El Torero

231 E 26th St, Tucson, AZ - (520) 622-9534

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Posted By Michael Stern on April 1, 2009 4:01 PM

It is all too easy to drive past El Torero. Despite a sign on 4th Avenue, its set-back location off 26th Street provides enough camouflage to make a stranger never know that it exists. If and when you do realize that it exists, chances are good that you will assume it isn’t open for business. The front door of the pink-painted building, far at the back of the parking lot, is inconspicuous to say the least. From the outside, it looks like a tiny place, perhaps abandoned a while back.

Once you push that door open, you instantly realize you have entered a very inviting region of Mexican-food heaven. The juke box will likely be belting out party tunes; the bar you walk past to get inside may be occupied by happy people knocking back long-neck beers; and at the tables in the brightly-lit dining room, where the walls are decorated with bullfighter paintings and one large stuffed swordfish, people are plowing into gorgeous plates of expertly-prepared true-Mex food.

Start with a wafer-thin tortilla crisp of cheese and green chile strips, presented en pedestal so all at the table can pull away slices. This crisp is among the thinnest and tastiest in a city full of excellent crisps. The main menu is a broad one, featuring all the familiar tacos, burros, enchiladas, and chimichangas, plus a few items that are truly special. These include off-the-bone Turkey topped with a spectacular spicy-rich dark molé sauce or, on occasion, the similar sauce known as pipian, which includes pumpkin seeds. Our Tucson friends the Sparks, who directed us to this out-of-the-way gem, are hooked on the shrimp or flounder Vera Cruz and they also insisted on ordering a topopo salad – an amazing sight. Topopo means volcano, and El Torero’s topopos are so shaped: great conical mounds of lettuce and other vegetables packed with your choice of chicken, shrimp, chili, guacamole, or carne seca, the sides of the mound columned by logs of hard cheese.

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