Mexican restaurants - do you like fancy or traditional menu?
 

Just offer a traditional two or three item meal with rice and beans and I’m satisfied. I don’t need an overpriced fancy-schmancy Mexican menu. Carne asada enchilada and crispy taco is all I want. I’m easy to please and a cheap date.

I get fajitas every time. If you look at the menu, it looks like they have 75 different items, but they’re almost identical in every case. At least it looks like that to me.

^^^^ I'm with ya.... 'cept that Carne asada sounds kind of fancy-schmancy :D

Traditional.

There's a fancy shmancy California mexican place close by. Everyone loves it. I can't stand it. I never love anything there.

Then there's the mexican place where you see non-English speaking laborers buying lunch. Love the place.

I don't know if you call this fancy or Traditional, but the Chimichangas are to absolutely die for here:
https://www.rosalindascuisine.com/menus/#plates

I used to be a Mexican waiter at a very cheap place. Cheap but POPULAR.

So I have it in my head that Mexican food should be traditional and cheap. And good.

We use to go to El Cholo a little bit. A bit fancy compare to most Mexican joints. Now that said, I noticed the food in the slightly upscale place have a lot less grease in their food compare to the typical taco or burrito stand/ simple places. You know why places where the laborers hang out are so good? One work, grease. I love Baja Fresh or Rubio's Baja Grill. A lot less grease and taste pretty darn good. My workmen will not go there. I make fun of those places, "Mexican Food for white people" and I love the food there.

When did you stop being Mexican?

About 11pm each evening.

I had bought a few properties and BIG mortgages to pay so I worked as a computer tech at a bank by day, a Mexican waiter in the evenings and landlord on the weekends.

I really liked being a waiter. We had a good time and everything was just a great big laugh. Much different to working at a bank. Luckily no one expected me to speak Spanish.

Bill, I aint never seen a white dude waiting tables in a one of those cheap, traditional, and good Mexican joints.:D

What is usually called "Mexican" food is Tex-Mex. We have several authentic Mexican (Mexico City, Pueblo, etc.) here in Houston. Most of the time, I want fajitas.

There's a place near me that serves genuine traditional (and fancy) meals popular in Oaxaca. Chocolate BBQ, for example: 'Barbacoa Mole'. Has a 'salsa bar' near the cash register with maybe 10 choices from left to right, mild to hot. The right-most is like 25,000 beryllium units or whatever.

That maybe what we had in Player Del Carman? We honeymoon there. As soon as we dropped off our bags, we went out for a walk looking for a place to eat. There was this big fancy neon lit place, "Mayan food". Oh yeah, forget Mexican food, Mayan is why we came here. it was a little different then what we have back home in LA but was not bad at all. We get back to our hotel and told the guy behind the counter and he laughed until he pee in his pants. It was all bogus. No such thing as Mayan food anymore. We felt dumb but the food was good.

Come out here for a holiday and I'll put on a voice and bring you the very best chilli con queso. Yep, things are different when you get this far south LOL

Being in SoCal we have Mexican like no tomorrow. It's amazing the difference in the food from the regions of Mexico.

We have the Mole' which can be different sauces with a multitude of ingredients, Chocolate, chiles, Tamarind, pumpkin seeds, etc.

I love chorizo and egg burritos, Machaca, tacos al pastor, chilaquiles, and don't get me started on the seafood.

And I love the chicharron carnudo (crispy pork skin with some carnitas meat) from Vallarta Market.

But when it comes to where the rubber meets the road, this is my go to.....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1668142931.jpg

Sonoran tacos dorados.....

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1668143955.jpg

Grew up in Echo Park just outside of Dodger Stadium, a Mexican American neighborhood after the Italians had left. We knew all the taco stands and dirty, traditional places. Many times, I was the only none Mexican speaking in there with my friends from the neighborhood. The one thing I really miss is the hand made tortilla, nice and thick and goes great with everything else. After school there's always a pot of re-fried beans and hand made tortilla hanging around somewhere in my friend's house.

That chicharron will kill ya, but its so good, fatty and salty.

Real Mexicans do not eat flower tortilla, only corn.

Salvadorian is whole different kind of good south of the border food.

Some of you guys know that I don't drink but a very cold beer is a must with that dish of rice and beans. Can't go without one.

Most Mexican food Americans are familiar with is Sonora style. Mexican food is so much broader than Sonoran, and I like that style. Craig's mention of true Mexican Sea Food just teases on the variety. But my favorite is Shrimp/Seafood Tamales AND Mexican Chocolate tamale brownies.

I had Mexican food for lunch yesterday and today. Two different restaurants, both great. I've been in Dallas for almost a month, and I've been eating a lot more Mexican here because restaurants at home (near San Antonio) all suck.

I like a fried egg (over easy) on top of beef enchiladas, please. That's not usually on the menu, but they will do it.

I'll eat any Mexican food, any where, any time.

Traditional? Not a burrito or taco to be seen...

Went here https://www.restauranteelcardenal.com/breakfast-el-cardenal.html for the famous breakfast one morning, every meal is served with a selection of handmade breads, the hot chocolate (to die for) and the clotted cream.
I had the escamole omelet. Mayan food might not exist, but Aztec food still does in some places...

La Superica in Santa Barbara on Milpas. You can eat the tortillas by themselves, they're so good. There's a reason there's always a line out the door. But it's always worth the wait. (Just don't forget: cash only!)

I will keep that in mind next time I am up that way. Thanks.


