The Spotted Donkey Cantina, named “Best Mexican Cuisine in Greater Phoenix,” is renowned for its authentic cantina-style dishes and its patio dining offering diners extraordinary views of the lush desert landscape and the surrounding ancient boulder formations. Vibrant and energetic, the Spotted Donkey Cantina embraces Arizona’s regional influences with cuisine crafted from top-notch artisanal ingredients and locally sourced products. Offering the most extensive list of tequila, there are over 70 varieties of tequila, mescals, wine and Mexican beer offerings. Guests queue up daily for freshly-crafted margaritas and made- to-order fresh guacamole with homemade chips and tortillas. For more information, visit www.theboulders.com
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 The following portion of the Arizona Daily Mix is sponsored by the Spotted Donkey Cantina.
00:07 Oh, I love a good ceviche or a ceviche, a ceviche, however you want to say it.
00:12 Here to help us make the Mexicans favorite and easy dish is Chef Drew Whitmore of not just the Spotted Donkey Cantina,
00:19 but of the Boulders. And we are enjoying a little bit of the Spotted Cantina, Spotted Donkey Cantina's ceviche or ceviche.
00:26 But you said in Brazil. It's ceviche. Oh, there you go. I like this. All right, Chef, before we get started,
00:31 let's talk about the Spotted Donkey Cantina, because it was kind of I was like, God, it's been a while since I've been out there.
00:36 But it's been around for what now? It's been a little over 20 years.
00:39 You know, it's it's one of our busiest restaurants. We have a lot of locals, a lot of people that come through.
00:45 So that's one of the difficulties about changing the menu is everyone gets upset when you change their favorite dish.
00:50 Yeah, well, you get a little bit of change up, but not too much here. So let's go through some of the dishes.
00:54 Let's start down here because, again, it's getting warm out. It's springtime. But that salad down there looks amazing.
00:59 So it's actually our Spotted Donkey protein bowl. So we do have black beans in there for a little extra burst of protein,
01:04 as well as our chicken machaca. You can either choose our chicken machaca or our pork carnitas on that one.
01:09 So it works out really well. Wow. What's that? That is the salmon tostada.
01:12 So it is a grilled piece of salmon over the tostada with some black bean pico,
01:17 a little mango in there finished with your tomato sauce. And then over that, it's actually a honey glaze.
01:22 Oh, my goodness. OK, then we will go up here to a salad. Right. Got to go to the chopped salad.
01:26 Big favorite. Everyone loves it. That flies out the door every day.
01:30 Down here. That's our grilled carne asada. So we do have the tomato sauce on the bottom again.
01:36 It comes with your rice, escabeche over the top, a little bit of cotija cheese and pickled cabbage.
01:41 Delicious. And here, this is actually one of our vegetarian options.
01:45 We can do it vegetarian. It does come with pork carnitas, but we can take that off and make it vegetarian for you.
01:51 It's our stuffed poblanos. Oh, my gosh. That looks so delicious. OK.
01:55 And of course, fresh guac all the time right there. Have to. OK.
01:58 The ceviche. Love it. It's so good. Yeah. But some people, how do you make it?
02:03 It's very interesting that people are like a little like too much. That's too much that.
02:06 But you know the right ingredients. That happens. That happens a lot.
02:09 You're actually going to help me make this. OK. All right. You know, you got to be involved.
02:12 You got to be involved. So what we're going to do, we're going to take our bowl here.
02:15 You're going to go ahead and start out with your shrimp. OK. Go ahead.
02:17 So first, correct. That's where some people throw the avocado in there. Well, some of the shrimp have actually been cooked in acid.
02:23 So we actually squeeze lime juice, a little marinade over the top of them, cooked them in the acid.
02:28 So that's what's actually doing the cooking process. We don't use heat with a good ceviche. Got it.
02:32 OK. So we're going to go with our sauce next. We're going to bring that in. So it's a good tomato based sauce.
02:37 Got some nice spice, some nice chili. Got to have some chili in it to get that flavor coming out.
02:42 And you see, I just didn't dump it. I. Yep. You went around, went around. Right.
02:46 You did it the right way. Thank you. Right. OK. So at the spot of donkey, we do something a little different.
02:51 We add in jicama. A lot of places do not put in jicama because it's a different kind of flavor, but it brings a little sweetness.
02:57 And so we're going to do this white one right here. This is it. Yeah. How much is all of it?
03:01 Yeah. OK. We're going to just toss it. Yeah. Why not? OK. And a little red onion.
03:05 We always like red onion. Got to get that crisp bite on there. A little bit of earthiness in there.
03:09 All right. So the bowl of more right there. There you go. Here we go. Speed it up.
03:13 They said, OK, here we go. OK, let's get some cucumbers and some jalapeno in there.
03:16 All right. Cucumber. Got to get that in. Jalapenos. And then give me a good pinch of cilantro right here.
03:21 Just a pinch. Yep. Is that that's good. That's good. There you go.
03:25 OK. All right. Let's get this mixed up for you. All right. As you're mixing that up a little bit.
03:30 Let's talk also to that. You guys have a great tequila there. We do. We do.
03:34 We have our Corazon and Yeho tequila, which we actually picked the barrels ourselves and bring that in.
03:40 So that's one of our barrel programs. It's aged in Eagle rare barrels.
03:43 So definitely a good thing there. I like it. All right.
03:46 And then here we go. And plating is the most important part here.
03:49 It's definitely an important part. You know, you eat with your eyes before you eat with your mouth.
03:53 So do you need to have reservations to head into the spot? You do not.
03:56 It definitely helps because we are extremely busy.
03:59 But, you know, we take as many walk ins as we possibly can.
04:03 And I'm going to go to a little secret right now.
04:04 The perfect time to actually go and make a reservation at the boulders and enjoy a nice weekend there with the different restaurants
04:10 and then enjoy a night over at the spot. Don't hate. That's it right there.
04:15 Perfect. Very much. Hey, we got information right there on the screen for the boulders.
04:19 Also, don't forget to check out the AZ daily mix dot com page for everything we talked about and find out more about what's happening.
04:26 The voters from their wine and they said to very quickly make sure you get your brunch reservations.
04:33 All right. Stick around. We got more of the mix after this.
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