tortilla chips - now with improved stereotyping!

[cakeinoz]

I had a hankerin' for a BBQ chopped salad last week. The recipe, as it resides in my head, is a variation on this, minus the jicama and hateful cilantro. It had been a very long time since I'd made it, but it came out reasonably well, and cookieman really enjoyed it, too

Comments

[whitemunin]

That would probably make the news here and last all of one day on the shelves.

Considering the overall lack of popularity of Mexican food here

Say it ain't so! I'd have serious withdrawal if I couldn't eat Mexican or Tex/Mex at least four times a week. We went to North Carolina for a wedding a few months ago. Gone for a week, and while they have their share of Mexican restaurants there, it definitely isn't the same as here in Houston. By the time we got back, I was craving some real Mexican food so bad, I told my spouse to pull over to the next taqueria we saw so I could load up on tortas, nopalitos and a bowl of roasted tomatillo salsa the size of an Olympic size swimming pool. : )

Mmmm, black beans. Love 'em, especially with other traditional Cuban dishes like yucca and plantains and of course a mound of ropa vieja and yellow rice. Damn! Now I'm hungry!

[cakeinoz]

I know, I mourn the lack of Mexican food here. I should say, I am happy with many variations of "Mexican" - I lived in TX for a few years and enjoyed it there, and I'm also quite happy with faux Mex chains as long as they have a tasty hot sauce/ salsa and fresh chips. In the DC area, we have more Salvadorans than anything else, and I sometimes feel as if I could kill someone for a freaking pupusa now. :D

I think the reason we don't have Mexican (or any flavours from that region) here is that what does make it here is just so damned bad. Even taking your tastebuds down to Taco Bell level wouldn't cut it. We've got a place in town here which claims to do Mexican, and they even feature bottles of Cholula on the tables (I was so excited at this), but the food itself is nothing at all like what one would expect. Someone saw a picture of a burrito and did their best to replicate them based on that. heh. Now, that having been said, some of the stuff there is pretty okay. It can be spicy, and the chicken burrito-like things are

[whitemunin]

We were either brave or stupid and tried Mexican food in Stirling while vacationing in Scotland. Ye gods, was it awful! Actually, we expected it to be awful. Scotland isn't famous for its outstanding Mexican food. But we wanted to say we tried Mexican food in Scotland. After all, a few nights before we'd eaten at a pub in Fort William called The Grog and Gruel where the bar area was manned by a 6'5" Viking type with waist length dreads, and lived to tell about it

[annette09]

To add to the Tex-Mex food conversation, when the spouse went to Tokyo, he stumbled across a Mexican food establishment. It was in the vicinity of the tri-level McDonald's. He didn't try the Mexican food there because he was all over wanting to gorge on authentic Japanese food (which he did and loved ... the people he was working with took him out to dinner every night ... in fact, one night they kept shoving food at him telling him to try it without telling him what it was ... which he did. I told him there was no telling what he ate although he did say the people weren't laughing hilarously at him, so it doesn't sound like they were tricking him or anything like that, or maybe they laughed hilarously after they all went home ... they did give him some nice parting food/spice gifts). He did eat at the McDonald's though, he said the teriyaki burger was like the burgers here except the sauce was teriyaki based

[cakeinoz]

I can always tell when some American-style food is going to be crap over here - the package is usually festooned with stars n bars, and AMERICAN is written as large as possible. This usually happens with chocolate chip cookies, brownie-like things (gross) and hot dogs in jars (never even tried, but I'm putting them here because I'm assuming they also suck.) I have seen random American Indian imagery on packaging, as well. So far, though, no pictures of overweight Americans wearing fanny packs or whatever our stereotype would be. (ooh cowboys, of course. Seen a few of those.)

That's awesome that B tried so much food while in Japan! I would never be that brave, sadly. I do like Japanese food, but I can be picky about eating things which are too foreign. Pretty sure I wouldn't be interested in jellyfish, for example..

[cynicrn]

I remember the worst Mexican food I ever ate. It was in Provo Utah, The enchiladas seemed to be canned tortillas dipped in Ketchup. It may have been the only enchiladas I ever faced and could not eat.

[cakeinoz]

The worst 'American' food I've had was in Ireland when I was in high school. The guy said the sausages were like hot dogs. The meat in the casing was so oily it separated in my mouth, and I can't even describe the texture of it. It might have been the last meat I ate on that trip.

[lindyb]

I've never seen those Tesco packages, wow! (Racist? Weird combination of laughing fatness plus gunbelts.) Our Tesco seems only to have Doritos. It sounds like you are enjoying our English cuisine. Some people like salad cream. Hmm. The Mexican is not too good here. We have found Blue Corn Chips at Waitrose.

You need to get into what we do well. Whatever it is. There might be a good Indian restaurent around you somewhere. (When I was eating mex food in New Mexico the staff acted like we Brits would never have tasted anything hot at all, and the English response was to ask what was the hottest and go for it, and find it disappointingly mild - usually.) We do cheese really well, you hardly have any in the USA at all. You have to get into Cheddar.

You can't be that far away, Cake! I'd really like to meet up sometime.