your friendly neighborhood mexican cafe.

Update: Vega's Cafe has closed.

The reason I don't like writing traditional restaurant reviews is the obligatory ranking system. If I put a few stars next to this picture of spicy, long-simmered red chile beef, would that make you more or less hungry for it? You just can't summarize the taste of food or the service and atmosphere of a restaurant with a 1-t0-5 or A-to-F rating.

And sometimes I get it wrong. For example, I wrote a review of Vega's Cafe and dropped 3.5 stars on it, out of 5. In retrospect, I wish I would have gone with a good solid 3 stars, which to me would designate a restaurant worth repeated visits. It may not be the best Mexican food in town (the simple menu certainly is not the most innovative) but it's reliable, well-spiced, home-style food, and the restaurant is affordably priced, family-operated and doing good business in a neighborhood that needs all the help it can get. In fact, Vega's and another cozy ethnic eatery, Indian Curry Bowl, are two of the few non-franchise restaurants in the northwest suburb known as Centennial Hills. They're also two of the tastiest joints in the neighborhood.

Vega's makes homemade flour tortillas every day, and pairs them with a fresh take on rellenos, this zesty, slightly sour red chile and a spicy, vegetable laden chile verde. The tacos are simple, crispy perfection, especially if you order them packed with cool guacamole or tender potatoes mixed in with the meat. The family behind the business has been serving Vegas its style of Mexican food for over 30 years, always in some little hole-in-the-wall, but Vega's Cafe is comfortable, casual and inviting. There's even a little bar where you can watch the game with an icy Dos Equis and a couple fish tacos. It's pretty much everything you'd want in  your friendly neighborhood Mexican cafe, and somehow we keep coming back, even if it's not just down the street.

battle of the chiles verde.

In my not-so-humble opinion, the measure of a Mexican restaurant is its take on chile verde. Chile verde is a Mexican-American stew usually consisting of tender pork and a combination of tomatillos, jalapenos and other peppers that give it a green hue and a moderate spice. Sometimes it's garlicky. Sometimes it has potatoes. Sometimes it's chunky and sometimes it's smooth. It's one of my favorite dishes yet I refuse to cook it because my dad's recipe was the best I've ever had, and I don't want to disgrace those memories by fucking it up.


Anyways, now that there are a handful of solid Mexican restaurants around my Northwest Vegas headquarters, I took it upon myself to find out which makes the better dish. First up, my reliable family taco joint, Vega's Cafe. The menu here is traditional and basic, but they do basic so well, from the homemade tortillas to the chili rellenos to the tacos papas. The Calderon family's version of chile verde is unlike any I've had before: super spicy with plenty of fresh vegetables. And since they don't do pork here (yes, it's a problem), I sampled this dish with tender shredded chicken. The green sauce was well seasoned with a little tangy zip, but the peppers and onions interspersed throughout seemed to be only lightly cooked. It was a unique experience, crisp, and I had to drink quite a bit of beer to cool off. Everything I've eaten at Vega's is comfy and likable, but this is not the chile verde I had in mind.


A little bit closer is what they dish up at Camacho's Cantina, the franchise inside Aliante Station. Seems like a commercialized, time-tested menu like this one wouldn't include such a rich chile verde, with plenty of red onions and cilantro mixed in. But it does. And it's good. A return trip here on Taco Tuesday also was a pleasant surprise, when for a few hours in the bar, little street tacos of carnitas, carne asada or chicken were a dollar each.


The most recently opened Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood is Lindo Michoacan, the third installment of a Vegas franchise. Many Mexicans tout Michoacan as the best food in Vegas. While I've been to all three locations and had pleasing meals at each, and while the menu is expansive and includes homestyle favorites like birria and tongue and seafood and everything, I'm not convinced Michoacan is head and shoulders above other local favorites. The chile verde here is mighty tasty; the chunks of pork are the biggest and best among the restaurants I'm blabbering about here. But the sauce had a little too much lime, the acidity taking away from the hearty stewness that chile verde is supposed to be, and it didn't have enough veggies. Dad's had the pork, yes, but it also had strips of simmered jalapenos and other peppers that would burn your fucking face off if you didn't have a flour tortilla and some ice water at the ready.