My next stop after our trip to Mount Rainier was a much-overdue trip to visit my parents in Arizona, and this trip was the first time in several years that my brother and I were able to visit at the same time. While the primary goal is just spending time helping out my parents, Arizona is also a great opportunity to experience one of my other great loves: a proper breakfast burrito. In particular, a machaca burrito, which are extremely rare in New England. While I normally go just a short drive to Amada’s, their current operating hours on this trip had them opening at 9am&mdash entirely too late for a proper breakfast burrito. So we decided to head out and explore a little further afoot, ending up heading west on Guadalupe until we got to Salazar Bros. Mexican Food in Tempe.
Salazar Bros.’ interior is your basic straightforward “Mexican Taco Shop” interior: a basic service counter looking into the kitchen, a few drink dispensers, and the dining area (still in Covid mode with the tables spread out rather distantly); nothing terribly fancy. But Salazar Bros. has an impressive menu with pretty much everything I expect from a good neighborhood Mexican cafe in Arizona; a broad menu of taco, enchilada, burrito, and tostada combo plates for lunch, and a breakfast menu including huevos rancheros, machaca, chorizo, or most any combination of these in a breakfast burrito. Like always, there was a healthy internal debate between a breakfast machaca burrito or a chorizo burrito, and like usual, the scarcity of machaca on my home turf lead my being unable to resist machaca: beef that’s been slow-cooked and simmered into delicious threads.
While breakfast burritos are notoriously hard to photograph for a good food review, my machaca burrito was everything I was hoping for: good tender and flavorful beef, nicely scrambled eggs, a bit of potato not overwhelming the burrito, and a really nice pair of house-made red and green salsa. Everything focuses on the actual machaca, and the resulting burrito, while generally being a simple concept, is a masterpiece of Mexican flavors. Rounded out everything with a jamaica agua fresca, and this was a perfect, simple breakfast.
So yeah, I’m happy we found Salazar Bros., and they definitely be getting future visits from both my brother and me on our next trip.
