No, Kirk has not moved to Yuma. This is just Ed from Yuma doing another post for mmm-yoso!!! Hope you all don’t mind.
Just a brief update – I dropped into Border’s last week (Jan 21, 2008) and didn’t recognize anybody there. Tried to order a couple of my favorites (fish ball soup and sting ray soup) and were told that they no longer made those. Found out that a new family was running the place. I did have a bowl of rightous, beefy albondigas de res, but this post is no longer a useful guide to the place. R.I.P.
I feel a little strange writing another post about Yuma for Kirk’s marvelous blog that generally centers on San Diego dining. I guess my justification is that in my mind Yuma is just a distant suburb of San Diego – it is thinking like this that keeps me sane when it’s 115° here. In this post, I’d like to focus on a small, family run Mexican restaurant in which the chef, the grandmother of the family, has around 30 years of experience of cooking in Cabo. The place is called Borders and located on Yuma’s main drag 4th ave.
Many of the items available here are fairly standard dishes found in many Mexican restaurants, although always done very effectively at Borders. For example, the chiles rellenos here are long and beautiful to look at:
Although the chilies themselves are not especially picante, they have a good flavor and the rellenos are not lost in a thick layer of breading, a soup of sauce, or a mound of cheese. Even the cheese stuffing is fairly thin so that the overall effect is a balanced flavor.
Another standard dish done very well here is the taco salad with carne asada:
The flavorful slices of steak were not just the topping of the salad but extended all the way through. Yum. The fish tacos are another treat:
Each taco contains two small crunchy fish fillets. These are as good as you would get in Yuma. While lengua is found in many Mexican restaurants in town, Borders serves it as lengua estofada – or lengua stew.
My friend Betsy raved about this molé after she had it, so I had to order it also and I agree with everything that she said. It is easily the best in town. Most moles are too sweet, and sometimes plain boiled chicken is just topped with sauce. In this case the mole sauce is nicely balanced, slightly spicy, and full flavored. The chicken is fall apart tender.
Borders also offers some interesting dishes that cannot be found in another Mexican restaurant in Yuma.
Caguamanta, or stingray soup, has been heretofore available only at Deliciosos del Mar, a taco truck. Borders’ version is rich and deeply flavorful, if a touch too salty for my taste.
It is full of small chunks of the stingray and various vegetables, such as 
potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, and olives. Another amazing dish here is albondigas de pescado. The deeply flavorful and chili infused broth is full of pale and mildly fishy meatballs along with some veggies. Unlike fishballs in Chinese cuisine, these balls have a texture more like meatballs and a taste that is enhanced by the wonderfully rich and tasty stock:
My only concern about this restaurant is that it contains only about 10 tables, and it seems like every time I come there it is busier than it was the last time. I guess that’s good for the restaurant, but I always worry that I may have to stand and wait if the customer base continues to grow and if winter visitors find out about it. Prices are very reasonable. Most medium soups (lunch size) are 4.99. I believe all the entrees are under $8. While there is minimal atmosphere, the service is efficient and caring. Another reason to visit Yuma, the great metropolis of Southwest Arizona.
OK, the only metropolis of Southwest Arizona.