Mexican Food

Do you guys have access to decent Mexican food in your parts of the world (Taco Bell is not worthy of being called Mexican food!)?

Bryant wrote:Do you guys have access to decent Mexican food in your parts of the world (Taco Bell is not worthy of being called Mexican food!)?

Not really. Most of the "Mexican" restaurants we get over here are more Tex-Mex than anything, is v hard to get genuine authentic Mexican food - and I've been told this by a few Mexicans I used to work with. Is one place in Dublin that passes muster apparently - and it isn't even a proper restaurant, is a food stall in a food hall. Some of the Mexican restaurants we have are very good to eat in, but they may not be totally what you'd call "Mexican".

That's sort of a problem with any "ethnic" restaurant in a country outside of the country of origin, unless they specifically say "authentic" on the menu (and sometimes even then), they tend to tailor the food according to the local tastes. Over here, that usually means "blanding down" the food, as Irish people in general don't handle hot/spicy food all that well. So for example, when an Indian restaurant here says that a dish is "hot" or "spicy", it generally means that it's mild to slightly hot, unless you know enough to ask for it to be really hot (or unless they know you). Another example would be Italian food, over here pizzas are by default covered in tomato sauce and cheese (an Americanism I think), whereas if you go to Italy there may be one pizza on a menu of dozens that has tomato sauce on it, and cheese would just be another topping. And as for Chinese food, after I moved back home from China I didn't eat in a Chinese restaurant here for about 6 months, the difference in the quality was just too depressing.

We have one restaurant in my home town that compares fairly well with what is found out in Cali. Most of what we have in my area is really TexMex and not Mexican. It is the only one in my area that is owned and operated by.....well......Mexicans. 99.9% of the non-TexMex hispanic restaurants in my area are either Cuban or Puerto Rican. Similar in style and presentation but fairly different in taste. We also have Cajun modified Mexican food places. Interesting mixture and fits well with what Cajun food really is. We really don't have that many dishes that are actually ours (gumbo and jambalaya are actually African), but we "improve and modify" other ethnic dishes and make them ours. Mexican, Italian, and Chinese being the most commonly modified dishes. Crawfish enchilladas are awesome. Andoullie pasta is likewise pretty friggin awesome(Cajun style sausage will make you forget all about linguisa).

Yeah, we have decent access. (And you're right about Taco Hell).

There is a family of immigrants here in my little town who have opened up a mexican restaurant. Unfortunately I suspect about half of what they serve was frozen (frozen enchilada's, etc). And it is sort of tex mex, but its good.

Tuscaloosa has some Mexican restaurants as does Birmingham. I really like it. But I'm sure you guys have tons more authentic mexican restaurants to choose from. We only get fajitas, Enchiladas, Quesadillas with all that orangy cheese....that kind of stuff. We almost never, ever get truly authentic mexican seafood dishes.

I mean we dont know what Arroz con pollo is. We dont get things like: Birria, Albóndigas, Sopa de pescado siete mares or Tlayuda. (I did look those up because we just dont have them here).

And its too bad because Mexican cusine is wonderful and I'd love to try many of the dishes they have. But no....all we can get is the fast food type burritos or tacos or frozen enchiladas with gloppy yellow cheese poured all over it.