Taste of Travel: Arizona : The Hot Zone : Tucson spots where careful homage is paid to a cuisine seared with chiles

No doubt about it, in Tucson they like chiles. From sweet bell peppers and mild New Mexico reds to picante chiltepins and fiery habaneros, chiles are integral to Tucson’s gastronomic scene, which is fragrantly influenced by the cuisine of its southern neighbor, the Mexican state of Sonora.

A visit to El Charro Cafe is a wonderful introduction to Sonoran-style cuisine. Set in the heart of the Presidio district, in the old part of Tucson north of the Tucson Convention Center, this quaint establishment has been serving its distinctive specialties since 1922. That was the year that Monica Flin, daughter of a French stonemason, opened her cafe in the black lava rock home built in the 1880s by her father, Jules Le Flein. Today, it’s a Tucson landmark, and its brightly decorated walls are covered with hand-painted murals by local artist David Tineo, antique posters and dozens of framed culinary awards. Every square foot of El Charro has been put to good use, from the booth-lined front porch to the basement, which has been transformed into a dining room.

It’s easy to appreciate the restaurant’s history, but guests patronize El Charro for its authentic, Sonoran-style specialties, including the popular carne seca chalupa ($5), named for chalupas, the small boats that float through Mexico City’s Xochimilco gardens, according to Carlota Dunn Flores, Monica’s grandniece and one of El Charro’s owners. Masa (cornmeal) is fashioned into tiny boat-shaped containers, then baked or fried and heaped with carne seca, an intensely flavored sun-dried beef that is shredded and cooked in a sauce redolent of onions, garlic and dried New Mexico chiles. The delicious creation is topped with a generous amount of shredded lettuce and sprinkled with feta-like Mexican white cheese.

El Charro’s salsa, a tongue-tingling blend of chiltepins and spices, adds a piquant touch. Jars of El Charro’s salsa are sold at La Tiendita, a colorful gift shop adjoining the restaurant. (A second El Charro Cafe recently opened at the Tucson International Airport.)

A short block away from the Tucson Convention Center, El Minuto Cafe is also a window into the city’s Sonoran culinary heritage. Tucked away on the two-block-long Main Street, El Minuto is owned by Rosalva Shaar, whose Syrian-born father-in-law opened the restaurant in 1936. Shaar runs the restaurant with the help of her children.

One of its specialties is Cheese Crisp, a thin crusted, pizza-like appetizer ($4.75) made by deep frying a large flour tortilla, then topping it with varying combinations of Anaheim chiles, diced tomatoes and white Mexican cheese. It is then baked until the cheese melts. El Minuto’s salsa is a searing blend of chiltepins, scallions, garlic and oregano, and it is delicious.

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A couple miles north of El Minuto, just west of Interstate l0, are two of Tucson’s best regarded tortilla factories, Tania’s Flour Tortillas and Mexican Food and the Grande Tortilla Factory. Both sell excellent Sonoran-style flour tortillas, as well as some dishes.

Tania’s Flour Tortillas began in 1975 when Maria Gonzalez started selling her tortillas to support her family. She named the business for her granddaughter, Tania. Maria’s daughter and son-in-law, Pat and Rudy Lira, now operate the restaurant out of a gymnasium-size building on Grande Avenue. While half the building is devoted to tortilla making and cooking, the other half is covered with small tables where patrons dine beneath a large, vividly painted mural.

The local press has voted Tania’s as serving the best tortillas in Tucson, but tortillas aren’t all Tania’s sells. By 5:30 a.m., a handful of habitues has already arrived for a breakfast bowl of posole colorado. Aromatic New Mexico chiles add color and a mild, smoky flavor to this delicious and hearty cubed pork and hominy soup ($3.25 for a large bowl). Each serving is garnished with crunchy slivers of green cabbage, diced scallion, fresh cilantro and wedges of lemon.

The shredded, spiced meat dish birria ($2.99) is another of Tania’s specialties. Here, as in many Tucson restaurants, beef takes the place of the traditional goat meat favored when this dish is prepared in Mexico. Rudy Lira cooks his birria in a spicy red broth redolent of mild pasilla chiles and serves it with the same traditional accompaniments as the posole. In contrast to the birria, the beef filling for hot red beef tamales ($1.99) is simmered in a rich, roux-based red chile sauce expertly accented with fresh jalapenos. The tamales are served with escabeche, a crisp combination of pickled carrots, onions and jalapenos bathed in jalapeno brine. A dash of Tania’s smooth, red salsa, a devilishly hot concoction made with Japanese chiles, lingers on the tongue long after the last bite of food. Both the red salsa and the chunky green chili salsa, a blend of fresh Anaheim chiles and green jalapenos, are sold by the pint ($3.47), half gallon ($7.47) or, for devotees, by the gallon ($9.47). Many menu items, including tamales, burritos and tortillas, are available by mail order.

