Finding a good taco in Arizona is never a challenge, but finding the best taco in Arizona certainly is. From street carts and food trucks to taco stands and brick-and-mortar eating establishments, Arizona is not lacking in accessibility to these delicious vessels of flavor.
But where can we find the best taco? Is it among the humble street tacos in the city? Or maybe it’s a “conceptual” taco from an upscale diner in Scottsdale.
It must be known, so I’m willing to take this quest head on for the greater good, no matter what it takes. I’ll be trying a different taco each week, trying to find the holy grail of tacos.
The taco will be graded using three criteria (In order of importance):
-Flavor
-Presentation and atmosphere
-Uniqueness. “You made that into a taco?” is what I want to say before eating it.
We start our journey at a little restaurant on 16th Street and McDowell Road — La Santisima, which you may have seen featured on “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.”
This week’s taco is the Baja Sur Dogfish Shark Taco, a corn tortilla with battered dogfish shark. I mainly chose it because I’ve never eaten shark and that sounded like a pretty manly endeavor.
Flavor: It was really good; there was nothing I didn’t like. I’m tentative to say it was amazing since this is the first place I’ve been to on this quest, and have nothing to compare it to, but
Appearance: Perfect. Exactly what I expect my tacos to look like: messy, colorful and overflowing.
Uniqueness: Not necessarily related to the taco, but I feel like I should say something about the salsa bar. It’s possible the best salsa bar I have ever seen, and really enhanced my taco eating experience. Fifteen or so different salsas, with some odd flavors like peanut and strawberry.
Honestly, I was more impressed with the salsa bar than the taco. It’s still in the running for best taco, pending more investigation. Next week, I will try Atoyac on Glendale and 19th avenues.
