Yep, eat it all the time. But Tex-Mex isn’t usually very hot. It can be, but it’s not the norm. That’s why I said Pakistani. There’s a lot of variability in the spiciness of Pakistani food, but on average it’s not as hot as most Indian food. Also, Pakistanis eat a lot of beef and goat. Both are staples of the Mexican-American diet, although Anglos usually don’t go for the goat so much.
Slightly OT but when i was in Taipei a few weeks ago I was wandering the food courts looking for some recognizable food (since I don’t speak chinese and no one really spoke english).
I saw a sign that said “Relax Baja” and headed over. Taiwanese mexican food. Pretty much looked like chinese food in taco shells or burrito wraps. I didn’t have the tenacity to try it.
Don’t forget that the Dutch had strong connections with Indonesia where spicy food is not unknown.
By the way I was under the impression that Biryani was one of the milder curries?
There is a “Mexican” restaurant a few miles from where I live, but whenever I asked how it was to anyone who had visited it, they were not impressed. It has been there for some years though so it must have some regulars.
When I was in France, I lived down the street from a Tex-Mexican restaurant. It was always busy. I went in once- it was along the Taco Bell line- not great but not horrific. It just didn’t seem right. It did have one redeeming factor- selling pints of Ben and Jerry’s. A proper Tex-Mex restaurant would do well. As would a nice BBQ joint. They had one in Valenciennes too and I know it was always busy, don’t know how good it was because I never ventured. I was too busy eating all that yummy French food.
Here in Amsterdam there are a few supposedly Mexican restaurants. Reading the threads here about making chili and the like, I can well imagine that those are pretty mediocre to American standards. If any of you guys want to open a real Mexican restaurant, feel free.
As pointed out by Vetch, the Dutch have incorporated spicy Indonesian cuisine in the same way as the British have incorporated Indian cuisine. I do believe there could be a market, in particular in the larger cities. It’s quite hard to obtain the bare ingredients properly. The chilis available in the U.S. are AFAIK not commonly available here (though it might be different for restaurants who buy wholesale). In supermarkets there is mainstream merchandise like El Paso, which does fairly well. So the interest is there, and there are not much possibility for folks to make really good stuff at home.
Not even close. Mexican restaurants are still relatively new to Spain and the ones that are decent are really just mediocre.
I’d say the UK or Holland.
Really, the only specialty items that I could foresee being harder or more expensive to procure for a mexican restaurant in europe might be the masa, chiles, hominy, chorizo and maybe fresh cilantro and mexican oregano. And you might even be able to find local varieties of chiles that could substitute or convince a small local farmer to grow some mexican varieties especially for you and similarly give the local butcher a good chorizo recipe and see what he comes up with. Truly, Mexican food uses rather inexpensive ingredients but the freshness and quality of the simple ingredients make the difference. A small tortillaria on premises will make a big difference too and might be the only solution for a good product, fresh tortillas can’t be beat.
A dream and some good recipes is all it takes…maybe a little scratch to get it going, but I think it could be a money maker.
True. I forgot about that. I have quite a few Dutch friends, and with the exception of the three I spoke of, none could handle anything even remotely spicy. I lived with 7 of them for almost a year, and their diet was almost exclusively Hagelslag on bread for breakfast, ham sandwiches for lunch, and boiled cabbage and roast chicken for dinner. Oh, and plenty of beer!
Biryani isn’t a curry, it’s a rice dish. It can be made mild, regular and ass-on-fire-the-next-morning spicy.
I doubt that sourcing genuine Mexican ingredients would be a problem, if there were demand for it - the chillis on sale in my local supermerket come from Jordan, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Holland, among other places.
There are three or four Mexican restaurants in Dublin, and many others do the odd ‘Mexican’ dish - enchiladas, nachosetc. The supermarkets have a growing stock of Tex-Mex foodstuffs - mainly bottled sauces and tacos and tortillas. The Mexican/Spanish company Doña Maria is also making inroads into the supermarkets.
Unfortunately I’ve only had one even passably good Mexican restaurant meal here (at Acapulco). But the good news is there’s a genuine Mexican food stall at the Epicurean Food Hall that does the genuine stuff - not a whiff of puréed garlic, nor even Tex-Mex. Bona fide stuff, and lovely too.
