Anne DesBrisay is the restaurant critic for Ottawa Magazine. She has been writing about food and restaurants in Ottawa-Gatineau for 25 years and is the author of three bestselling books on dining out. She is head judge for Gold Medal Plates and a member of the judging panel at the Canadian Culinary Championships.

Churros are as good as they are bad for you. And I’ve found some good ones at Taqueria Kulkulakan on Montreal Road.

Churros are Mexican/Spanish-style donuts, long, tubular, and ridged, deep fried and sugar dusted, typically served with a sauce of some sort. They are as ubiquitous to a Latino sweet at the end of the meal as creme brûlée is to a French meal.

They are also a good test of a Mexican kitchen’s prowess. I’ve had gorgeous looking churros that crunched right, only to reveal oozy dough in the centre. I’ve had tough churros, cakey churros, limp churros, soggy churros, and ones where the ratio of dough to sauce was off — some deluged, others thirsting for more. But a great churro with a great sauce is a rare treat, one found at the new Mexican restaurant Taqueria Kulkulkan.

You can have them with the ubiquitous chocolate sauce, or drizzled with the more interesting capeta, a Mexican caramel made with goat milk. If I had a complaint it would be for more of that. A pot of it, in fact, for dunking.

There’s much more to this new restaurant than churros, and I intend to return. But I started with dessert, this visit, and will work backwards soon enough.

1730 Montreal Rd., 613-680-5055