Mexican resturaunt questions

[Farmer17]

I have many workers on my construction job site that are Mexican and usually someone will bring a beat up old microwave and someone else brings an ice chest full of tacos that their wife made. They are on a soft tortilla and filled with beef or chicken and typically are delicious, and they will either drink a Coke in the old greenish glass Mexican pop bottle or a can of Mexican fruit juice. Their home made tamales are excellent also, but I don't know how they are able to eat the same thing every day.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

The 2 Mexican I frequent in Columbus were actually taken over by REAL MEXICANS! In one, no English is understood, in the other only the boss speaks English.

My wife and I stopped after Church one Sunday, in the Non-English shop and the Menu is on a chalk board and changes daily. I know how to order the things I like and say please & thank you. I had no idea what to do about my wife. The waiter said #2 was "feeesh", my wife smiled and said she never met a fish she didn't like! It came out on a bed of lettuce, and was one large mostly whole deep fried fish. (with eyeballs!) I ask her how her meal was, She said to leave her alone as she and her fish were in heaven! One of the customers laughed, and said something to our waiter, her ran in the kitchen and brought back a nice platter of other fish dishes. She enjoyed them all. The 2 of us were stuffed and the bill was small. A very good time for one and all.

That restaurant opened at 11 AM and would be mostly empty until around 3PM, the was packed with all manner of very hard working men. It cleared out around 5PM got busy again around 9PM. The parking lot would be full of Ford vans and Pick-ups at lunch and older 4 door cars in the evening. I stayed away when busy and ate there when slow, we all got along great!

Ivan

 

[nicky4968]

San Luis Valley has great Mexican food.

In Walsenburg, over the hill from the Valley, the ladies at the Apostolic Church make the best tamales.

 

[jbtrucker]

If you think all Mexican food is the same-
1. You ain't never eat much Mexican Food.
2. Or you ain't paying attention.

I had pretty good Mexican food at an old truck stop in Albuquerque 25 years ago.

 

[bulletslap]

I believe crispy taco shells were invented in Tyler Texas.

 

[TX-Dennis]

Used to be a local place that served their (LARGE) tacos in corn tortilla "bowls." Very thin and very crisp, they were always tasty. Chain Mexican food places aren't usually very good. The small family owned places have the best food. My favorite has a very extensive menu. Been going there for 15 years, and still haven't tried everything.

I always enjoy a good green chile burrito smothered in queso. Heaven on a plate. Oh my.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

The stuff I learn on this forum....

Yep, me too. I have recently learned that Taco Bell is NOT the Mexican phone company.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[husker51]

"Molcajete!" A dish I discovered in a little restaurant in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. I don't know how "Mexican" it is but the Guatemalans I talked with seemed to recognize the word. All it is is stuff to put fajitas together with. But it comes with beans and rice and man is it steaming hot when they bring it to the table!

 

[Sistema1927]

I typically make Posole for Christmas Eve when we have the family over after church. My recipe is so secret, I can't remember it from year to year, and end up making it a bit differently each time.

Serve it along with tamales. I don't make the tamales, but there are several places here that make excellent ones. Just make sure to steam them (microwave = no no) and don't pull a Gerald Ford. (Extra Credit for those who know what I mean here without Googling it.)

 

[bulletslap]

My Tex-mex Son-in-Law makes the best damn cheese enchiladas I have ever had, his secret ingredients are Velveeta and Wolf Brand Chili. He says that is how his Mama made them.

 

[Chukar60]

You never heard of picadillo?

Around these parts Picadillo is shredded beef and hamburger is "ground beef" on the menu of every mexican restaurant here.
I am fortunate that the best one in the area is less than 1/2 a mile from my house. Before I practiced restraint it added to my girth considerably.
I am with caj, beef fajitas, no tortillas and no cheeps with salsa and forego the retried beans. I haven't eaten rice in so long I forgot why I don't like it. OH yea it has the same flavor as paper.
The other way to go for Keto is the Carne Asada minus all the other stuff.

 

[AZretired]

Then you don't have Mexican restaurants run by immigrant Mexicans in your part of the woods . . .

That's true most of the Mexican families running restaurants in New Mexico have lived here since at least the 1800's and would probably take offense at the term.

Also I googled Picadillo and it appears to be traditionally a Cuban or Latin America dish, not Mexican. I will agree with others I have never seen hamburger served at any Mexican restaurant. Although I do use it myself when we make burritos or tacos at home.

 

[AZretired]

I hate to tell you this, but that is bland recipe. No oregano, thyme, tarragon, coriander, and a couple of other spices. Plus, it'll take a lot longer than 90 minutes to cook to get the most flavor out of it. More like four or five hours to simmer with tasting along the way to get the fine tuning of the spices. It takes me the better part of a day.

