Jackie Mercandetti Photo Ate from p 13 Public House is so mind-blowing that it might vaporize your memory of the origi- nal. His spotlights oxtail braised in red wine until the melting texture of a great barbecued brisket. On the plate, it rises from a shallow pool of gravy, covering a slab of Noble brioche and itself covered by a florid blizzard of giardiniera. Smoked provolone oozes. Parsley flecks the jus. The flavor is so deep and rich and artfully bal- anced that it would be a first-ballot entrant if there were an oxtail dish hall of fame. Hiramasa Ceviche Vecina 3433 North 56th Street 602-675-2000 vecinaphx.com The dense, light-green sauce that powers James Fox and Eric Stone’s ceviche dish at Vecina is practically drinkable. They could serve it in a bowl as a soup. They could fill pools with this stuff and charge people large sums to swim. The sauce is based on Peru’s leche de tigre, a coconut-spiked sauce tailored to fresh raw fish. But they add thoughtful, out-of-the-box touches, like fish sauce and ginger, and these weave together imperceptibly but brilliantly. Bright with lime and pineapple, touched with jalapeno, sidekicked by snappy tosta- das, this ceviche honors the first-rate Ch- ula Seafood hiramasa heaped at center. 14 Loroco Pupusa Seydi’s Pupuseria & Grill 2625 East Greenway Parkway 602-404-7634 seydis-pupuseria-grill.business.site Seydi Flores griddles many kinds of pupu- sas at her Salvadorian restaurant in north Phoenix called Seydi’s Pupuseria & Grill. The best one I’ve had features loroco, an edible flower that imparts, to its lus- ciously melted cheese within its griddled corn-dough pocket, a delicate fragrance similar to that of artichoke. This pupusa is soft, but not too soft, and shows garish smears of char on abrasive exterior. Jala- peno lends heat. You can taste the corn in the dough. Flores sources loroco from a Hiramasa ceviche at Vecina. Jackie Mercandetti Photo Oxtail “Italian beef” at Hush Public House. Los Angeles market, and those pupusas come straight from her heart. Lechon Baboy Hot Noodles Cold Sake (Pop-Up) 15689 North Hayden Road, #127, Scottsdale 480-432-9898 hotnoodlescoldsake.com For one day in March, Brian Webb, until re- cently a fixture at Hot Noodles Cold Sake, doled out lechon baboy. For this Filipino specialty, which he learned to make from his wife’s family, where there is a line of lechon baboy specialists going back a few generations, he cooked a whole suckling pig on a spit over charcoal. The pork was deeply flavorful, in the way that meat from a lov- ingly whole-cooked animal can be. The pig was perfumed with lemongrass and garlic, and rich with skin, your first bite tearing open a rare portal to Lapu-Lapu City. Al Pastor Taco La Bamba Mexican Grill Restaurant 12102 West Thunderbird Road, El Mirage 623-213-7860 facebook.com/labambamexicangrill1 It takes a lot to be floored by tacos in a taco town. But that’s just what happened to me when I inhaled my first al pastor tacos from this nook in the far west Valley. Edson Garcia crafts my favorite version of al pas- tor in town at La Bamba Mexican Grill Res- taurant. Using a pineapple vinegar, he ferments from the fruit’s curves and wedges, using fatty pork belly. Amber DEC. 26TH, 2019–JAN. 1ST, 2020 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
