It seems like CNY has been inundated with Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants in the last few years for reasons unbeknownst to all of us, but we figured we would give one a shot that we haven’t been to yet instead of hitting up our favorite spot Tres Primos in Elbridge. So we loaded up in the car and took the hike out to Auburn to see what the Prison City had to offer in terms of a good burrito. Of the places available, we decided to try out Casa Azteca Restaurante Mexicano & Cantina, henceforth called Casa Azteca because I definitely don’t want to type all of that out each time.
Tucked on the far end of Route 20 in Auburn across from the borderline defunct Fingerlakes Mall, we walked in the door to be greeted by something other than the stereotypical Mexican style decor found in CNY’s overgrowth of Tex-Mex restaurants and instead saw a massive and beautiful water fountain in the center of the shockingly open dining area. Central American and Aztec decor was everywhere with some beautiful ceramic plates on the walls and Aztec imagery adorning the booths. We were seated promptly and our waitress immediately came over with chips and salsa, so we ordered our usual waters and already knew we wanted to try the queso dip because Chelsea is a bit of a queso officianado. While we were perusing the surprisingly small menu (at least compared to the stereotypical Mexican menu where there is four pages of food to choose from), the queso was brought out and our waitress said she would stop back shortly to grab our order. Casa Azteca clearly makes their own salsa and it was really good with a smooth texture and little bits of crushed tomatoes instead of a chunky style. Great, robust tomato flavor with a hint of lime. The queso had a phenomenal flavor but was a touch thinner than most cheese dips, but the consistency wasn’t an issue as it still coated chips nicely. I did my usual of contaminating the bowl of salsa with queso by dipping a chip into queso and then the salsa and the flavors worked really well together. While we munched away, our waitress came back and we were ready to order.
The beauty of Mexican style foods is that you really only need 15-20 ingredients that can be prepared in different ways to give you an endless variety of dishes. The menu didn’t reflect that and instead of having 3 different versions of the same 10 dishes just with different proteins listed, they offer a much more simple approach of having two or three different setups of each “staple” of Mexican restaurants that vary significantly from each other. Chelsea loves her a good chimichanga, so she decided to get a shredded chicken chimichanga with no beans or tomatoes and extra rice. Despite being smothered in queso and sour cream, her chimichanga was still crunchy and flaky as if it was deep fried, put on a plate, topped with queso and sour cream and IMMEDIATELY walked out to our table. Chimichangas are supposed to be crunchy, but depending on what whoever else you are eating with orders they rarely arrive still crunchy. This was anything but soft. The chicken was beautifully cooked and shredded with a ton of flavor and the rice was almost like a Mexican play on rice pilaf with crispy vegetables cooked in instead of just yellow rice. Overall it was a solid dish that surprised both of us with how delightfully crispy the tortilla remained even well into eating.
Being the semi-masochist that I am, I asked our waitress how hot the Buritto Diablo is, as it’s flaunted as their hottest sauce available. Now, when I order any kind of ethnic food that is typically spicy, I try to specify that I want it TRADITIONALLY hot, not “white people hot” because a lot of restaurants dull down the heat to cater to a larger audience. If I order something called “Buritto Diablo” I want to regret my life decisions that led me to that point where ordering a dish that spicy. She said she had never tried the Diablo sauce but has heard that it is very hot, so I gave it a shot and ordered it with grilled steak and no tomatoes. The menu touts that their burittos are “fork and knife” burittos because they all come smothered in some sort of sauce and they sure weren’t kidding. This thing was monstrous and had a hefty ladeling of Diablo sauce over it while inside was deliciously tender steak, rice, beans and guacamole. I gotta say, the Diablo sauce was a bit disappointing in terms of heat. Our waitress laughed when I told her it was “a white people 8 but a Mexican 4 out of 10” because I truly don’t think it was that hot. The el Yucatero Chili Habañero sauce she brought to the table was significantly hotter than this sauce. That’s not to say it was BAD, because the flavor was insane. Very robust tomato flavor, hints of salt and lime and a decent amount of chili mixed together to make an absolutely lovely hot sauce, it just wasn’t as HOT as a sauce called “Diablo” should be in my opinion. To most people it’s probably got some serious heat, but I left unphased.
In the end, we had a great experience and loved everything we ordered. Our waitress was very pleasant and on top of everything we needed, the food came out insanely fast and had a ton of great flavor and came in generous portions. Despite the Diablo sauce not being as hot as I expected, we both still thoroughly enjoyed our meals and would absolutely go back. I felt dirty for cheating on Tres Primos, but at least we now have a good place to go when our One True Love is closed. 9/10, will definitely go back.
1612 Clark Street Rd, Auburn NY
(315) 515-3001