Best Thing I Ate This Week is Mariachi Mexico in Armonk
Mariachi Mexico in Armonk is not your average Mexican restaurant. That's because Chef Joana Herrera relies on what's available from local farms as well as what she finds on her "dia de plaza," market days (she's a regular at the Hastings, Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow TaSH and Union Square Markets).
A list of where her seasonal items come from are listed on the restaurant's blackboard in the dining room with The Grandpa Farm, which specializes in Mexican ingredients, front and center. Herrera is passionately committed to sourcing Mexican ingredients such as fresh huitlacoche, hoja santa, squash blossom, papalo, pipicha, and alaches and also grows her own items, visible from planters in front of the restaurant. She also has a plant set-up in the back.
She also takes pride in using fresh nixtamalized corn masa. Plus, tortillas, quesadillas plazeras, tetelas, and memelas are all pressed to order, with many items gluten-free and vegan.
It's why everything she serves — and she loves coming out to the dining room and expaining each item— ranks as the best thing I ate this week. Each dish, whether it was shrimp tacos with salsa tatemada de molcajete and lime to tetela de hoja santa, made using an old family recipe for mole, to guacamole with market crudité and gluten-free toast, was served like a tiny piece of art complete with edible flowers.
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Plus, the explosion of flavors is sublime.
I especially loved the subtle dash of artisinal salt, specifically Sal de Tlaxcuapan, mined from generations-old salt mines in Tlaxcuapan, Mexico, where she and her siblings are from. (For those who avoid salt: Don't think twice about it: Herrera's touch is so light you can barely tell but as a salt lover, I appreciate it!)
Herrera owns the restaurant with her sister Meto Herrera though her other siblings, Sheena Garcia and Pedro Herrera, help run the operations. She and Meto took over the restaurant from their parents in 2013 but it's been in existence since 1990.
Together, they operate on the motto "Eat. Drink. Smile. Love. Cheers to Life," outlined in handwriting on a beam near the bar. It's a motto I also love and was happy to toast to with a spicy margarita.
If you go
Address: 405 Main St., Armonk, 914-273-6805, mariachimexico.biz
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Jeanne Muchnick covers food and dining. Click here for her most recent articles and follow her latest dining adventures on Instagram @lohud_food or via the lohudfood newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mariachi Mexico in Armonk is the best thing I ate this week
