Tres Hombres: Great Mexican food with the freshest salsa

Salt Lake is bereft will all sorts of Mexican restarants.  Literally dozens litter the valley with all different levels of quality.  I've eaten enough pink, dull rice and pasty flavorless beans at a number of restaurants to not trust most of them. 

But if you want high quality, flavorful, and unique Mexican fare, you definitely owe it to yourself to stop into Tres Hombres, located on at 33rd South and Highland Drive.  The variety is great, the flavors are wonderful and their specialties are unlike anything else in Salt Lake.

Now I've eaten here for years and tried almost everything on the menu.  I have my traditional standbys, like the Nachos.  For $8, you can get an extremely large plate of freshly cooked chips absolutely buried in delicious refried beans, cheese, onions, olives, jalapenos, sour cream and guacamole. It's an appetizer for 4-6, but I've bought one for dinner and finished it myself.

If you want the basic fare, they do it in spades.  They have your common combinations, but they do it extremely well.  One example is the Tres Tacos lunch option.  It's a 3 pack of shredded beef tacos, smothered in pico de gallo and guacamole, with a side of rice and beans.

Now I have to say that their rice and beans, unlike many other restaurants, is not an afterthought. The rice is tasty and spicy, not bland and soupy.  They add just a little bit of spices to the beans as well, so they aren't plain and forgettable.

On this particular occasion, I had the Machaca Burrito.  They serve it for both lunch and dinner, but no matter when you eat it, you're going to have leftovers.  It's stuffed to capacity with your choice of meat, rice beans, tomatoes, lettuce, and the smothered in enchilada sauce.  I attempted to stomach the entire thing in one sitting, I even allowed a few of my family members help out.  I had a party of 20 with me for my birthday celebration back in February and they were little help, mainly because they could barely finish the giant portions on each of their plates.

One very unique and wonderful thing about their menu is their seafood options.  You may get the occasional and very stereotypical fish taco at other restaurants, but Tres Hombres leaves that thinking in the dust.  First they use large portions of seafood.  My mother selected the Camarones Acapulco and the shrimp were as large as your thumb.  Not the tip of your thumb, the ENTIRE thumb!  Second, they combine the seafood into great dishes, such as the Chimichanga del Mar.  It's a large flour tortilla filled with shrimp, crab, chilis, onions, rice, and cheese, which is deep fried and served with guacamole and sour cream.  I will normally ask them to smother it in enchilada sauce and cheese.  It's decadence personified, since the juices from the crab and shrimp infuse with the rice and cheese in the chimichanga as it's bathing in the oil.  It's one of the more expensive items on the menu, but it's definitely worth it.  I used to order their Habanero Shrimp all the time, which was those same giant shrimp bathed in a habanero scampi-style sauce. It'll clean out the sinuses and burn the hair off my upper list, but it's one of the few extremely hot dishes I've ever had with an abundance of flavor.  I wish they would bring it back.

The service and speed of the restaurant is great as well.  Every member of the wait staff is attentive and happy to see you.  And in most cases, we've had our food on the table within 10 minutes or less.  You barely have enough time to enjoy their wonderful chips and salsa.  The chips are light and salted perfectly.  And their salsa?  I could drink it straight out of the container.  It's a blended salsa that varies in heat from time to time, but it's the perfect blend and a great accent to all of their dishes.

So do yourself a favor this weekend.  Stop in at Tres Hombres for lunch or dinner and try anything on the menu.  It doesn't matter what it is, I'll guarantee you'll love it.  Here's all their vital information:

Tres Hombres Mexican Cantina
3298 South Highland Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah 84106
http://www.treshombrescantina.org/

And please tell them that the That Means We Get Pie blog sent you!!!!

And since we're talking Mexican food, that's what we'll be featuring this month in the blog posts.  There will be traditional mexican fare, like Tamales and Green Chile Burritos, but you'll see a few Americanized recipes as well.  Keep reading the blog twice a week so you'll catch all the new posts!