Scottsdale, Ariz.'s secret spot for cheap chicken

The scene: Serious road food junkies crave true “hole in the wall” places that offer a sense of discovery, and while a few of these great spots end up on shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives or otherwise get publicity, some require digging a little deeper. Few hidden gems this column has visited in the past six years have been as well hidden as grilled chicken specialist Mercado y Carniceria Cuernavaca in a residential area of South Scottsdale, Ariz., close enough to touristy Old Town to be very convenient, but just far enough away to make it impossible for visitors to simply stumble across. Instead, I found out about it the old-fashioned way — on a tip from the bartender at an Old Town hipster bar, who made it sound too intriguing (and cheap) to pass up, and it is.

Cuernavaca is the capital of the Mexican state of Morales, south of Mexico City, and in English, the rest of the name means market and butcher shop, and that’s exactly what this is, a small freestanding grocery store with its own parking lot, cement walls and metal security grates over the front doors. You might stop in to buy paper towels or a pound of oxtails, but at first glance you could easily never guess ready to eat food is served, and lots of it. The front counter does double duty as a cash register and deli, with a menu board overhead offering all sorts of Mexican and American dishes, from fried shrimp plates to gorditos. Most of the actual cooking is done in the back corner, in which a small but fully outfitted commercial restaurant-style kitchen is jammed in. Continuing down the length of the store, this same front counter becomes a full-blown butcher shop glass display case full of steaks, chops and casts of every conceivable ilk. The rest of the aisles are packed with staples and Mexican specialties like imported and exotically flavored chips, fruit sodas (tamarind, mandarin orange, lime) and snack cakes. Oddly, beer ads and posters proliferate and cover much of the available flat space, but no beer is sold on the premises.

The heart and soul of the dining operation happens mostly out of view. The front of the building has a small outdoor addition hidden from view by fence-topped walls. Inside this enclosed patio is a large wood burning grill of the style you’d see in Argentina, with a heavy metal wheel to raise and lower the grate. This is where the house specialty, pollo asado (grilled chicken), is perfected, and while you have to make an effort to actually see it cooking, it’s easy to eat and enjoy.

Reason to visit: Pollo asado

The food: Pollo asado is a catch all name for grilled marinated chicken, which in Mexico usually includes a mix of citrus juice (lime, lemon, orange or combinations, oil and spices). The two keys are the grilling, in this case over a live fire of mesquite hardwood charcoal, and the marinade, which like many such great tastes, is a “secret recipe.” Secrets are big here, and the man cooking the chicken won’t tell you anything about the marinade, while the woman cooking everything else in the back kitchen is equally tight lipped about the made-from-scratch hot sauces.

What’s not secret is that this is one of the best bargain “restaurants” in the area, though almost all of the food is actually takeout served to go. Even if you eat in, you might feel like you are taking out, since either way the food is packed in clamshell styrofoam containers (the chicken and charred whole jalapenos, blistered until blackened on the same grill), wrapped in aluminum foil (the freshly made from scratch tortillas), or in plastic pint containers (beans, salsa and rice). There is exactly one table in the entire place, covered in durable plastic sheeting, and it is jammed against a soda cooler in the middle of one of the aisles under a large and provocative beer advertisement, so that only three sides are available for use. It can accommodate five diners, maybe six if they are very close or very skinny. There are also a couple of al fresco tables on the patio area fenced off from the parking lot, but there is something magical about the ambiance of the one totally unexpected and unique indoor table, where the apron-wearing matron delivers her best comfort food straight from the stove and griddle in full view with a look that suggests she’s’ worried you might not eat enough — no matter how much you eat.

Ordering is easy, since the only two options for the featured pollo asado — the bartender told me he’d never had anything else here — are one or two whole chickens. These come with all the fixings, tortillas, beans, rice, charred jalapenos, fresh from-scratch salsa and a couple of secret recipe hot sauce options. You can cut up the chicken and make your own soft tacos, eat pieces whole, or mix and match. In any case it’s a delicious and very much hands-on affair. It is also dirt cheap — one chicken is 11 bucks, two are $16, both with all the fixings. Three of us came hungry and could not come close to finishing the two-chicken order.

The rice is very good, while the beans are flavorful but quite thin, in a lot of sauce with large chunks of chopped up hot dogs as an extra serving of protein. Like everything else, these are freshly made and taste like it. The tortillas are excellent and so is the salsa, half green and half red, with a perfect balance of tomatoes and heat, flavorful but not too spicy. The only disappointment is the chili oil hot sauce, which looks like a condiment from a Chinese restaurant but lacks pizazz. On the other hand, the creamy beige hot sauce (the only hint I can get is that the main ingredient is arbol peppers) is very tasty at first bite and quite spicy at second, so it is easy and tempting to use too much of it. The chicken itself is perfect, juicy inside, nicely charred with flavorful skin and lots of citrusy flavor from the marinade.

While there is an impressive selection of Mexican fruit sodas and Coca-Cola products (the Mexican version is made from sugar, like the Coke of old, rather than corn syrup), beer and booze are not sold here. The counter is topped with a prominent display of plastic pint glasses with pre-made Michelada mix. South of the border, a Michelada is a beer cocktail with lime juice, spices and occasional hot sauce added to a lager like Pacifico, Tecate or Modelo Especial, served in a salt rimmed glass, and very refreshing in the heat. Here you just need to add a beer to the glasses for sale and you become your own bartender. Or you can just pick up a few chicken orders and take them to your hotel.

Pilgrimage-worthy?: No, but if you want a truly insider Scottsdale, Ariz. experience that’s down home, tasty and cheap, it’s worth the trip.

Rating: Yum! (Scale: Blah, OK, Mmmm, Yum!, OMG!)

Price: $ ($ cheap, $$ moderate, $$$ expensive)

Details: 2931 North 68th Street, Scottsdale, AZ; 480-423-5552

Larry Olmsted has been writing about food and travel for more than 15 years. An avid eater and cook, he has attended cooking classes in Italy, judged a barbecue contest and once dined with Julia Child. Follow him on Twitter, @TravelFoodGuy, and if there's a unique American eatery you think he should visit, send him an e-mail at travel@usatoday.com. Some of the venues reviewed by this column provided complimentary services.