Farther north on Grande Avenue, at the Grande Tortilla Factory, a slower pace prevails. The graceful red brick building, lovingly restored by owners Frank and Art Pesqueira, was originally built as a tortilla factory 50 years ago. The brothers took over the business from their father in 1975. Walk in any morning, and chances are you will find Art manning the front counter while Frank mixes batches of masa for his tortillas in large aluminum tubs. During business hours, fragrant plumes of steam escape from the large soup pots that simmer on the stove behind the counter. Several tortilla makers banter pleasantly with customers as they expertly flatten small balls of masa into Sonoran-style tortillas, 16 to 18 inches in diameter.

A Sonoran style flour tortilla must be thin enough “so that you can see your hand through it,” explains Art as he packages stacks of warm tortillas fresh from the griddle. In addition to tortillas, the Grande Tortilla Factory does a brisk business in takeout food. Every customer seems to leave with a stack of tortillas in one hand and a bag of tacos or chimichangas in the other. The tacos (85 cents), are filled with either chicken, beef or shredded carne seca, and served with either a red chile or a green chile sauce. Plump, green and red chile chimichangas, or deep-fried burritos ($3) are served with a jalapeno on the side for an extra kick. The Grande Tortilla Factory also carries a selection of canned salsas and bottles of locally produced poblano salsa ranchera ($1.75 for a five-ounce bottle). The Grande’s own salsas, made fresh daily, are available by the pint ($4.40) or by the quart ($8.80).

On the corner of Grande Avenue and West St. Mary’s Road, St. Mary’s Mexican Food welcomes customers to modest surroundings. Like Tania’s and the Grande Tortilla Factory, St. Mary’s does a brisk business in fresh tortillas and carry-out specialties. The red chili burro (often called burrito in California), is almost enough for two, with its large flour tortilla stuffed with a generous portion of cubed or shredded beef and liberally seasoned with diced green chiles, tomatoes, onions and spices ($2). A tasty filling of green chiles and cheese nestles inside the masa-lined husk of St. Mary’s green corn tamale, voted best tamales in Tucson several years running by the local press (85 cents apiece; $9 a dozen).

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A dozen blocks south of the Grande Tortilla Factory, and east of I-10, is an area dotted with small neighborhood eateries, some of which have been in the same location for decades. A South Tucson landmark, Su Casa, blends in so well with the tidy homes along south 4th Avenue that it is easy to miss.

Su Casa is run by Socorro Fimbers, the original owner, and her new partners, Irma and Ralph Marmion. The busy, compact kitchen lies in full view of anyone entering the restaurant. There, behind the small lunch counter, Socorro’s aunt, Carmen Zamorra, is energy in motion. The gray-haired Carmen, who has cooked at Su Casa for 11 years, arrives each morning at 2:30 a.m. to plan and prepare her daily specials. On some days, she is inspired to make deep-fried beef carne con chili colorado chimichangas ($5.50), covered with a thick, red or green chile sauce. Her chiles rellenos ($6.50) are also excellent. Zamorra uses several kinds of chiles in the restaurant’s flavorful salsa, including serranos, jalapenos and chiltepins. The sauce’s degree of heat varies daily, since the piquancy of individual chiles is almost impossible to predict. Not to worry. A tall glass of horchata ($1), the traditional cinnamon-scented, nonalcoholic Mexican rice drink, will cool the burn.

Several miles north of Su Casa, at the busy intersection of Oracle and Ina roads, El Saguarito occupies a building that formerly housed a savings and loan owned by the infamous Charles Keating. All vestiges of the savings and loan have disappeared under the red and green tiled floors and the mauve and yellow walls of El Saguarito. Owner Albert Vasquez is a former Arizona Golden Gloves boxing champion. In his restaurant, he insists on following the nutritional guidelines set forth by the American Heart Assn. He and his Sonoran-born wife, Blanca, a vegetarian, have been serving health-conscious cuisine for 27 years. They bake or grill, rather than fry, most of their dishes. When they do fry, they use only canola oil, which is lower in saturated fat.

