Amigos Tex-Mex

Which day you turn up at Amigos shapes the smart order. On a Monday it's a ten-dollar margarita, classic or spicy, going all night; on a Friday or Saturday past midnight it's birria and queso at an hour when most of downtown Hamilton has locked its doors; on a Tuesday it's tacos, and the bill barely moves. This is a Tex-Mex kitchen in Hess Village built less around a single signature plate than around a weekly rhythm — tacos and birria at the centre, late hours on the clock, and a rotating set of deals that reward knowing which night you came in.

The taco list is where the kitchen spreads out. Birria comes two ways — slow-braised beef brisket with onion, jalapeño and cheese, or braised oyster mushrooms for the meat-free version — each plated with a cup of broth for dipping. Around them sit al pastor with charred pork and pineapple, pork carnitas under pickled onion, blackened fish, breaded shrimp dusted in tajín, and a row of vegetable tacos that read as their own menu rather than a single fallback: soy chik'n with pineapple salsa, fried brussels sprouts with agave, chipotle-spiced carrot, slow-braised oyster mushroom. Hard shells come three to an order, beef or bean, the way the value nights are built.