La Tarasca

"Seattle Met Best Restaurants in Washington state. Met: “We don’t do burritos,” Mercedes Zaragoza tells a takeout customer over the phone one afternoon. “Recipes and flavors come from my home region of Michoacán.” The sign on the door—“We don’t serve chips”—suggests she’s had a few such conversations. Instead, La Tarasca presents an introductory dish of pickled carrots and specializes in Michoacán’s signature: supremely tender carnitas. A quarter chicken comes smothered in the region’s reddish mole, more peppery and peanut-filled than the famous style from Oaxaca. Zaragoza’s mother, Margarita Ayala, opened this dining room place in 1997; the kitchen still makes every tortilla, salsa, and adobada taco platter from scratch. Her extended family carries on both the food and the practice of lavishing warm service (and great salsa) on each table."