- Often when someone's looking for the perfect spot to eat,
they turn to Yelp, I know I do.
It's filled with solid reviews and generally good details
of the tens of thousands of restaurants they profile,
Yelp narrowed down the top 100 nationwide
and my guests are among them.
All right, everybody let's say hello
to the owners of Cocina Madrigal in Phoenix, Arizona.
Leo, his son, Brian-
(audience applauds)
and dialed in from the restaurant, his other son Edson.
What's up, Edson?
(audience applauds)
- Ola.
- You're where I wanna be.
Ola, with all that tequila and stuff behind you.
- Well, Leo, I'm gonna to start with you
because you've been working in kitchens
for quite a long time, right?
- Yes.
- Yeah do you love it?
You love cooking? - Oh, I love it.
I love it now since a child,
I always was cooking with my grandma, you know,
in Oaxaca, Mexico, and always we'll have to cook fresh
because on those times was no refrigeration, okay,
so we had to be, we have to use everything
as fresh as seasonal, you know,
in the backyard of my grandma, we used to have a guava tree,
a pomegranate, and a papaya,
and nothing go to waste because there was no money,
okay, so we have to use - Yeah
everything as of the season,
it was fresh and when I was a little older,
I was able to move to the States and, you know, I'm here.
- That's amazing though, that you, I mean,
I know it was hardship, you know,
it sounds like hard at times, but also to learn,
to cook with fresh ingredients that young,
that's amazing and really good for you.
So Edson, you have a spread over there of some of our,
of your hottest dishes.
I love that I'm now part owner, I just said, our,
and I just want to eat them is the thing.
Can you tell us about them?
- Well, yes.
Well, thanks again, Kelly, for having us here on your show,
it's quite amazing for us to be part of this,
but, welcome to Cocina Madrigal,
I'm gonna talk about to you some of our trio tacos.
- First of all, we have our beef tenderloin steak taco.
It has been marinated with pomegranate,
garnished with a little bit of crispy onion,
pepper, a chipotle aioli
and Gorgonzola queso.
Next we have our Oaxacan
Spiced Shrimp with a little bit of our
coconut slaw with Mango
and our avocado crema.
And last but not least, we're gonna have a tacos Al Pastor.
We roasted pork, pineapple, a little pickled red onion,
cilantro, - Yes!
- And a Sonoran-style type salsa.
- I got excited about that one, okay
(Kelly and Edson laugh)
- And real quick before I add these other last two dishes,
my brother and my father were both gonna talk
about the last two,
I wanted to introduce to you my mother,
my sweet mother over here.
- Hi mama!
- Say ola.
- Hello!
- So not many people know,
but we make all our corn tortillas in-house
and this is the lovely lady that's in charge
of that program here at the restaurant.
- Oh my gosh, your family, (audience applauds)
this is so cool that it's a family environment.
I love this so much and that you're succeeding as a family,
that's so cool.
Okay, so you didn't tell us about the two dishes,
so Brian you wanna tell us about the last two dishes?
- Yes, of course, there in the center is
our crispy salmon in that very colorful dish,
and so that is a salmon that's been seasoned,
and seared, served on top of the mashed potatoes,
and then it's topped off with some roasted tomatillo salsa,
Oaxaca-spiced shrimp, and avocado relish,
and it's one of my personal favorites,
it showcases the freshness of all the ingredients
that we have.
- I love that. What's the next one?
- Yeah, I'll pass that onto my father and he'll describe
our most popular and best selling item.
- You know, the last side that we have on the screen
is the wild mushroom enchilada,
covered with mole, the peppers and onions and everything,
it's just so different.
- Oh my God, I love it. I love mushrooms.
I'm so hungry right now. (laughs)
- Well, I got the inside track from Yelp
and I'm stoked that I'm the one to tell you
that Cocina Madrigal is now Yelp's number one place
to eat in the entire country. (audience applauds)
That's right. - Thank you.
- Thank you.
- So there is an actual award, Justin,
you have an award for them, there you go.
- Oh wow. - You can put that in
Cocina Madrigal. - Thank you so much.
- Wait, there is even more good news though, everybody.
That title means that Yelp is also giving you guys $10,000,
just cause you're awesome. - Oh wow.
- Oh my gosh. - Thank you so much.
- That should help a little bit.
I mean, are y'all, I know it's so cool,
like, you had this dream, you accomplished it,
but isn't it even cooler? Cause I'm a mama and I have kids
that you accomplished it with your family? That's cool.
- You know what, it is amazing feeling because, you know,
having my two boys and my daughter,
see them going to college and graduate, you know, for me,
it's an amazing feeling.
- Absolutely. - It's amazing love,
and now they will working together, even in, you know,
in Cocina Madrigal,
it gives me the pleasure to see my family
every day, every day.
- Yeah and successful together, that's so key,
that's so cool.