There's the tourist trap in Olvera street. Three to fours Mexican ladies make them in front of you while the lines are normally down the street. I haven't been there in a very long time so I don't know if that restaurant still exist. There was a couple of small markets that serve typical Mexican food on the E LA side of the general hospital that had the hand made tortilla. They are getting increasingly difficult to find unless you know a Mexican grand ma. Almost all of my Mexican American friends buy them in bags now. They only know how to eat them but not how to make it.

I hate this topic.

A lifelong Southern Californian, I love Mexican food. There is an area in Placentia that the wife and I went to that had a number of excellent, mom and pop restaurants. Now being in central Florida, its the opposite. Its not easy to find good, consistent Mexican food. We are starting to find options, but it has taken six years. What is really funny too, is that, to the person, they want to find good Mexican food or if they have been here a bit, the thing they miss the most is Mexican food.

And I really, really wish craigster59 would stop posting the Tres Hombres food pic and saying how he goes there. It makes my tastebuds sad.

There aren't a huge number of Mexican Food places around here....and it seems that they are all owned by the same family.
The menu at the one I go to five miles away...is almost identical to those 50 miles away.

Different names..but very similar offerings.

Love street tamales. Tacos, I favor the traditional cilantro and onions toppings only.

You are lucky dogs having a lot of options.

With our slim pickings in Akron/Canton I have narrowed it down one restuarant. On the upside, most folks do not speak english save the waitresses there.

You can eat and drink big for two for $75 out the door and it's traditional Tex-Mex (I think that describes it). I do fajitas with the extra side goodies. About $20 for that plate.

On Mole, we have one of the high end Mexican places, Xochi, that specializes in 8 different mole sauces. They have many dishes, but you order them with the moles of your choice.

Cuchara (Spoon) is an authentic Mexico city style food.

Lupe Tortilla is one of the best "Tex-Mex" places. "Es-Preetty goood", is there motto. We go to the original one and you can see how the places had each room added over time.

The funny thing about Lupe Tortilla is after the death of the man who started it, there was a feud in the family. It is split into two restaurant chains, "Lupe Tortilla" and "The Original Lupe Tortilla". They are basically identical.

I always say, if you throw a rock in Houston and miss a church, you'll hit a Mexican joint or Taco Truck.

I've always said (mostly as a joke, but not completely joking) that Mexican (Tex-Mex really) restaurants have about 10-15 ingredients, and the different items are based on which ingredients and how they are mixed. Beef, pork, chicken, avocado, red sauce, green sauce, sour cream, cheese, flour tortilla, corn tortilla, corn meal, rice, beans, pico de gallo (not sure if salsa is separate or could fall under the pico umbrella).

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That's because from Texas to Cali we're practically northern Mexico (OK, we've actually got folks from all over central and South America).

I'm guessing NZ doesn't have nearly as many illegal or legal Mexican immigrants. It's a MUCH longer walk to get there than it is to CANT (CA, AZ, NM, TX). And if they tried to take a page out of their Spanish speaking brothers in the islands south of FL, the boat ride would be a bit longer too. Probably far less likely to be successful in an F150 surrounded by 55 Gal drums.

http://media3.s-nbcnews.com/i/msnbc/...ck_hmed12p.jpg

http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/i/msnbc/...ar_hmed_2p.jpg

That's the spirit!

I don't think I've ever had BAD Mexican food. I've had some that I wouldn't intentionally have again because it was like something out of a school cafeteria, bland, overcooked, and just a disappointment, but it's still edible.

That's just so weird. It's hard to imagine any town in Texas, at least most of it, not having decent Tex-Mex.

I have had Mexican food in Mexico, CA, NM, AZ, TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, GA, SC, NC, OK, NY, CO, UT, and OR. It all taste the same. I keep looking for gourmet Mexican. Is there any such thing .I see no difference between Taco Bell and the best Rest. in Acapulco.
Its all good but the same to me.

I worked with a guy for a while that was Mexican. His family was from southern Mexico. He moved to Houston from NJ. He said that what we have here is a type of Mexican, but that Mexico is full of various types of food based on what grows locally. So where his family is from in the south is tropical, so there's tons of flesh fruit and veggies in their food. And of course, near the coasts, lots of seafood.

Do you have any good Cuban in the area? I love good Cuban food. My mom lives a little south of you, Vero Beach, and it's hard to find good Cuban there.

mmmm, TAMALES!

I was laid off years ago during the dot.com bust. I ended up working in a place attached to a bingo parlor. On Fri and Sat nights some Hispanic ladies would show up with a cooler full of tamales. I think we usually paid about $15-20 for a dozen 12, or maybe it was $10-15. I can't remember. Anyway, those were some of wthe best tamales I've ever had. I've had some that were pretty bland. Those can be rescued with some sauce and cheese, but they shouldn't need to be. If they are good, they can be eaten with nothing more than a few greasy fingers.

I've seen me do it:cool:

We've been lucky here in my part of Maryland. In addition to some really well run Mexican restaurants that have opened in the past decade, there is a Central American place that is more traditional Mexican with some Honduran/CA on the menu.

Great pace. Fresh and prepared as you wait.

The old joke about Mexican restaurants in the Central Valley of California was you could tell how good it was going to be by the number of soccer trophies on top of the cigarette machine as you entered.

Not Mexican but close: Cuban.

Buddy a mine whose mother fled Castro and settled in Chicago took me to a place on the SE side of Chicago someplace to a small nondescript cinder block building over looking the freeway with a sign on it saying CUBA. One side had a window through which you ordered, collected and paid for your food. A long line that moved quickly and a giant parking lot was packed with cars full of people chowing down on Cuban pulled pork sandwiches.

Holy Macho Gamacho they were good!