Germany’s pretty bad, too, but things are getting better…
I remember something inconceivable somewhere in the Netherlands, too! But I was thinking it pretty much served you right if you order nachos in Edam. I think he was thinking “there’s cheese, so…”
Also, the one place in town that advertises “home made tortillas” checks more of the boxes for “bad Mexican food” than any place I’ve been here. Probably the longest running Mexican restaurant in town, and I think someone in the family was the mayor at some point!
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Even with great taco fillings, I think it is essential to have a great tortilla. It reminds on a great sandwich or burger where the bun or burger is equally important as the filling
Right – competition among Coliseum Way swap meet vendors is its own market. Coliseum Way v. strip mall store fronts is a pretty different competition.
We’d expect few eaters (other than swap meet shoppers) are weighing whether the next taco is coming from a parking lot vendor’s tented folding table or a counter inside a door fronting a parking lot. You might be an exception that demonstrates the rule?
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Yeah, my (limited) take on “peoples’ food” in Mexico is there are infinite variations of how the tortilla, cheese and meat are assembled. Not unlike having 27 diffently-named hot dog/bun choices.
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It’s a joke.
Yeah, I got it.
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Close to midnight in the Mission and after some nice cocktails it’s time for a midnight snack at some reasonable sketchy corner with an improvised taco stand. It’s great to see the big bucket of masa and it takes them about 3-5 seconds to make a fresh tortilla or gordita.
Really nice gordita asada - the meat is very good but not outstanding but the star is really the gordita
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Thinking of the long, gone Estradas of California in South SF, Fresno and Visalia. Never, ever had a bad meal or experience there. When they closed, they closed and the recipes I heard, went with the last members of the family. No matter how hard I try, I cannot replicate my favorites from there.
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Estrada’s that use to serve fried chicken in Colma or Daly City, or South City?
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I’m unimpressed by the “no regional dishes means it’s inauthentic” take.
Here in the SF Bay Area, we do have a lot of regional Mexican food, but a lot of restaurants are run by people from central Mexico, which counts as “standard, not regional”.
To me, a small place with more than two regional styles (e.g. mom’s and pop’s) is much more likely to be inauthentic.
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I really don’t understand the people that think making tortillas in-house is either labor intensive or cost prohibitive.
It is not.
Arguing that is sort of like disputing whether water is wet or not.
If you are including me I don’t think that’s what I meant. What I am curious about is how that would work in a setting with two employees and relatively (compared to a place with much larger populations) slow turnover.
Specifically I asked if you have functioned with a staff of one or two , which is what I am used to, and have two or three customers at a time during most of the day, does the same person make the tortillas to order and also cook on the plancha? Does the person at the register and bussing the table make them, then go back to the register? Do they have a third person there waiting to make the tortillas? Or maybe there is some other scenario I haven’t thought of, that doesn’t include abandoning the business.
I don’t understand that. Are you saying of course water is wet, and of course it is more labor intensive and cost prohibive?
Anyway, I accept that there are a lot of Mexican restaurants that fall between the best and “bad”, which is what the OP was about. I am quite willing to accept none of the restaurants in my town are among the best, but I still hope they are good enough to stay in business.
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This question (or these questions) are no different than any item make in-house. It could be dumpling skins, egg rolls, churros, pasta or pizza sauces, noodles, etc.
Successful restaurants and restaurateurs know division of labor, and how to divide that labor.
In-house tortillas are neither a sufficient nor necessary condition to being a good Mexican restaurant.
But it borders very close to being necessary.
It’s all relative. I miss Californian Mexican food, even the stuff some people would consider meh in relation to the best.
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Many taco places here have often 2 people in the kitchen doing all the work including making the tortillas (often they also cover the register) - I don’t really understand how people think that making tortillas in-house would require additional people to be hired.
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The family from Mexico that runs a very small hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood Boston area would beg to differ. They say it’s not cost effective for them to make their own tortillas, and they are barely hanging on. Possibly because there is very little good/authentic Mexican food in the Boston area, which has been true for decades and is very well known, and the other hole-in-the-wall restaurants in our neighborhood are owned by people from Brazil and from El Salvador.
There are few Mexican immigrants in our area and all of this means there is neither high demand nor reward for house-made corn tortillas. This restaurant is still open because a city councilor who lives in the neighborhood helped them clear the city hurdles to get a license to sell tequila and beer.
This is extremely different from most areas of Northern California, where I lived before moving to Boston area.
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That’s something I kind of doubt - if you look at the cost of buying/making masa compared to buying tortillas somewhere, I would expect that making your own tortilla would be cheaper (even if you include the labor cost of using the tortilla press and making it on the griddle). I would expect that they don’t think most customers would recognize/appreciate the difference as the main reason for not doing it (which I am also not sure if they couldn’t use it relatively easy as a way to stand out in the Boston area and attract more customers)
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Handmade tortillas are nice but I don’t think it’s the definition of how good a place is, or how good a taco is. I’d guess 90% of places in California would go out of business if handmade tortillas defined how good a place is. You’d then knock off all the highly rated or liked taquerias that do NOT service freshly hand made tortillas…as in most of them.
It’s not hard to make tortillas but it’s labor intensive especially if you’re running a business to make a living. You have to have one person making tortillas on demand during operations. On that note, have you ever run a restaurant, food truck/stall or the like?
As for the taco stands near Oakland coliseum that make handmade tortillas, my take is they’re more traditional and run by recent immigrants….BUT most have very limited hours….mostly weekends and half the day, not the hours of a brick and mortar that has to cover rent. Low or no rent makes the handmade tortillas a bit easier. On a side hustle business or a popup I can see it….but not if you’re trying to make rent on a brick and mortar and being open daily. Having one person man the tortilla station for 12+ hours is a huge suck on resources. I’ve only seen handmade tortillas in a restaurant in a few places…really old school places in LA.
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