I live in Adelaide, South Australia. I like good food. Well, that's a lie, because if you take the opinion of my bathroom scales, I'll eat anything that I find - be it healthy, unhealthy, lots, little, crunchy, soft, whatever.
If it is edible, and palatable - I'll eat it. If I haven't tried it, I'll try it. If I like it, I'll eat it again.
So, it doesn't take me much to enjoy food. So much so - that when I'm invited to try a new restaurant or the likes with my friends, I'm very keen.
Recently, I went to a Mexican restaurant here in Adelaide, South Australia. I won't mention which one, because it is irrelevant. I have prior experience with at least five other Mexican restaurants, and I'll elaborate more here:
- I'm not sure Taco Bell from my visit to the United States counts
- Some fancy Mexican restaurant in Roswell, United states, where I can't remember much because I drank way too many Long Island Iced Teas
- A take away place nearby that does Mexican
- Another take away place that does Mexican
- A Restaurant in the East of my town that does Mexican
- and the one I visited most recently.
The familiar statement I make is that Mexican places are not good value, and the food is always sub-par. I am sure that this may have something to do with my favoured flavours.
- I don't like excessive amounts of sour cream, which seems to be a staple in (predominately Australian interpretations) of Mexican food
- I dislike guacamole even more than sour cream (which, again, seems to be an Australian obsession)
Now, I get why Mexican food can be so tasty. Spicy, shredded meats; beans; cheese, and growing spice, accompanied by rice.
However, the "consumer" grade Mexican at every place I have gone to has been:
- Mild
- Dry
- Tasteless
- Afraid to use a high proportion of beans
- Not at all spicy
Why is this the case?
I imagine that cost and margins are a significant factor - as fundamentally, the ingredients that make a good Mexican meal are not all that expensive or hard to obtain, particularly here in Australia.
- Beans are everywhere and plentiful
- Chicken, beef is readily available
- Tomatoes for salsa are everywhere
- Spices are easily obtained
At the most recent restaurant I went to, $30 Australian, which is around $22 US Dollars, I got served the following:
- 1 Chicken Wing
- 2 Jalapeno poppers that were the diameter of a quarter (or a 20c piece, for Australians) ;) and as tall as a stack of approximately 10 coins (they weren't even real jalapeno poppers that involved the whole pepper)
- 2 handfuls of soggy, warm nacho chips that tasted like generic Doritos with a tea spoon of beans
- One taco with some chicken
- 1 Burrito bowl with about 1/4 of a cup of shredded beef - it was mostly lettuce
Now while this sounds like a "lot" of food, this was the 2nd most expensive option on the menu. While restaurants are generally more expensive than eating at home, the above ingredients could probably be acquired for less than $10 AUD.
The biggest insult in all of this is that the service you'd expect from a restaurant was not excellent. People arrived around 1930, and there wasn't table water on the table until about 2000, and it was only when guests got up that glasses for table water were obtained at 2030. Everyone was gone by 2130.
The restaurant, however, was all too happy to continue offering cocktail jugs. They would've made a killing. I was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of the food, and I've resolved that I will not eat at any Mexican style restaurant ever again. I would, however, be keen to try other Mexican dishes - so let me know of any favourites in the comments, and I might just try them, because I LOVE spicy food.