And one of those (mechanized) moving waterfall pictures. Though, I’m seeing fewer of them recently.
example–> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP4lcnyywXY
Cops, both in America and here in Poland (and in most places around the world, I would suspect) seem to have a radar for good, cheap food, be it “authentic” or not…
If a Mexican joint doesn’t have a painting and/or statue of Popocatépetl & Iztaccíhuatl, is it even a Mexican restaurant?
Heard this before, don’t find it to be true, although I guess I might be an outlier, as the best tasting “Mexican” food I have eaten has been in the Southwestern USA, not in Mexico, although I have had some wonderful seafood meals in Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas…
Huh. Don’t think I’ve seen that in any of the Mexican joints around here. A painting or statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Yes. Pretty much required.
Chips & salsa have nothing to do here with the “authenticity” of a joint. Half the places will serve you up with still-warm chips and a couple of homemade salsas (sometimes one of those is even warm.) Seafood Mexican joints will sometimes give you salsa and a small portion of ceviche for free. Other places might even give you a small bowl of fideo or some kind of other Mexican amuse-bouche/botana kind of thing (complimentary.)
I also don’t agree with the turmeric-stained fingers with Indian restaurants. Not all Indian food is turmeric heavy (most of the stuff I eat isn’t, and I work in the Indian community a lot and eat a lot of food that you don’t typically find at Indian restaurants around here.)
I don’t have any real rules for what might clue me in to it being authentic or not. A menu in the language of the ethnic restaurant is a reasonable sign, and the presence of customers of that ethnicity are a good sign, as well.
I spent the first 34 years of my life in California, and I’ve been in Portland, OR ever since. While the Hispanic population up here is nowhere near as big as in California, it is still sizable, and there is plenty of great Mexican food to be found.
About eight years ago, I had a weekend thing in Anchorage, and I stayed an extra day to visit my aunt & uncle, who live in a town a bit outside of the city. They said they had a great Mexican restaurant in town, and I’m always down for Mexican, so we went. We walked in the door, and the first thing I noted was that all of the workers were white. I caught a glance at the kitchen, and it was all white people there, too. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, we sat down and ordered.
It wasn’t great.
The moral of the story is, if a Mexican restaurant has any people working there who aren’t Mexican, run.
Agree 100%
My post above yours should have added that the places I mentioned in Cabo and Ensenada where I had some truly fine meals all served chips and salsa, (although maybe one just served corn tortillas and an assortment of salsas, no tortilla chips) but I have to say that at least some of the other patrons were not Mexicans, but the food was truly excellent.
(I got the specific recommendation for the place in Ensenada from Chicago chef Rick Bayless’ TV show, and although he looks about as “white” as a human body can possibly get, he apparently knows Mexico and Mexican cuisine as well as anyone not actually born in Mexico possibly can)
One thing to consider is that there are the various cuisines of Mexico, and then there are Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex, New Mexican, etc… all of which are legitimate Mexican cuisines in their own right. And there’s a LOT of overlap and syncretism between them- is a dish less Mexican, just because Mexican immigrants made it on this side of the Rio Grande using local stuff?
And the thing is, they’re all described as “Mexican” in the US. So judging by whether they serve chips or not doesn’t really indicate authenticity at all.
My mom and I are both adventurous eaters, and so we’ve gone out to lunch at a bunch of ethnic restaurants around the area. A couple of times, the folks already in the restaurant were surprised at seeing two white folks come in. One of them, I think we might have been the first white customers there ever, and our car was the only non-taxi in the parking lot (the taxi industry around here is overwhelmingly Somali).
Weird because around here (Joliet/Plainfield region) every Mexican joint seems to have one. Often prominently displayed near the register or in the waiting area, etc. Maybe we just have an oddly reverent group of Mexicans who follow the Old Ways or something.
Indian: They have dishes you don’t recognise on the menu and they don’t give you cutlery unless you ask for it.
Back in the day, before it became painfully fashionable, my cousin took us out to a restaurant in Brick Lane, London. (For those that know the area, this was so long ago that you could park outside the restaurant - how 'bout that?)
He said that it was so authentic that it wasn’t safe to drink the water. How could you use that as a practical predictive test? - well, it’s a challenge.
Now, if you happen to be in Seville…we’re working our way through Spain on city breaks, and one thing that is really noticeable about Seville (and I think also Granada, though it was Seville where we were really struck by it) is that you now see Japanese and Korean restaurants full of (what I assume to be) Japanese and Korean tourists, to the exclusion of pretty much anyone else. Presumably opened to serve the Asian tourist population - and I can only see this trend continuing. Busy as Hell, and we were there in February. Of course, we hadn’t gone to Seville to eat Korean, so I can’t offer you a report, but I would be optimistic about their authenticity.
j
Missed the edit - re Brick Lane, I should of course have said that it is home to many fine Bangladeshi restaurants.
j
The aforism refers to when there’s several of those. I know a particular stretch of road a bit south of Burgos where you can find something like a dozen truck stops, but all the trucks go to the same one.
… They still. Could have been. Mexican. I mean, I’m assuming you refer to “white” as a mere physical description and not a cultural one.
You thisisnotthePits confuse “Mexican” (a nationality or a national origin which can come in any ancestry) with “mestizo” (mixed Amerind and European ancestry) or Amerind.
Boom!
I wouldn’t guarantee it - sometimes, I get the impression Chinese and Japanese tourists veer towards signs of home, fearful of the local cuisine. Often escorted straight there by tour operators. Don’t think it’s a guarantee of quality.
Just scan the crowd from the window. Is the restaurant already packed to the brim ? Is there a majority of [ethnic] customers there (where [ethnic] corresponds with the restaurant’s purported [ethnic] cuisine) ? Issa good joint.
That easy algorithm has rarely led me astray.
Our top Mexican food hangout offers menudo and serves chips and salsa. So pbfft to that stereotype.
A good negative authenticity clue is a Chinese restaurant with a bottle of ketchup on the table. :smack:
around the Detroit area, I’ve found the most enjoyable (and varied) Mexican food at markets which happen to have a small dining area. Supermercado sin Limite in Lincoln Park is great. one indicator is that they offer lengua and tripa as options.
Yes, I’m well aware of that. I thought it was obvious from my post that I was talking about culturally, not physically. I guarantee the people working in that Mexican restaurant in Alaska were not from Mexico, nor did they have Mexican ancestry.