While other restaurants may boast long tequila lists, the Coyote's also got that $145-a-shot super-premium star, José Cuervo 1800 Colección, of which Cuervo releases only a few hundred bottles a year. We can make do with the equally good Herradura's Seleccion Suprema, at an easier-to-swallow $35. And for dessert, the Grill has flavored tequilas -- coquila (coffee, chocolate and cream), rose (strawberry and cream), and almendrado (almond). Now that's tequila worth toasting.
One reason, we suspect, is word of mouth about Arriba's breathtaking carnitas. The grilled piggy pieces come two ways, traditional style with fajita fixings and flour tortillas for wrapping, and spiced with gutsy adobada, tucked in a massive burrito and paired with black beans and rice.
Either presentation, crispy-edged and juicy, makes us smile. Arriba, your carnitas carry us away.
While the wine -- and the resort, built in 1929 and inspired by the desert-design concepts of Frank Lloyd Wright -- may be old, the cuisine is entirely fresh. Chef Rick Boyer's contemporary, lavish style tempts with treasures like grilled veal and sweetbreads with pickled cabbage, pan-roasted sea scallops with celery root risotto and Sevruga caviar, and a chef's five-course tasting menu paired with -- what else? -- wines.
Now that's the Wright way to celebrate wines.
Silky green chile Colorado is packed with tender beef. Chicken enchiladas are draped in mole, a sensuous sauce deep-toned with chiles and chocolate. Pork tamales are moist and bursting with good piggy flavor. And the tacos rancheros, three tiny corn tortillas stuffed with spicy shredded pork, onion and cilantro, soar when doused with splashes of Pepe's incendiary hot sauce.
Breakfast is served all day, and we love to stop in for the daily specials, too. Pepe's is the best. And anyone who disagrees can just take it outside.
Honey Bear's slogan: "You don't need no teeth to eat our meat." That's true. Tender pieces of pork, beef and poultry fall off the bone before we open our mouths. Sure, we could eat light, maybe subsisting on a piece of chicken and a garden salad. But no, we want to pack it in with a massive combo sandwich (a two-fister marrying our favorite meat choices), moist hot links, and gargantuan slabs of pork ribs.
Sides aren't low-cal, either, but they're luscious -- tubs of sweet-tinged "cowbro" beans and mayo-bound potato salad. We finish our feast with enormous servings of hot-from-the-oven peach cobbler and sweet potato pie.
Honey, that's our idea of a healthy diet.