Under $30 : Cazares family's foods boast long record of satisfying public
Veronica M. Cruz
FOR THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.29.2009
The Cazares family's foods have been a staple in Tucson homes and restaurants for nearly 30 years.
Jose Cazares opened Alejandro's Tortilla Factory, named for his youngest son, in 1980. His older son, Ricardo, took over the family business four years later and added Mercadito La Unica, a market, to the tortilla factory building on Tucson's south side.
The market is a one-stop shop for all things Mexican, featuring imported products, a butcher shop and fresh produce and cheese. It also shares space with a restaurant called La Cocina de Lorena that Cazares later added and named for his wife.
"We used to just make chorizo, and then people started to ask for more food," Cazares, now 51, explained.
The menu has continued to expand, offering diners more variety than the nearby roadside taco or hot dog stands that dot South 12th Avenue.
The vibe
A cross between fast food and a sit-down restaurant, La Cocina de Lorena keeps things simple.
Meals are served on Styrofoam plates with plastic forks and knives, and diners sit at six industrial picnic tables. Contemporary Latin pop and traditional Mexican ballads competed from speakers blasting from opposite sides of the market on a recent visit.
A large, bright green sign with pictures of each dish (in case you're not exactly sure what you're ordering) hangs over a window that looks into the large kitchen. However, you place your order with the market's cashier, who gives you a receipt to take back to the cook at the kitchen window. During your short wait, you can watch a telenovela on a small flatscreen TV or browse through the aisles.
The food
We tried two of the combination plates ($5.99 each), which came with an entree and a choice of two side dishes that included beans, rice, guacamole or a grilled onion.
The Chile Colorado was a hearty serving of beef cubes drowned in a chile sauce. This version of the stewlike dish lacked a punch, even though it was made almost entirely with red chiles.
The second entree, Green Corn Tamales, can be hard to find in restaurants year-round. Cazares strives to keep these items on the menu, ordering fresh white corn to grind into masa. The tamales are made with a good amount of cheese and green chile and usually sell as soon as they are made each week.
The refried beans, topped with perfectly melted cheese, were creamy, yet you could still feel the texture of beans that escaped complete mashing. The rice was not too sticky and not too dry with a tasty blend of tomato, onions and garlic.
La Cocina de Lorena offers six types of tacos, and at $1.40 a pop you can try them all without breaking the bank. The shredded beef in the birria tacos was juicy, tender and full of flavor. Boiled, shredded chicken seasoned with pepper and salt fills your choice of flour or corn tortillas. Tacos are topped with diced tomato, cabbage and guacamole.
For a meatless dish, opt for the cheese quesadilla ($3.59) made with fresh mozzarella enveloped in one of Alejandro's famous flour tortillas.
Veronica M. Cruz is a UA student apprenticing at the Star. Contact her at starapprentice@azstarnet.com
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