22 April 4th-April 10th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Tucked Away Treasure The Avitia family’s tiny Sonoran diner quietly serves excellent homestyle Mexican food. BY DOMINIC ARMATO I t’s a rare rainy morning in Phoenix, and the passing cars hiss as they speed by. El Horseshoe Restaurant is just coming alive at 7 a.m., but the parking lot is already lined with pickup trucks. Not the lifted $80k status symbols that mostly haul Ikea furniture. These are half the size, dented and dinged, and one of them has an electric orange water cooler strapped to the back. The shoe fits. This usually dusty stretch of Buckeye Road just southwest of down- town Phoenix is better known for light industry than for dining. Next door, a fenced lot advertises used cars with crude hand-painted signs, and El Horseshoe’s tiny shoebox frame is dwarfed by a moun- tain of shipping containers and wooden pallets across the street. An elaborate web of power lines crisscrosses a dull gray sky above, and it’s tough to make out the build- ing’s colorful murals in the dim light. Inside the restaurant, things are more hospitable. The scent of toasted chiles and fresh masa greets you at the door, wafting out from the kitchen where Jackelina Avitia tends the stove. She’s the middle genera- tion of this family operation, taking up the reins from her mother, Rosa, and running the restaurant alongside her son, Angel. It’s a spartan dining room, boxy and plain and cooled by four whizzing fans, each with three bulbs, only one of them lit. The ceiling is low, and I’m a little concerned that customers taller than 6 feet, 2 inches are a hiccup away from head trauma. Half the seats are already filled with folks hungrily tucking into breakfast. Grace Uribe, a fixture at the front counter, looks my way and offers a pleasant, wordless “anywhere you like” shrug, so I shoehorn my dining critic’s physique into a narrow booth and peruse the menu. I don’t really need to. I’ve been here countless times before and tried just about everything, but you never know what might strike your fancy when you open those pages. Today, it’s chilaquiles. A lot of times it’s chilaquiles. I settle in and get comfy. The kitchen at El Horseshoe isn’t speedy, and that’s a good thing. Jackelina prepares her chilaquiles the same way her mother Rosa does, not with pre-fried chips but with stale tortillas, torn by hand and tossed in a skillet of sizzling oil until they’re blistered and crispy. She pours in some fresh salsa — red or green, you pick — and lets that sputter and reduce for a couple of minutes before adding a handful of shredded mozzarella. She plates the chilaquiles with a dusting of cotija cheese and an egg, if you like. Over easy is my jam. I love a bit of luscious yellow yolk over that bright, fresh salsa. The ceiling fans sway as a semitruck rumbles by and momentarily blots out the sound of Spanish-language news on the TV. A table of fellows coming off their shift chuckle over internet videos, while the workers just starting their day are all busi- ness — get in, fuel up, get out. I contemplate chugging a bottle of hot sauce to tide me over, but my plate is deliv- ered in the nick of time. The sky is starting to clear and a bit of faint sunshine peeks in through the Eastern windows, right on time for the chilaquiles’ closeup. I threw caution to the wind and went Christmas- style today — a little red, a little green — and the salsa’s intense colors glow in the slowly brightening light. The chilaquiles at El Horseshoe are the opposite of the kitchen sink approach. These aren’t soppy nachos. They’re clean and sparse, and they hit that perfect consistency — soft and slurpy in spots, lightly crisped in others, saturated with vibrant salsa and bit of melted cheesy pull. They’re the epitome of minimal perfection, and they maintain absolute focus on the essential flavors and textures of the dish. El Horseshoe is like that. If I had to pigeonhole this restaurant, I might call it the Sonoran equivalent of the great American diner. Not one of those kitschy, commercial retro burger joints or the smoky haunts of a Tom Waits song that sling hash and Velveeta for the nighthawks. I’m talking about the kind of diner that’s cozy and comfortable — a folksy joint that prepares simple, honest food from scratch. Except here, instead of meatloaf and roast turkey, the blue-plate specials are chila- quiles and chiles rellenos. Speaking of which, you should get the chiles rellenos. This isn’t a dish with sex appeal. Not until you slice one of the chiles open, anyway, and a little puddle of cheese slowly oozes out. It’s just a pair of roasted poblanos, battered and fried and doused in a light tomato sauce with a lick of spice. No perky garnish, no complex filling, no mix of multiple sauces. The lack of complication is their strength. They taste like chiles, tomatoes and cheese, but the depth of that flavor speaks to the care that goes into their preparation. If you’re looking for eggs, Angel will steer you toward the huevos con chorizo. He’s proud of the chorizo, and he should be. It’s a blend the Avitias prepare in-house, and it’s perfect with scrambled eggs. It has the requisite spice and hit of vinegar, but it’s less nakedly aggressive than commercial chorizo. It’s more mellow, more confident, distinctive but nicely balanced. It’s a team player, happy to work with the other ingredients on the plate rather than obliterating them. One of the menu’s most unusual house- made superstars, however, is the machaca. But before you go telling me you know machaca, consider the possibility that you don’t know this machaca. I’ve always thought the AZ-Mex standard plays a little like reconstituted pot roast, too often over- reduced with an unpleasant pucker. This emphatically is not that dish. Jackelina’s father, Angel Senior, makes the machaca himself, cutting, seasoning and drying the beef in thin sheets in the old Sonoran tradition. But unlike most restau- rants around Phoenix that purchase and rehydrate their machaca, El Horseshoe serves Angel Senior’s dry — bordering on beef jerky dry. Before it’s cooked, Jackelina shreds the machaca so finely that its fibers take on a light, almost feathery texture. Then, in defiance of local custom, she resists adding liquid to keep it that way. It’s great with eggs, but I think it shines when served with little cubes of pan-fried potatoes, the better to preserve that brilliant texture. Who else around town produces their own machaca? This little shoebox of a restaurant is teeming with surprises. Not least of which is that it’s been around for nearly three decades. Skipping fashion in favor of tradition Rosa and Angel Senior were born in Sinaloa and Durango, respectively, but they both moved to Sonora at very young ages. There, they met and married before immi- grating to California and even- tually landing in Arizona. The Top: The chilaquiles at El Horseshoe are an exercise in careful simplicity. Bottom: The caldo de res is a standout dish at El Horseshoe, silky and rich and full of flavor. (Photos by Dominic Armato) El Horseshoe is a tiny shoebox of a Sonoran diner in a light industrial neighborhood near downtown Phoenix. (Photo by Dominic Armato) ▼ Food & Drink >> p 24
