The University of Arizona football team has its first Big 12 conference home game on Saturday, Oct. 5, and we’re expecting to see a whole lot of Texas folks who may be experiencing Tucson for the first time.
But it certainly won’t be the only time.
Now that the University of Arizona is part of the Big 12 Conference, we’ll be seeing a lot of one another.
So we figured they might as well get to know us, and we don’t just mean introducing Red Raiders fans to Wilma and Wilbur and that oftentimes rambunctious Zona Zoo bunch.
Truly get to know us where we really live — at the dinner table.
OK, breakfast, lunch, dinner ... you get our point.
Tucson’s a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, which lends credibility to our devotion to a whole host of culinary convictions from maintaining our food heritage to being a driving force for sustainability in growing, harvesting and cooking our food.
But that probably won’t make much difference for the good folks of Lubbock.
What they want to know is how does it taste?
Sit back, we found five totally Tucson culinary creations that will help you get to know us.
Big on birria
Birra ramen, upper left, birra taco, quesabirra and birrasoup — some of the birria dishes on the menu at El Taco Rustico.
We know Lubbock is no stranger to the western Mexico version of classic barbacoa, tender beef (or goat if you’re following the Mexican tradition) marinated in an adobo made of vinegar, dried chiles, garlic, herbs and spices before being slow-cooked in a stove pot or in the oven.
We have dozens of Mexican restaurants in Tucson that specialize in birria, including the award-winning fan-favorite Amelia’s Mexican Kitchen (5851 N. Oracle Road, 5553 E. Grant Road), which casts it in a starring role in ramen in addition to its mainstay as a quesabirria taco; and Taquería la Esquina, 4876 S. Sixth Ave., whose vegan version of birria made with jackfruit has earned it high praise.
But our go-to birria expert is Juan Almanza, who has been making birria since he was a younger man in his native Mexico. After working in upscale Tucson kitchens and restaurants for more than two decades, Almanza, who moved to Arizona 30 years ago, ventured out on his own six years ago with his El Taco Rustico taco stand that he operated on weekends at the Tohono O’odham swap meet.
In spring 2020, days into the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his wife opened their brick and mortar at 2281 N. Oracle Road, where he set about perfecting his birria recipe.
It took him more than a year, he admitted, but he finally came up with what he believes is the perfect concoction.
Juan Almanza makes quesabirras, one of the birria dishes on the menu at his El Taco Rustico, on Sept. 21.
“The flavor is a little different than any other birria,” he said, explaining that his recipe has 30 ingredients, including peppers, cinnamon, garlic, fresh tomatoes, green chiles and other spices.
“That recipe is delicious and people love the quesa birrias,” Almanza said. “We started selling 200 a day. Sometimes we get really, really busy and we can sell 600 in one day.”
Almanza’s signature birria also is featured on the El Rustico Birria pizza at Zio Peppe, 6502 E. Tanque Verde Road.
Suckers for a Sonoran dog
El Güero Canelo is the OG of Tucson's thriving Sonoran hot dog market.
Tucson was the American landing spot for the Hermosillo-born Sonoran hot dog, that bacon-wrapped grilled dog tucked into the slightly sweet, pillowy soft bolillo-style bun, dressed with pinto beans, pico de gallo, mustard, mayo and a tomatillo salsa.
The dog has wagged its tail in other Southwestern cities, but none with as much success or expertise as Tucson.
They don’t have it in Lubbock; we checked. The nearest Sonoran hot dog purveyor for Texas Tech fans is Austin’s T-Loc food truck, owned by former Tucsonans. But that would require a six-hour drive.
You don’t have to drive far in Tucson to run into a Sonoran hot dog maker. They can be found throughout the city in food trucks parked on busy street corners or carts set up in vacant lots with covered picnic tables, where connoisseurs and novices alike will debate who has the best.
We take our Sonoran dogs seriously in Tucson. We question with beans or without? We argue the merits of timing when it comes to biting the accompanying grilled pepper: Before or after the dog? We’ll prosecute the case for leaving the bun steamed while our buddy will defend grilling it.
Of course, you can’t have a discussion about Sonoran hot dogs without invoking the name of the man who first introduced them to Tucson.
Daniel Contreras opened Tucson’s first bonafide Sonoran hot dog restaurant El Güero Canelo (three locations including the flagship at 5201 S. 12th Ave.) in the early 1990s; some 25 years later, he won a James Beard Award, the ultimate foodie prize.
Others have followed Contreras’s lead, including BK Carne Asada & Hot Dogs (2680 N. First Ave., 5118 S. 12th Ave.), Percheron Mexican Grill (three locations including its original food truck at 4860 S. 12th Ave.) and Aqui Con El Nene Restaurant (65 W. Valencia Road, 4415 N. Flowing Wells Road).
Eegee’s, a Tucson tradition
You can’t come to Tucson without stopping for an Eegee.
What’s an Eegee?
Glad you asked.