El Saguarito makes good use of regionally-grown produce. A refreshing example is the pico de gallo, a mixture of jalapenos, finely diced cucumbers, onions, tomatoes and cilantro. Pico de gallo is the perfect dip for El Saguarito’s unusual red tortilla chips that get their zip from paprika and ground chiltepins. The restaurant’s delectable stone ground corn gordita, a flat enchilada typical of Sonora ($1.95), oozes with melted cheese. It is grilled rather than deep-fried. So is the chicken chimichanga ($4.25), which is filled with pieces of skinless chicken breast, diced green chiles, tomatoes and onions and covered in a spicy red sauce. For his excellent sauce, Vasquez soaks Big Jim chiles in hot water before blending them to a smooth paste.

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Tucson is also home to several upscale restaurants that feature nontraditional adaptations of Sonoran and Southwestern dishes. The most prominent among them is Cafe Terra Cotta, owned by chef Donna Nordin and her husband, Don Luri. Such creative fare as tortilla lasagna and poblano pesto earned Nordin a slot on the 1993 PBS series, “Great Chefs of the West.”

Aquamarine and terra cotta tones predominate, and in the evenings, diners bask in the warmth of a large, wood-fired pizza oven. The menu features exciting twists on popular Southwest dishes. On the chile relleno platter ($15.75), a poblano chile is stuffed with a savory mixture of chicken, grilled scallions, sun-dried tomatoes and jack cheese, and another with shrimp, roasted garlic and chopped cilantro. Both are artfully presented in a pool of mildly seasoned red pepper, chipotle-orange sauce. The appetizing Vegetable Platter ($13.95) resembles a colorful tableau. A meatless delight, it consists of two short sections of a vegetable-filled tortilla, standing like columns in the center of the plate, surrounded by a wedge of tortilla “lasagna,” red pepper flan, a small risotto cake and pieces of grilled portobello mushroom.

An even wider array of salsas and condiments is sold at Raeay’s Market, which has four branches in the Tucson area. The extensive condiment section includes dozens of salsas and chili powders, as well as more unusual products including jalapeno or cactus pear jelly.

A few blocks from Raeay’s, the Fruit-Land Market is an eye-catching produce stand that has occupied a corner of the busy Speedway and Sixth Avenue intersection for 32 years. The popular tourist stop is a good place to purchase colorful ristras (chile wreaths), as well as cactus candy and cactus pear jelly.

Even those who are full must not miss the stunning Mission San Xavier del Bac, a few miles south of town. The ornate edifice, built of burnt brick and volcanic rock, was completed in 1797 and is widely recognized as one of the finest examples of Moorish and late Mexican Renaissance architecture in the New World. After visiting the church and its grounds, visitors should wander across the church esplanade to the San Xavier Plaza and the Wa:k Snack Shop where a quartet of native American cooks sells a memorable (Indian) fry bread ($3.35) covered with--what else--jalapenos and diced green chiles.

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GUIDEBOOK: Sonora Sizzle in Tucson

Where to eat: Cafe Terra Cotta, 4310 N. Campbell Ave., St. Philip’s Plaza; telephone (520) 577-8100. (Reservations recommended.)

El Charro Cafe, 311 N. Court Ave., Tucson 85701; tel. (520) 622-1922.

El Minuto Cafe, 354 S. Main Ave.; tel. (520) 882-4145.

El Saguarito Mexican Food, 7216 N. Oracle Road; tel. (520) 297-1264.

Fruit-Land Market, 1101 N. 6th Ave.; tel. (520) 792-1892.

Grande Tortilla Factory, 914 N. Grande Ave.; tel. (520) 622-8338.

Reay’s Foothills Market, Swan and Sunrise; tel. (520) 299-8858. (Three other locations in Tucson.)

St. Mary’s Mexican Food and Tortilla Factory, 1030 West St. Mary’s Road; tel. (520) 884-1629.

Su Casa, 2205 S. 4th Ave.; tel. (520) 628-1931.

Tania’s Flour Tortillas and Mexican Food, 614 N. Grande Ave.; tel. (520) 622-0685.

The Wa:k Snack Shop, San Xavier Plaza; tel. (520) 573-9191. (Across from Mission San Xavier del Bac).

--K.M.