Well, we have to take a quick break, everybody,
but when we come back, we'll learn how to make
one of the restaurants most popular dishes.
This sounds so good.
Caramelized pineapple guacamole.
(audience cheering)
Exactly, I love my job. (audience applauds)
All right, we are back with Leo and Brian,
the owners of Cocina Madrigal in Phoenix,
which minutes ago, people, was named the number one place in
the country to eat by Yelp. (imitates air horn blasting)
Go check it out! (audience applauds)
So Brian, we're about to make one of the hottest sellers,
one of your best sellers, right?
So it's a guac, right?
- That's right. So we serve a variety of guacamoles
at the restaurant.
One has jalapeno bacon,
another one has- - Yeah!
Serrano chilies, but this one's actually a customer favorite
and we serve it with caramelized pineapple.
So, yeah, just a little bit of background
on the guacamole itself, right.
It's made to order, it's served fresh
and then we also serve it with
house-made corn tortilla chips.
And so yeah, my father's gonna demonstrate
how do we make this and make you a part of the interaction.
- Okay, fine, I'm gonna learn how to cook right now Leo,
teach me.
- We wanna start with the jalapenos.
- Okay.
- Cilantro and red onion and what you are gonna do,
just throw it into your bowl.
- Okay, all of it? Okay.
- Then you have your salt next to you.
- Okay, I just like a little.
- And one of the biggest things for me is getting the juices
and flavors from the onion, Serrano
and the cilantro, okay.
So you gonna just-
- Oh mash it. - actually smash it.
(mashing sounds) - Oh, okay.
- Smash it.
(spoon mashing)
So you get some of the juices out of the onion
and the cilantro and the pepper.
- Do y'all have music playing when y'all cook?
- Do y'all play music when you cook?
- We play a little bit of music, yeah yeah.
- Okay, you should. - It's a very fun
and family active location.
- Okay, I'm just saying, good ideas, I have good ideas.
- After you get some of the juices out already,
then you gonna put your avocado.
- Oh avocado, okay.
- Okay, so you grab your avocado
with a spoon - Okay, oh, yeah.
- Both of them, right, or the whole thing, right?
- Yes, yes.
- Okay.
- Okay, so you have that now.
So next step is we're gonna put some lime juice,
fresh squeezed lime juice. - Yes.
- Okay. - Okay.
So I think they actually helped me out
and did most of that, so there we go.
- Okay, so then you gonna smash your um-
- Your avocado? - Avocado.
(whisk clinking)
- Okay.
I've never done it like this- - When smashing it,
you definitely wanna get in there,
- Yeah
You don't wanna smash it too much,
you wanna leave a little bit of chunkiness for texture,
and that'll kind of bring out some of the natural creaminess
in it as well.
- Okay. I've never, I didn't know you did this with a whisk.
I just learned something new.
- (laughs) You're doing great.
- Yeah, thank you.
- And the other thing, you know,
you just think about what you like, you like a chunky,
you like your smooth,
for me I like chunky. - I like chunky.
Me too, in a lot of ways (laughs)
(everyone laughs)
- turns out.
(everyone laughs)
So, now for the magic ingredient, right?
I heard you have the magic ingredient.
- So you have your, the special flavor of the pineapple
and Brian will show you what-
- All right, so it's a little hot, so careful there,
we have the caramelized pineapple,
and what you're going to do here is
just gonna go ahead and dice it.
So you'll wanna cut it diagonally, right,
and you can kinda cut it to the different sizes
of whatever you prefer.
We like 'em to be a little bit of thick just to bring
some of those juices out.
- Yeah.
- So once you're done cutting it diagonally,
you'll turn it around and then you'll cut it
diagonally the other way.
So that way you have perfect cubes,
to throw into the guacamole. - Okay.
And then you just toss them in, right?
- That's correct, yes. - Okay.
- So then you stir it around?
- So that looks great.
You know what, you can just mix it if you want,
if not, just leave it in the bowl, so you can see
the whole pineapple - Oh, like on the top.
Oh, yours is pretty, I ruined it, whatever.
We'll look at yours. - Great job, thank you.
- Okay, okay.
So can we taste it now?
- Absolutely.
- Okay, I really want to taste it.
- Let's do it. - It smells so good.
- Make sure that you get a little bit of everything.
- Oh, I will. - Especially the pineapple too
(crunching sounds)
- Oh my God, it's so good! (audience applauds)
Oh, the jalapeno and the pineapple,
that is so good!
- Yeah, yeah, the pineapple really brings out
a sweet yet tart flavor to the dish.
- So good!
- And so it makes a perfect combination with
a classic entree or appetizer like the guacamole.
- Oh my God, I would throw down on that
with a margarita, what. (Brian laughs)
Oh my God, this was so good, thank you.
I'm gonna be taking this bowl and all of this home with me.