Guadalajara

Behold the power of the mighty arbol. The innocuous looking little dried chile that most novice Mexican chefs have a barely-cracked bag of in the back of a cabinet from that one time a too-hot Bayless salsa recipe called for them, is the MVP (Most Valuable Pepper) at this old school haunt. Primarily, in the bistec en chile de arbol. Tender skirt steak is drowned in the devilish red sauce. Creamy and creeping, it comes with a little voice in your ear that urges you to keep eating. It’s self-preservation, because the burn sets in when you stop. This is probably the best spicy dish in town—but, like, beads of sweat from a workout spicy. There’s also a request-only arbol-based salsa, perfect for taking everything else on the menu to the same Dante-ish level. Speaking of everything else, from the table salsas on up, it is solid, and slung with a smile in a Walker’s Point corner joint that feels like your Grandma’s basement bar that was finished sometime in the late ‘70s.