Mexican Dining in the Nickel City - an open letter to a friend

“If I moved away, I would definitely miss the Mexican food. Every region has its own Mexican food, and they're very chauvinistic -- they believe their food is the real Mexican food.” - Russ Parsons

My friend Christa Glennie Seychew, now back at Buffalo Rising, brought up on Facebook a consideration of the state of Mexican food in Buffalo. I had answers or at least my view, and said I'd respond, but I cannot find the frakkin' post.

So, instead I'll post here, and let her know.

The main premise of her post was that with all the Mexican "themed" places in town, why don't we have a true Mexican restaurant?

Dear Christa, I have two answers.

But first, discount the national chains. They suck. I am not even sure that Taco Hell qualifies as food. Discount Mighty Taco, too. As one who grew to love it in the purple haze of the 70's it is a food group separate and apart. I do not even think Mexican when I consider it - it's a Mighty.

What this leaves are the local places with Margarita specials (often bad ones), cold Corona with a lime, canned Mexican music, and occasionally some hygiene issues. The problem is that they are Tex-Mex - lesser offspring of the places we enjoyed on our trip to San Antonio - places such as Rosario's, Mi Tierra and La Margarita. Frankly, I'd like to have a place like those here, with real breakfast tacos like those at Mi Tierra, the middle one is Lengua. (BTW, when it comes to kitsch, Mi Tierra makes Salvatore's look like rank amateurs!)


So, to my theories. First, I don't think people get Mexican food. If you grew up at Taco Hell and Chi-Chi's you're going expect that kind of mierda . It may be worse here in WNY. One lesson I learned working in local restaurants is never to overestimate the culinary intelligence of local diners. For everyone who dreams of spending special occasions at Sea Bar or Torches, there are dozens who dream of doing the same at Olive Garden or Alice's Kitchen.

This is an area that reveres the fish fry. They think menudo, if they think of it at all, is where Ricky Martin got his start, posole is on the bottom of a poor persons shoe. Try to convince them that corn smut, huitlacoche, is not only edible, but delicious.

The other problem is closely related to overcoming those prejudices - demographics  . Think about it, a Korean, or Indian or Caribbean restaurant can open and do fine because there are no ingrained concepts.  (Japanese is the exception that proves the rule, but that's another post).With Mexican we don't have the population to overcome the Ortega/Taco Hell syndrome.  In fact, even with the Chinese/Chinese American population here we can't overcome the La Choy generation.

But, here's the rub: There is at least one fair Chinese restaurant nearby that when asked by Chinese immigrants to put on a 13 course traditional banquet did so in a phenomenal way!  If we get enough people who want traditional Mexican - even if just a taqueria - we may get one.

In the mean time, Christa, you have two options:

Go to Toronto on a weekend. Perola's Market on Augusta (the west border of Chinatown) does have a taqueria only on weekends - I was clued in by Corey Mintz of the Toronto Star.  It may mean eating standing, but it's worth it. Or:

From Toronto Sat

Get to know me well enough to get an invite to dine here.  I do good Mexican.

Sunday Morning Food Porn

Ming Teh, Ft. Erie, Canada

Food For Thought

Reminded by Nick Stellino:

Heaven, is where the police are British, the cooks Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians.

Julie and Julia Night

Julie and Julia night was a great success, but I hurt today. I ain't as young as I once was. The food was well recieved, and very few leftovers. At left are the gougères, or as the girls call them Cheesy Poofs. I love those kids!

Discuss!

Maple Weekend and Earl's

"Food for the body, music for the soul" Earl's Motto

Saturday marked the opening of our Statewide Maple Weekend. So we made or annual journey to some of our WNY Sugar Shacks for a good time and on a quest for our yearly gallon of Grade B syrup, the best on the planet.

We hit Randall's in Alexander, which was fun, and Kirsch's in Varysburg where we scored that gallon of Grade B as well as discovering that they raise Natural Black Angus Beef. We need more producers that do that kind of thing around here. That's a photo of the Sugar Shack with a couple of the giant windmills that dot the landscape along Rte. 77.

The bad news about this part of the trip is that we had so little snow and warmed up so quickly that the trees are budding, which ends the season. Syrup, at least in WNY will be in short supply.

Afterwords we we went to Earl's, a WNY landmark for 54 years. It is known for "pies and fries", drinks served in real handleless mason jars and Country Music. The last is why I have only been there twice.

But, we had promised the kids, and let them down three times before. Once we arrived to find they only took cash, and we had none (they now have an ATM). Once I was ill. The last was when we forgot that restaurants in the southtowns close on Monday?

The burger was ok, and filling (so filling that we skipped dinner), but the fries I used to like were undercooked and cold.

If you want to know what Earl's is like, it's on TVFN at 10 tonight. I know 'cause Earl told every party that came in. Every party!

"Do you'all watch Food TV." We heard it so much that Trish was dissolved in laughter!

Goodbye, Godwulf

After a while I got hungry and went to the kitchen. There was nothing to eat. I drank another beer and looked again, and found half a loaf of whole wheat bread behind the beer in the back of the refrigerator... — Robert B. Parker (Mortal Stakes)

There is a long history of Detectives and food. Now I am not speaking of the caterer turned detective thing, but rather the traditional detective. Sherlock Holmes had Mrs. Hudson bringing him trays of Food. Mrs. Maigret making meals. Miss Marple having tea. Philip Marlowe drinking whiskey, or making coffee without a filter (milk only in the morning). Poirot and Hastings sharing a meal.

The Apex may have been Nero Wolfe, the 300 pound Gourmand who employed Fritz Brenner as his personal chef. I actually have cookbooks based on Maigret and Wolfe.

But to me, it's Spenser. He is a great, intuitive cook, but reading his adventures is also a history of Restaurants in Boston. From the Locke-Ober and the Ritz, to Biba, The East Coast Grill and Blue Ginger.

I just finished The Professional. It will be the last one Robert B. Parker was alive to finish. He died Jan 18. There are more works in the pipeline, but it won't be the same.

Farewell Spenser, and Susan and Hawk and Quirk and Belson and Farrell and Vinnie . . . . .

Very few of my books are about who stole the Maltese Falcon. — Robert B. Parker

Blogorrea Redux

Been really busy lately, so I'll be finishing some things that have been queuing up!