Best Utah Mexican Food
OK, the water park thread degenerated into a discussion of Mexican restaurants. So as not to disrupt people lambasting or praising Cowabunga I thought I’d move this here.
My thoughts.
Red Iguana. I used to LOVE Red Iguana. But the last few times I was there I was less than impressed. My favorite dish is their pork mole. However it’s been pretty dry when I order it – I’ve actually given up. However their tacos are still fantastic and I think the best in the valley.
Café Rio. For what it is it is pretty great. I admit I still eat more at Bajio’s. (We’ll see what happens when it becomes Costa Vida)
Betos. I haven’t eaten there in years. I’ve noticed a lot of the stores have closed down or become Albertos. Back when I was single though I used to hit the Orem Beto’s at 2:00 AM quite regularly. The rolled tacos were just sooo good. No idea if it is still good. Everything else was pretty greasy. But I still have fond memories of a group making a Betos run in the middle of the night.
Chimayos. OK, I’ve not been in some years. Don’t know if this is as good as I remember. I’ve been wanting to go back pretty bad this year. Kind of a high end Mexican fusion. I remember loving the elk burritos. Their menu used to change pretty regularly. Man. Now I’m hungry.
Posted on June 28, 2011, in Food. Bookmark the permalink. 34 Comments.
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Have you tried Barbacoa? How about Tres Hombres?
Is Blue Iguana still open? It was always more high end than Red Iguana, but still good.
Oops sorry you guys are serious. I clicked on this because I thought it must be an oxymoron or a joke seriously I couldn’t find any in 6 months of looking but I’ll check back and see what you come up with for my next SLC trip.
I don’t get up to SLC much anymore. Perils of being a small business owner. I’m stuck with what’s around Provo for the most part. If I’m going for Mexican in SLC it’s usually Red Iguana.
You really can’t go wrong with that choice. If you do ever venture out into the hinterlands though, there are quite a number of good alternatives.
Not Mexican, but one of my favorite places to eat in Utah is the little hole-in-the-wall El Salvador place on Center Street in Provo. Purely authentic all the way around. Great pupusas, beans, eggs, etc.
Cafe Rio does nothing for me, though I know I’m in the minority around here. Blue Iguana and Red Iguana are both good, and Javier’s in Layton has excellent tacos and beans.
I forgot my new favorite, though it’s a little more than Cafe Rio ($12-15 a meal I think?). Sonora Grill in Ogden is amazing. They have a variety of salsas, fresh chips, and the best ceviche I’ve ever had. It’s right across from a movie theater and if you time you dinner to land in the middle of when most of the movies are going you can get in and out pretty quickly.
jjohnsen, I’m right there with you. Cafe Rio is like Mexican food for people who really like casseroles.
Of course, I live in Texas now, so my view of Mexican is prejudiced by Tex-Mex, which is way on the other end of the Americanized-Mexican-cuisine spectrum from Utah-Mex. They tried to open Bajio here and it was met with a collective “meh” and a shrug before closing down. Mexican that’s sweet and soupy? No thanks.
The only Mexican I can recall having in Utah that I really loved was The Red Iguana, but that was many years ago.
Or you could just come up to Logan and go to Cafe Sabor. mmmmmmm…My FAVORITE.
However, I usually have to go home (New Mexico) to satisfy any REAL cravings!
I like Cafe Rio better than Costa Vida, but I go to Costa Vida more (proximity).
We’ve yet to try Red / Blue Iguana, but I snagged a groupon to Blue in Park City that we’ll be trying sometime this summer.
If I go to Cafe Rio I’m just getting a salad anyway. Although I prefer Bajio’s pineapple and shrimp salad.
I take offense at the notion that the Cowabunga Bay thread “degenerated”. On the contrary, I think it improved.
Here’s how I begin to evaluate a Mexican place: rice and beans.
If they can’t get the rice and beans right then forget it. I’m nuts about this. There used to be a place down the street that we went at least once a week. We were on a first name basis with the owners. One day I sit down and the rice is wrong. My wife tells me that I’m insane, but she hates rice. So I go and talk to the owner who admits that the supplier delivered the wrong rice the day before. She goes on to tell me that getting the rice just right is difficult and something they worked hard at.