Leave the fat on, that adds to the flavor. Skim it off the top as it simmers.

If frozen polsole is used, the recipe isn't telling you to boil, rinse/strain and repeat to get that nasty lime off.

I agree that dried or frozen posole (hominy) can take several hours to fully but that recipe is not bland as long as the Jalapenos are hot enough. Around here we use green jalapenos not red then add onion and garlic. Nothing else is needed.

 

[Marshwheeling]

I had pozole for lunch the other day at a place in my neighborhood I hadn't tried before. It was nicely presented and looked wonderful. It was a red pozole with pork. The texture was good, meat tender and falling apart, the hominy firm.

Unfortunately, it didn't have a lot of flavor. I added salt and hot sauce, but it was really missing some other spices, most notably cumin. I will try it again. It might have just been me. But first I have to try their chilaquiles.

 

[Muss Muggins]

So which one of our examples is more likely to have recently cooked and dined in Mexico?

That's true most of the Mexican families running restaurants in New Mexico have lived here since at least the 1800's and would probably take offense at the term. . .

 

[dockmurgw]

The reason I travel with my computer bag full of granola bars and cheese crackers? In case the admin tasked with ordering food for the working lunch orders that disgusting, nasty, foul tasting swill known as Mexican food, and schedule wont allow me to go to McDonalds or the local gas station for a dried out hot dog.

 

[wgnovak]

Actually, it's "el baño". (Those squiggly marks make a huge difference in Spanish.)

What many don't realize is that there is no "standard" Mexican food. In this country you have Tex-Mex, New Mexican, and that nasty stuff that they serve in places like Illinois.

Mexican cuisine, in Mexico, varies considerably from North to South as well as coastal and inland. Much of what we eat in the US would have Mexicans shaking their heads.

And to confuse things even more, a tortilla in Spain is actually more like an omelet than anything called by that name this side of the Atlantic.

Agree. It's best called Mexican American food. Similar in the USA to the awful Chinese food which is not eaten by Chinese. In China the only place you'll find it is at enterprising hotel restaurants catering to American tastes where it's called Chinese American food !

 

[mr-mom]

Your Dad put something in his cooking that didn't make it to the recipe box. Mom had a special ingredient she put in everything. You can't buy it in stores. I know this because I can't duplicate anything she made, even though I have many of the recipes. There's something missing. She made chicken and dumplings I can taste even today. I've never even attempted to make that dish, because I WILL fail and destroy the memory. Your Dad and my Mom may have gone to the same cooking school.

I have cooked since childhood, taught by my Mother and Grandmother. I was always told that the secret ingredient used by those two, which made their preparations delicious, was "Love". I keep a sprinkle can next to the stove so marked.
Dave
SWCA #2778

 

[Sistema1927]

That's true most of the Mexican families running restaurants in New Mexico have lived here since at least the 1800's and would probably take offense at the term.

And many of them, especially north of Santa Fe, have been here since the 17th century. They will be quick to tell you that they are Spanish, and not Mexican. Add to that the intriguing story of crypto-Jews who fled the Inquisition, and settled at the far reaches of New Spain in order to avoid persecution. New Mexico Jewish Historical Society | Crypto-Jews

I love living in New Mexico for its history and heritage, not so much for its politics.

 

[Old TexMex]

I had pozole for lunch the other day at a place in my neighborhood I hadn't tried before. It was nicely presented and looked wonderful. It was a red pozole with pork. The texture was good, meat tender and falling apart, the hominy firm.

Unfortunately, it didn't have a lot of flavor. I added salt and hot sauce, but it was really missing some other spices, most notably cumin. I will try it again. It might have just been me. But first I have to try their chilaquiles.

Chilaquiles is the truck drivers breakfast! It'll stay with you all day. A favorite of mine, but I don't get it often.

 

[Old TexMex]

And many of them, especially north of Santa Fe, have been here since the 17th century. They will be quick to tell you that they are Spanish, and not Mexican. Add to that the intriguing story of crypto-Jews who fled the Inquisition, and settled at the far reaches of New Spain in order to avoid persecution. New Mexico Jewish Historical Society | Crypto-Jews

I love living in New Mexico for its history and heritage, not so much for its politics.

As El Paso and Juarez, the Lebanese population is big, and not new, that has influenced the cuisine.

 

[Muss Muggins]

So you're eatin' kosher Spanish food and not Mexican food. Big, big difference . . .

And many of them, especially north of Santa Fe, have been here since the 17th century. They will be quick to tell you that they are Spanish, and not Mexican. Add to that the intriguing story of crypto-Jews who fled the Inquisition, and settled at the far reaches of New Spain in order to avoid persecution. New Mexico Jewish Historical Society | Crypto-Jews

I love living in New Mexico for its history and heritage, not so much for its politics.

