Having grown up in a family where several relatives come from central America, Honduras to be exact, I am used to eating delicious Mole. It is spicy and flavorful. Every Mexican, or south-of-the-border restaraunt I have visited brings out this sickingly sweet chocolate tasting crap. My family has no secret recipe, they get the mole powder from grocery stores (although the favorite brand is more recently hard to come by).
I thought it may have to do with tastes up here, but I don’t buy that. The sauce the tortillas get dunked in at many places can make most people beg for milk. The closest restaraunt to the real deal was still too sweet, but had a bit of a bite.
Mole, as in the dish, a spicy-sweet kind of gravy that is mixes with chicken, turkey, or whatever, is pronounced with a short e sound at the end. As in mo-lay. You either are unaware of the dish, or you are attempting to be a smart-ass.
We have one that has a pretty good mole. Their shrew leaves something to be desired, though.
How about making your own? You should be able to find ancho peppers in Houston. Then again, you should be able to find decent mole there, too. AT least a mix. Perhaps if you ate at a real restaurant rather that some Pedro McNasty’s chain place.
I’ll throw up a “me too”. I grew up in El Paso, and while we may not have had the authentic mole seen down south, i came to love what we had. I live in central Texas now… and the so-called “mexican” food is … i wish i was back in El Paso sometimes.
And I sympathize with the sentiment in the OP. Living in Arlington,VA, which boasts numerous immigrant communities, you’d think we could get decent Mexican food.Apparently, though, most of the hispiohablantes that come here are from Salvador or other places in Central America rather than Mexico. By my count, there are exactly TWO places that turn out good Mexican food. The newest is run by a chef from Sonora, and he’s got the real stuff goin’ on. Brain and tongue tacos and the salsa is right. Mmm, prions.
The problem with finding mole is that you are in Houston. There are several good restaurants in San Antonio that have good mole. Don’t go to the touristy ones as they typically suck. I used to like the mole at Tomatillos and Rosarios. I don’t know if the latter is still around as I don’t live in San Antonio anymore.
I feel your pain. I crave mole about once a year and am usually too lazy to make it. The places up here that serve it oftentimes make it really gross (like adding sugar… blech… or not adding any spices and just mixing cocoa and water… extra blech). So I typically do without.
Good luck on finding a place in Houston that serves good mole. You are too far from the border to get it typically speaking. Or better yet, move farther up north and try to get used to the bastardized version and then move back to Houston and find that it is actually much better than what you had been having.
