T.G. is the man. He felt moved to defend the honor of Erlangen, after reading about the "Worst Mexican Restaurant in the World" incident.
So, we went to La Pasion. Here is the menu (PDF, a download).
It was just fine. First, the chips/dip. You may recall that in the WMRITW this was crackers with ketchup-with-tomatoes. At La Pasion, a perfectly eatable bottled salsa, nothing special, but actual salsa. The guacamole was fine, and they HAD guacamole, which was an improvement.
The food came with beans, canned jalapenos, and fiery little fresh chiles with stems. The quesadillas...well, check the menu. They had...pollo! At the WMRITW the very idea of pollo had been mocked by the waitress, who had insisted only puten (turkey) could be used in Mexican food. But La Pasion lists chicken, pollo, and hanchen, which makes sense for a multi-lingual menu.
And the beer was first rate. A very excellent hefeweisse. (To be fair, even the WMRITW had managed to get that right).
So, overall, a perfectly acceptable Mexican restaurant. Wouldn't survive in Los Angeles, perhaps, but they used ingredients and flavorings that strongly reminded one of Mexican food. One of our party said the food was what you might get if your mom cooked Mexican, but I think that's not right. This was what you might get at Applebees or some chain. In any case, thanks to T.G.! Erlangen's honor is restored. I liked the restaurant very much.
3 comments:
Nothing says good, real Mexican food like "Mozarella sticks" as an appetizer.
Good times.
With regards, to TWMRITW, now you know how anyone from Asia feels when they come to this country and eat at nearly any Chinese restaurant. Do you really think there is a dish called General Tso's chicken in China? Never heard of it.
And by the way, the Mexican restaurants in this country are only recently reflective of true Mexican cuisine. The vast wave of immigrants from Mexico over the past thirty years brought some authenticity to this country. This means that you can now get very good and somewhat authentic Mexican food in Peoria as much as in Phoenix.
Funnily enough, turkey (guajolote) *IS* used extensively in authentic Mexican food in Mexico. Real old school Mexican food would have a guajolote as the protein in mole, not chicken.
Tex-Mex is not Mexican food, you know?
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