I’m convinced that many places just don’t care. The lime-cilantro rice at Cafe Rio is more soup than rice. I detest it. I want Mexican rice, where the rice is some form of pink and the individual grains have split open. And if you’re making that quantity of beans then you should be making the beans from scratch, not from a can.
Cafe Rio has never had good rice. They used to have good beans but several years ago they switched and all I taste now is can. I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure they’re cracking open a giant can of Goya in the back and just heating it up.
Plus, while I love black beans, they should offer the option of refried, for the sake of variety.
Cafe Rio has done well because of one thing: salads. Women love the illusion of healthy eating and are willing to go to great lengths to dictate where the family eats. Thus their success. I don’t care about their watery salads though.
There are two things they actually do well: tortillas and tres leches. But that isn’t enough to make me ever want to eat there.
Bajio at least had decent rice. Barbacoa could be a great burrito place if it had mexican rice, though its rice is better than Cafe Rio’s. The owners should go on a trip to the Burrito Triangle in Mountain View, CA and learn how it’s done.
I’ll recap my list of places from the Cowabunga thread. You’ll note that they all have solid rice and beans:
Red Iguana (note that the Blue Iguana was sold years ago and has different owners)
Taco carts near Sears
La Costa in Sandy
Lone Star Taqueria in Sandy
Mama Chu’s at the mouth of Provo Canyon
Finally, if you are ever in Thayne, WY (middle of Star Valley, north of Afton) you must try Juan’s House of Tacos. It is great and Juan is a prince.
I think this is very true. I think it’s why Zupas’ is so popular in Utah Valley as well. Not my personal taste but my wife loves it.
I’ve always liked El Matador in Ogden and Bountiful; but if you’re ever in Pocatello, visit Mama Inez.
My fave Mexican restaurant where I used to live in Huntington Beach was Don Ramon’s, hands down. The bean dip is sooooooo good. Everything is good there.
My son swears that a little taqueria is better, but it’s not. Forget the name of it. I think it’s just called Taqueria.
There’s also a taco truck in HB that has seriously yummy 50 cent tacos. Can’t be beat.
Where I live now, there’s a great pupuseria:
Mural on one wall:
I haven’t tried this place, but I hope to soon:
It’s in a seriously bad neighborhood…so you know it’s going to rule.
Oh and one other great Mexican place I know of in socal is in a little town up north called Newhall. You know it’s good when there’s brains on the menu.
Most of the best taquerias are just called “Taqueria.” It’s almost axiomatic.
I almost forgot another favorite. La Macarena. There is one on 13th South near State and one in the strange shopping center at about 47th south and 9th east. Oddly the architecture of that place is identical to the Town and Country shopping center in Palo Alto. I’ll let you guess which one is classier.
Wow, the very best is Bandidos or Joe Veras. It actually has several names. It is on State Street just out of Provo and just into Springville. It is on the west side of the road. Best chips ever. Best bandidos ever. Not overly spicy. Not overly modern, either. Crowded around noon. Mama Chews doesn’t begin to compare.
The best Vietnamese food I’ve ever had was in a dive in Albuquerque that had a sign “no guns allowed.” And it wasn’t being ironic.
Clark, did I take you to that Vietnamese place in Albuquerque? I can’t remember. My first roommate in Los Alamos was Vietnamese. In Albuquerque, we went into a Vietnamese restaurant near UNM; he didn’t like the looks of the place, thought it seemed too Chinese, so he asked the staff where to find a good Asian market, and we left. At the Asian market, he asked around about Vietnamese restaurants, and that led us to Louisiana Blvd. south of the fairgrounds. It was my first experience with Vietnamese food, and I returned several times with different people, and it stands out in my memory though my last visit was eleven years ago. Is that the place you’re thinking of?
Yeah, that was you. Still have fond memories of that trip. Must have been 17 years ago now.
