Great American Bites: Tempting tacos at Scottsdale's Barrio Queen

— -- The scene: For decades, pedestrian-friendly downtown Scottsdale has revolved around Old Town, a touristy historic district with an Old West theme-park feel and innumerable stores selling turquoise jewelry and silver belt buckles. But the past three years have seen a renaissance in a sub-district a few blocks away along the Scottsdale Canal, known as SouthBridge. Redeveloped for the 2008 Super Bowl, SouthBridge has thrived ever since, especially on the culinary front, and is now home to a collection of excellent and creative restaurants, among the best in Arizona, including The Mission, FnB, and Citizen Public House. I've tried them all, and it is very hard to go wrong here, but most of these are higher end places, many open for dinner only. For tasty, casual, affordable food all day long (6 a.m.-3 a.m.), the choice is simple: Barrio Queen.

Barrio Queen is owned by local legend and modern Mexican master Silvana Salcido Esparza. The space may be casual, but it's artfully decorated in a Dia de Muertos style with lots of skeleton and skull art, and colorful ceramic tiles and leather seating. It is also sort of industrial/urban with plenty of exposed pipes, metal and ducts, and has both indoor and outdoor seating. The indoor part is a bit dark, cool, private and escapist, while the outdoor seating is an engaging, sunny sidewalk scene, and there are even tables for guests with dogs. Either way, it is very welcoming.

Reason to visit: Corn dishes (elotes), tacos (especially cochinita pibil), weekend specials, breakfast.

The food: Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza is locally famous for her Barrio Café in Phoenix, with modern, upscale takes on Mexican cuisine. The idea at Barrio Queen is similar but simpler, tackling Mexican street foods in a casual setting, part of a nationwide renaissance of upscale tacos and Mexican regional cuisines. There is plenty of other stuff on the extensive menu, but with more than 50 varieties of tacos and 300-plus tequilas, it's safe to call this a modern taqueria and tequilueria.

The tacos are the main attraction, served on small house-made tortillas for $2.50-$4.75 each. Three is enough for most appetites, and the choices are endless, spanning seafood, beef, pork, veggies and a lot of variations of nopal, a cactus very popular in Arizona-Mexican cooking. A more creative example is the "arrachera, chorizo y azul," grilled flank steak with spicy pork sausage and blue cheese. Another nouveau version is smoked salmon with mango. More traditional is the delicious cochinita pibil, a slow-roasted pork shoulder dish from the Yucatan, shredded and topped with pickled red onions and pico de gallo. Another classic is "al pastor," cubed marinated pork with pineapple. Both the popular fried-fish and fried-shrimp tacos of the Baja peninsula are found here, in a Dos Equis beer batter. While some are unconventional and some very authentic, what you will not find is the Americanized taco, no ground meat of any kind. What makes the tacos here tasty is the ingredients -- whole pork shoulder, flank steak, house-made sausages, fresh shrimp and so on -- all topped with fresh salsas, pico de gallo and a variety of Mexican cheeses.

Weekend-only tacos are more adventurous, including duck confit with tamarind salsa and slow-roasted cow's head (the menu notes, "sorry, eyes & brains are first-come, first-served").