Cafe from p 27 Jackie Mercandetti Jackie Mercandetti Top: the La Hacienda bar. Bottom: grilled sea bass with serrano aioli. its thin marine liquor may seem more like aguachile than ceviche. Another heady opener is the Mexican wedge, as in the 1980s wedge salad. Piquant, salmon-hued chipotle ranch zags atop romaine segments arrayed centripetally, like sunflower petals. Pomegranate seeds, corn, and queso fresco snowed on like TV static add bursts of color, texture, and flavor. It’s a little too sweet but a lot of fun, especially when your knife rends tight strata of pale lettuce. As your meal progresses, however, things may get thorny. Skip a forgettable fajita, an item meant for out-of-towners. The carnitas, touted with a winding description, braised for more than a day, shaped like a brown Ru- bik’s cube, simply aren’t worth the price tag ($37). Many of the tome-like menu’s back- streets prove to be sunnier. Shrimp with an airy fry fill the majority of a warm, chewy flour tortilla. In Scottsdale, fish tacos with mayo-like sauces should be avoided like uranium, but this pink dressing leans to- ward remoulade, embellishing plump breaded shrimp nicely. At La Hacienda, drinks also tend to en- hance food. You can fall down a deep hole into the world of elite tequila. You can stick with well-made margaritas, ice jammed into a stemless glass under salt-frosted rims. You can opt for one of the recently added smoked cocktails, an optical and ol- factory circus as much as a gustatory show. These begin with a bartender lighting 28 that looks like the bowl of a pipe. Smoke travels down a hose into a message-in-a- Jackie Mercandetti Barbary fig and serrano margaritas. bottle-looking glass, transmuting the cock- tail mixed inside. When that bottle thrums open again, smoke billows, pluming theat- rically as your cold drink is poured. In par- ticular, a smoked tequila cocktail with lavender and lime has the understatement of a spring gin libation. At La Hacienda, there are misses. There are tourist traps. There are new dishes with slim dazzle, like grilled sea bass with serrano aioli. There are plates like a fancy pork chop that may be good, but not much more revelatory than the sweet corn tama- les, which feature the same three moles at one-third the price. That said, when things go really well and this eatery’s pieces puz- zle together, like they do for the caldo de pollo and barbecue short rib, you get a Mexican meal of rare finesse and vision, a meal worth even the crater in your wallet. La Hacienda 7575 East Princess Drive, Scottsdale 480-585-4848 fairmont.com/scottsdale/dining/la-hacienda Hours: Sunday to Thursday 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 5 to 10 p.m. *Note: hours may vary seasonally. Mexican wedge $16 Caldo de pollo $16 Sweet corn tamales $16 Tacos de camaron $30 Short rib $49 JAN. 31ST–FEB. 6TH, 2019 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
