Get off the I-19 and drive down the frontage road past the Via Lechuza, Calle Azulejo and Menudo Court. You'll eventually get to a series of hidden shopping centers tucked between the freeway and a residential neighborhood.
There you'll see a yellow building marked by a stately shrimp floating in an oyster shell over a pair of lobster claws. This is La Bocanita, home of the Taco Gobernador.
A gobernador, Spanish for governor, is a popular Baja style that's just as powerful as it sounds: shrimp, with soft peppers and onions, smothered with a white gob of melted cheese. At La Bocanita they tear up the shrimp until it's machaca style, then cover it with gooey Monterrey Jack. The crispy tortilla is folded up halfway, so the pink little shrimps poke out from the edge.
But my favorite part: pale red salsa, exactly like the stuff in the malecon of Puerto Peñasco. Twelve miles from the border, all I wanted to do was keep on going ...
Insider's tip: This place has one of the largest selections of seafood I've seen in Arizona. In addition to oysters, squid, octopus and the usual, they also serve sea snails, a food I've never encountered outside of the beach in Rocky Point.
Location: 1185 Circulo Mercado, Rio Rico
Phone: 520-281-0249
Hours: 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week
Payment: $20 minimum for debit and credit cards