 

[Sistema1927]

So you're eatin' kosher Spanish food and not Mexican food. Big, big difference . . .

Absolutely. New Mexican cuisine is head and shoulders above Mexican food, and quite different.

I wasn't aware of much Lebanese migration to El Paso, but the Haddad and Malooly families, along with others from Syria, have been fixtures for a long, long time.

 

[Ματθιας]

I had pozole for lunch the other day at a place in my neighborhood I hadn't tried before. It was nicely presented and looked wonderful. It was a red pozole with pork. The texture was good, meat tender and falling apart, the hominy firm.

Unfortunately, it didn't have a lot of flavor. I added salt and hot sauce, but it was really missing some other spices, most notably cumin. I will try it again. It might have just been me. But first I have to try their chilaquiles.

Put a little bit of oregano. It won't take a lot. To get the best re-heat it and let it simmer of a few minutes.

 

[JohnZMI]

I don't claim to have any special knowledge of Mexican restaurants or food, although I lived in Ramos Arizpe (outside of Saltillo) in 1980, during the first year of building the Ramos Arizpe car assembly plant. I lived in the El Camino Real hotel, and religiously followed the "no water except from sealed bottles and no uncooked salads", and managed not to get sick (although my boss did and never visited again).

In this area, the El Charro restaurants have far and away the best Mexican food (they started in a little hole-in-the-wall location next to a bicycle shop which they later bought so they could expand), then they built a beautiful stand-alone restaurant and expanded to a third location a few years ago. All are "standing room only" for waiting and always have been. I'm not an adventurous eater, but my wife and I LOVE their puffy deep-fried soft-shell shredded beef tacos with the usual rice and refried beans, three kinds of salsa, and a frozen wildberry margarita. That doesn't make me an expert - I just love their food. Writing this made me hungry for puffy soft-shell beef tacos and Wildberry frozen Margaritas, so we went out to El Charro tonight!

 

[Alpo]

> deep-fried soft-shell shredded beef tacos <


How does one have a deep fried soft shell taco?


Just seems to me that once you deep fried it it would be crunchy - not soft shell.

 

[Bullseye 2620]

It is the height of green chili season here in southwestern New Mexico. They're roasting the fresh ones out in front of both the Walmart and Peppers Supermarket. You can smell the stuff all over town. I'm driving the 50 miles over to Hatch on Saturday and picking up a 50 pound sack, and then will spend the rest of the weekend processing them to make salsa verde and some other wonderful concoctions.

I make a wicked green chili stew. I got the recipe from the ladies who run Irma's, the best Mexican restaurant in a town that is full of them. They use cubes of chuck, but I find it a little dry, so I go all out and use beef tenderloin instead. The rest of the recipe is a secret, but drop by and I will serve you up a big bowl.

If you happen to visit Deming, the two best Mexican restaurants are Irma's and Benji's, both small family owned and run operations.

At Irma's the green chili stew is indeed the standout, but the parilladas (especially the fish ones) are great too. At Benji's, it is the menudo. I don't do tripe, but every Thursday morning I watch my boss, a Mexican by ancestry, chow down on a huge bowl of the stuff. He calls it "the Mexican breakfast of champions." I guarantee you won't find food like this at Taco Hell.

 

[Sistema1927]

If you happen to visit Deming, the two best Mexican restaurants are Irma's and Benji's, both small family owned and run operations.

I wish that I had known this a couple of weeks ago. We stopped in at Si Senors on a trip back from Arizona based on Google reviews. It wasn't all that great.

 

[joeintexas]

After eating good Mexican food in Texas and New Mexico I find it not so good here in Florida. Southwest food can really spoil you. Green chili pozole with pork is pretty hard to beat on a chilly day, or any day for that matter. Now the tamale stand at the downtown flea market here is top shelf, not about to ask him what's in it though.

 

[JohnZMI]

> deep-fried soft-shell shredded beef tacos <


How does one have a deep fried soft shell taco?


Just seems to me that once you deep fried it it would be crunchy - not soft shell.

The key word at El Charro is "PUFFY" - that's on the back of the waitress' T-shirts, and is the secret of their immensely popular soft-shell taco; the main portion of the taco shell is about 1/4" thick, and the edges are about 3/8" thick, and "PUFFY" is the only way to describe them. They're that way all the way through - think bubble-wrap texture. I'll see if I can get a photo to post.

Edit: Here's a photo of the El Charro "puffy" taco. For more info, just Google "El Charro Puffy Taco" and you'll get many more photos and videos on how to make them. They also have an El Charro Taco Truck that does a LOT of party catering, cooking everything on the restaurant menu wherever they can park the truck.