The perfect enchilada at Luchita's in Hudson

Since my trip to Chicago earlier this spring, I've been desperately trying to find cheese (or vegetable) enchiladas with a verde sauce. I can buy Amy's frozen enchiladas in the store any day of the week, but up until this past weekend when I made an amazing discovery at Luchita's, I wasn't able to find any Mexican restaurants around town serving what I've always thought was a fairly common entree.

I happened to be in Hudson on Saturday making a cupcake run (more on that later) with a few of my friends. Picking out cupcakes from the 20 varieties served daily at Main Street Cupcakes is hard work, so after that, we decided to grab some lunch at Luchita's.

Mexican restaurants sometimes scare me. If they're "too authentic" they look like a pinata threw up an everything is made with pork fat or other non-vegetarian friendly ingredients. Or they have only one or two vegetarian options. Thankfully, Luchita's wasn't like this. Not only was it beautifully decorated (and not in your hokey Chi-Chi's Mexican restaurant fashion), but the menu offered plenty of vegetarian options, including cheese enchiladas with verde sauce! (They also offer the option to swap out refried beans for vegetarian black beans with no extra charge - hooray!)

After chowing down on the free chips and moderately spicy salsa, I ordered a cheese enchilada with verde sauce. I debated over getting the vegetable enchilada with verde sauce or the cheese enchilada, but cheese ultimately won the race. When made correctly, cheese enchiladas are just so good! I had high expectations for these enchiladas. And I wasn't let down.

I honestly think these enchiladas were some of the est enchiladas I've ever eaten. Despite being a cheese enchilada, my food didn't taste overly heavy or greasy. The black beans also served as a nice accompaniment and tasted even better with some of the runoff of the verde sauce.

Had it not been so early in the day and if I hadn't had a few margaritas the night before, I might have tried one of the exotic sounding margaritas on the menu - like the watermelon margarita. I enjoyed my meal so much that I hope to go back soon (probably to one of the other locations just to see if the food quality is the same) and enjoy some cocktails along with a delicious enchilada or two. (or three if I'm extra hungry)

Some things really need salt

I'm sad to admit that I had quite possibly the worst Amy's entree the other day. Amy's light in sodium black bean and vegetable enchilada. I'm on a bit of an enchilada kick and hoped - really hoped - that this entree would be up to snuff.

But it wasn't.

First of all - it looked like this after being microwaved -

I don't know what that looks like to you, but it's not exactly appetizing.

Secondly, it tasted like it was low in sodium. The Amy's website claims that a "normal" enchilada entree has 390 mg of sodium and that this "light" version only has 190 mg. Enchiladas must need that much sodium to taste half-way decent, because I've had other varieties of Amy's low-sodium entrees and soups and they've tasted fine.

Another irritating factor was that each enchilada counts as one serving - with 160 calories each. I don't know who would microwave a frozen entree with two smooshed together enchiladas and only eat one, but what do I know...

My advice? Skip the low sodium enchiladas. Go for an Amy's cheese enchilada or a Whole Foods 365 enchilada. They may have more sodium but they'll also have more flavor.