As is stated by several posters - for mexican food to succeed it has to be better than what is currently in that market niche.
In the UK it would have to take on the curry - and that’s like me taking on Lennox Lewis - there’s only one winner. (I can’t overstate how much we love our rubies)
In Holland it would have to be better than indonesian food - it isn’t (IMHO of course)
The French don’t like spicy food - they have Indian restaurants there and the food is much blander than the UK equivelent. Also the French are right arrogant little so and sos about any food other than their own.
If it hasn’t already taken off in Germany (which was ful of yank soldiers etc), then it’s not going to.
Also no country has sufficient numbers of mexicans (if any) to sustain the market.
So I think that in Europe it’s always going to be a minority interest.
P.s You can get about 100 types of chilis here - we have plenty of ethnic grocers and the Jamaican scotch bonnet chili would blow a mexican chili pepper out of the water - and the Thai birds-eye ones are pretty eye-watering too.
I’d go along with the notion that the absence of a Mexican population in Europe is the reason why such food hasn’t made the inroads here that it has in the US.
I’ve had Mexican food in Ireland, the UK, the US, Germany and Mexico and to me - I’ll stress this point - in my opinion, any that I’ve had has not been particularly earth shattering. All a bit…meh.
My other half is a big fan of it, though, so I’m sure I’ll take him into the Epicurean Food Hall. Thanks for the tip, jjimm. 
I’ve had some really good Mexican and Tex-Mex meals in Edinburgh. It’s not that big a city, but it’s full of students and tourists…
There are probably at least half a dozen restaurants here - but they’re all sit-in; no-one seems to be able to offer take-away Mexican food successfuly… there was one take-away business but it folded almost as soon as the business start up grants ran out. But their food always looked so unappetising that I never tried it anyway.
My search skills are fading. I can’t seem to find the “what’s a curry?” thread! Can someone please bring it up?
I should also mention that the Saturday food market in Temple Bar has a genuine Mexican guy selling take-away dishes as well as other comestibles. He used to have a genuine Mexican café in Stoneybatter that yojimbo and I had breakfast in once - huevos rancheros, mmmm - but it went out of business.
Here you go (prepare for an insight into the British psyche)
on the mexican food thing: I don’t know if I could actually tell when I’d had good mexican food, as I have no real benchmark, also it ain’t cheap - the nearest place to me (Cactus Blue - Fulham rd) is about £50 a head. I’m not paying that for mince and crisps. 
My experience is similar. I took a couple of Dutch friends to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, a barbecue joint here in Atlanta. We had ribs with what I would categorize as a sweet, mild sauce. I was amazed that they regarded this sauce as fiery hot. They started sweating, guzzling water and fanning their mouths with their hands.
Also, I ate at an Indonesian restaurant while in Amsterdam, and don’t remember the food there being especially hot by American/Mexican standards.
My conclusion: I’m not sure the Dutch are ready for really spicy food.
I haven’t read the whole thread, but I have to say that a long-standing dream of mine would be to open a Cal-Mex restaurant in London. I could call it ‘Johnny’s Cantina’.
I like sincronizadas made with refried beans, ham, and cheese, and topped with sour cream and guacamole and little bits of tomatoes a dash of shredded cheddar for decoration. I’ve only seen this on a menu at one place, and it was 30 years ago when I was a kid. (They called it ‘La Cucuracha’. :eek: )
Mexican food is cheap to make, tasty, and filling. The restaurant’s atmosphere would be very festive. I’d start out with ‘Mexican fast food’ like tacos (shredded beef, chicken, carnitas, asada or fish), burritos, enchiladas, rice and beans, etc., and then add some fancier stuff like 7 Mares, lobster (Of course, it would have to be Pacific spiny lobster. 
), chipotle salmon and such.
I’ve yet to come scross any Mexican food that’s as spicy as some Indian foods, but I find the atmosphere of a good Mexican restaurant to add to the experience.
Oh, and just so no one thinks I’m picking on the Dutch, my Thai friends consider Americans wimps when it comes to spicy food. So it’s all relative. I know I make this face :eek: whenever they serve me a dish that is “Thai hot.”
I think the local Thai restaurant (yes, ‘the’; there’s only one) thinks Americans are wimps. The pa-naeng is a bit anemic, unless I ask for cerrano chilis. (Otherwise, they use jalapenos. What’s up with that?)