San Antonio

(From February 2012)

Street fare inspires the menu, although a few Tex-Mex standards (like the really tasty cheese enchilada specials) are on the menu too. But why choose the South Texas ubiquitous when this is almost the only place to find rare treats like exquisitely flaky empanadas? These flaky, eat-with-a-fork envelopes have fillings both savory and sweet; the pork guisada with red chile and comino is an entrée-worthy star, while the mango-raspberry proves a tropical pie to die for. Inside are booths and cafe tables; out back is a shaded beer garden/icehouse patio. Beer & wine.

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(From November 2010) Pan-Latino and Caribbean, not Mexican, boasts the menu, and the kitchen delivers with such unusual dishes as richly aromatic Argentinean pot roast and beef shank cooked in red wine (much in the style of France). There’s also shrimp with garlic and tequila, blackened-outside-raw-inside tuna steak, and appetizers that include moros y cristianos, or black beans and rice. Exuberantly colorful stained glass (from the studio just behind the restaurant) punctuates the decor, and a happily noisy clientele makes Azuca one of the city’s merriest dining rooms. Bar.

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