Regarding Mexican or quasi-Mexican food. My favorite place in Provo went out of business years and years ago. It was by what is now Sunflower Market. It was called Cafe del Sol or something like that. It had the most fantastic burrito ever. It was a tiny dive and if I recall was run by a woman recently divorced and the store was her getting on her feet. There was a picture of Steve Young eating their biggest burrito on the wall. Anyone know the place I’m talked about? I really missed it when it shut down.
I love Betos (or Mi Rancheritos as it is now called at some of their locations). I almost always get their chile relleno burrito. Wonderful.
i like cafe rio well enough although i don’t think it’s anything too special. they just started opening stores in socal and i’ll hit the one in manhattan beach now and then for a little taste of utah-nostalgia. about half the time i’ll run into to someone i know through utah/mormon connections.
living in los angeles i’m spoiled with awesome mexican food options. one of my faves is la taquiza near usc which has this amazing al pastor rotating on a spit.
the other week i tried this place called ricky’s fish tacos, which basically consists of two fryers underneath a makeshift awning in a parking lot. the tacos were just awesome, classic baja tacos w/ shredded cabbage and salsa and the creamy white sauce (salsa blanca?).
there are tons of pupuserias around, and restaurants specializing in regional mexican cuisines, like oaxacan. hard to do better than here for mexican food.
If we’re talking about places outside Utah, there was a place in Tacoma WA called Moctezuma’s. Anyone been there? I used to love their chile rellenos. Best I’ve ever had. I have been looking in vain for another restaurant that makes them the same way.
I’ve been there MCQ. (Oddly enough). I mostly remember that I ate way too much. Must have been good.
Glad to hear some else experienced it. I loved that place.
mike d.,
When fish tacos are done right, there’s nothing like em. Must remain basic … as you’ve described them.You can make that white sauce at home with mayo, lots off lime juice, whipped up jalapeno, cayenne, dill weed. I shake a good measure of ‘chipotle’ Tabasco in, for just a bit of heat. Experiment. Very important to get the white sauce right.
Also very good with shrimp.
There is so much bad to not great Mexican food.
There is a restaurant called El Toro Viejo, in Logan. It’s not truly great – just good Mexican/American. Enchilada sauce doesn’t taste like they got it out of a can. Beans and Rice are fresh. That’s usually about all you can ask for, unless they do one thing really well, like a mole. Anyway, when I was in Logan I often went into El Toro Viejo for the lunch prices. One time I was talking to the waitress and told her I used to own a little Mexicanish franchise in Tacoma. Turns out the owner of that restaurant also owns a restaurant in Tacoma just called El Toro which was just a few blocks south of me.
By the by, Cafe Rio and Costa Vida are much like what I did. They may be good to pretty darn good depending on the location, but they are not, in any meaningful way, Mexican food.
I ate at the Blue Iquana a couple times and thought it was really pretty good.
So, TP, did you ever go to Moctezuma in Tacoma? Do you know how they make chile rellenos?
I can’t speak to Utah Mexican food. (Actually, one of the worst non–NY Mexican places I ever ate at was in St. George, but that was a long time ago.)
Best Mexican I’ve had, though, is in Chicago. Rick Bayless really is that good, and there’s a great little hole-in-the-wall across the street from me where a couple older Mexican women make fresh masa and then use it in all sorts of amazing dishes.
I’ve always wanted to eat at one of Bayless’ restaurants.
I’m in Chicago for the summer. Rick Bayless’s Frontera Grill was the #1 thing on my list of Chicago things to experience. It was definitely the best Mexican I’ve had. #2 is Red Iguana. I haven’t been too impressed with anything in Utah County.
Hey MCQ,
I never did go to Montezuma. Sad to say, I do love a really good chilli rellano – they aren’t easy to fine. Trick, is, I think, lotsa cheese.
Definitely agree with you on the cheese, as long as it’s good cheese, but these were different than any I’ve ever had anywhere else. Less “breaded” than most and more “eggy.” They were like a chile relleno and cheese omelette, with really great red sauce. Man, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
Have you guys tried Los Panchos Mexican Food & Bakery? 1190 N Main St, Springville, UT.
Never done Springville. But I’m willing to learn.