Back in 1971, a couple of high school buddies, Ed Irving and Bob Greenberg, created an icy fruit drink similar to Italian ice but very different. The ice had a finer crush than a snow cone, but it ate sort of like its coney brethren, only with a spoon instead of your tongue.
The two friends sold their creation, dubbed Eegee’s based on the partners’ names, from a little vending truck that they drove around to area schools and parked in front of baseball and soccer fields. People loved it. So much so that the friends opened a brick and mortar. They added fruit flavors beyond their original lemon and added a flavor of the month; October’s is Scary Berry.
The first Eegee’s was a truck, founded with $2,500 of investment capital.
They also added hoagie sandwiches and crinkle fries to the menu and introduced their killer house ranch dressing. That dressing became legendary.
The two partners have been long gone from the company, which a New York investment firm bought in 2018. The new owners expanded the operation into the Phoenix market in addition to the two dozen Tucson locations. This summer, the frozen drink became available at the Santa Monica Pier in California.
A little warning before you dig in: That Eegee’s brain freeze is real. It sneaks up on you in a way that makes you forget the temperature outside just topped the century mark.
Yes, we add cactus fruit
to our margaritas
The prickly pear margarita on the bar and on the menu at Saguaro Corners, 3750 S. Old Spanish Trail.
Maine has its lobster, Arizona has its prickly pear.
That’s the bright red fruit on the pads of prickly pear cacti that grow like wildflowers throughout Southern Arizona. Take a hike anywhere in our neck of the Sonoran Desert and you will find fields of them as far as the eye can see.
Prickly pear fruit is slightly sour, slightly sweet. Some describe it as strawberry meets pear. Of course, we emulsify the fruit to extract the juice, which is what we add to our cocktails.
Perhaps the most popular variation is the prickly pear margarita, offered at a number of Mexican restaurants in Tucson.
At Saguaro Corners, 3750 S. Old Spanish Trail at the edge of Saguaro National Park East, mixologist Chelsey Ruppert combines the housemade sweet and sour mix with a splash of prickly pear sauce for what many on social media gush is one of the Tucson area’s best prickly pear margaritas.
“It reminds you of the cactuses and the sunsets and with the sweet and sour mix, it reminds you of a really nice, sunny day,” Ruppert said of what is easily one of Saguaro Corners most popular cocktails.
“They are pretty poppin’, I’m not gonna lie,” she said, adding that the restaurant, which opened in 1965, is a regular stop for tourists from around the world visiting the park. “We get people from all over and they always want to try it. ... People get kind of excited about it.”
At El Chinito Gordo, 2920 N. Oracle Road, the mere mention of prickly pear and alcohol will spark a spirited conversation from mixologist/bar manager Pati Velasquez.
“I’m all about it. What do you want to know?” she will say when prompted.
Velasquez, who has curated the cocktail menu at El Chinito Gordo since the restaurant opened five years ago, uses prickly pear in two margaritas: the Prickly Pear Guava and a jalapeño prickly pear margarita dubbed Hold Your Horses.
The guava margarita features scratch-made guava and agave syrups mixed with Blanco tequila and triple sec. When the prickly pear is added, you see two shades of pink in a swirling ombré affect.
“The prickly pear smooths out that bitter taste of the guava, it marries them,” Velasquez said.
The jalapeño and prickly pear margarita adds a little kick.
“It is probably one of my favorite ones,” Velasquez said.
Pining over pan dulce
La Estrella Bakery has been making pan dulce since the family-owned bakery opened in 1985 on South 12th Avenue.
Lubbock has dozens of Mexican bakeries that produce Instagramably photogenic pan dulce aka concha and assorted Mexican pastries, but we challenge any of them to match the delicious simplicity of what they create at Tucson’s leading Mexican bakery La Estrella.
Conchas are a big seller at La Estrella’s four locations, including the family-owned bakery’s south side flagship at 5266 S. 12th Ave. It’s not uncommon to be standing in a line three or four deep on an early weekday morning at the North Grande Avenue store while Martha Leyva rings up someone’s office dozen.
Conchas for the uninitiated are sweetened bread rolls with a crunchy topping made from sugar, flour and butter.
At La Estrella, bakers let the bread rise then top it with a sugar paste. They use a mold to create the seashell design, then let it rise again before baking, says Sandra Franco, who runs her family’s store at 901 N. Grande.
The result is a puffy seashell-shaped pillow of chewy, slightly sweet goodness accentuated by the sugary-but-not-overly-sweet topping. For those looking for supercharged sweet, Leyva recommends the extra sugar variety.
La Estrella has been a fixture in Tucson since Franco’s parents, Antonio and Marta, opened the first bakery on South 12th in 1985. Franco’s siblings Isabel Montano and Antonio and Erica Franco run the four stores, including the newest downtown location at 141 S. Stone Ave.
Miguel Kaiser and Zulma Nataren’s T-Loc’s represents the flavors and spirit of Tucson, but don’t tell the Texans. They think T-Loc’s means Texas Locals.
