
restaurant to ourselves, save the presence of one man who was dining on
a large seafood cocktele (cocktail) of some sort. The server told us we
could sit anywhere we wanted, and we plopped down in a booth on the
northern side of the restaurant, underneath an impressive wall mural
depicting various Hopi characters. (We sat beneath Sa’lakwmana, for
what it’s worth.) The building has two distinct rooms, with a service
counter (where people can pick up menudo and other tasty treats to go)
and the kitchen in between; the room on the southern side has a buffet
area and a salad bar, for weekday lunches and weekend breakfasts. The
restaurant offered up a clean, tidy and charmingly aged appearance
(although a few persistent flies tried to help themselves to some of
our dinner). It’s a pleasant, homey place.

We had a tough time deciding what to order, in part because the menu
is rather large, packed with all the Mexican food you’d expect to find,
plus a rather extensive seafood selection; even breakfast is offered
($5.75-$6.95). We finally decided to split the aperitivo El Dorado (a
sampler appetizer plate, $8.95). I selected the mole poblano, listed as
one of the restaurant’s specialties ($8.25), while Garrett ordered a
fish dish, the filete al diablo ($11.25).

We munched on the chips and salsa (a blended red variety that was
tasty, with just the perfect amount of heat thanks to an ample amount
of pepper seeds) until the appetizer plate arrived. As promised on the
menu, the fare included four mini flautas, and four mini chimichangas,
along with a flour/cheese quesadilla, guacamole and sour cream.
However, the menu said the flautas would contain shredded beef, and the
chimis would have chicken; I saw beef in at least one of the chimis,
and Garrett swears he had chicken in a flauta. That’s fine; all was
delicious, especially the chicken chimis, which included shredded meat
and bits of vegetables, like peppers and celery. Yum. My only
complaints: The flautas tended toward dryness, and there wasn’t nearly
enough guacamole.

Then came the entrées—and, with them, problems. While
Garrett ordered the filete el diablo—and even asked for it
to be extra hot—he received the filete al mojo de ajo ($10.95)
instead. He went ahead and ate the filet, which was absolutely covered
with minced garlic; while it was tasty, he was disappointed about
missing out on the filete al diablo. Garrett used the accompanying
salad (lettuce, carrot, tomatoes and celery) to mute the ample garlic,
without much success. The accompanying rice was fairly standard
fare.

My mole poblano was, to be frank, terrible. For one thing, the
“whole chicken breast” promised on the menu was actually various random
chicken bits. This would have been forgivable had the sauce been good,
but it was downright awful: There was no hint of pepper, and only the
slightest inkling of chocolate. The dominant flavor in the watery sauce
was … well, nothing. I focused on enjoying the rice, beans and
tortillas that came along with it. Yikes, what a disappointment.

We returned about a week later to give lunch a shot. The restaurant
had quite a few more customers (though it was nowhere near busy);
interestingly, almost all of the diners were sitting in the northern
room and ordering off the regular menu. Nonetheless, we decided to give
the lunch buffet ($7.25, which includes iced tea) a try.

The buffet included a decent salad bar ($4.95 separately) anchored
by iceberg lettuce; the salad bar also included a pot of serviceable
macaroni vegetable soup. We were able to sample seven other offerings:
beef mini chimichangas, a fish stew, mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak,
cheese enchiladas and the requisite rice and beans. Later in the meal,
the fish stew was replaced by some beef tacos.

All in all, the food was good, if not spectacular. My favorite item,
surprisingly, was the fish stew, which had a surprisingly strong kick;
Garrett thought the fish was a bit overpowering, but I didn’t mind.
Garrett enjoyed the mini chimis; he said they tasted better than they
looked, and I agree. Everything else, save the overly dry beef tacos,
was enjoyable, if unremarkable. Whereas the service on our dinner visit
had some glitches, the two women who helped us during lunch made sure
we had plenty of water, iced tea and tortillas (though we did need to
ask for chips and salsa).

Except for the mole poblano, which was truly heinous, everything
about El Doradito was decent or better. On the flip side, nothing stood
out as exceptional (except for maybe some of those mini chimis). For
that reason, I won’t be rushing back anytime soon; there is just too
much great Mexican food around these parts.

This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2009.