Mexican Grub

One of the toughest things about being back in DC is that the "cultured" food (for me, Asian, Mexican, etc...most everything outside of wings and burgers) isn't nearly as good as it was in San Francisco, where you could eat good, cheap, and authentic on the regular.

I remember, when I was a kid, going to Chi Chi's all the time for special occasions or my birthday, because I just loved that shit. Loved it! And, even though I was hangin' out in Rockville, Maryland, as a kid I thought "authentic Mexicana" was cheap salsa/merengue playing over the loudspeakers, with white girls in those Chi Chi's uniforms, and that "authentic" Alamo-style cave that served as our restaurant. (Oh, right..."ristorante.") I loved tacos--the only Mexican I would ever get, save for the occasional enchilada--and even though Mom made up some good El Paso-brand hard shell tacos for my bro and I growing up, there was something special about buying it at Chi Chi's.

In high school, my basketball friends and I used to go play for a couple hours after school, then hit High's (the 7-11 wanna-be in Maryland) for Big Gulps, then went over to the local Taco Bell for a snack with the boys. When I was playing on the varsity b-ball team back then, I can still remember a hundred different occasions when I would roll over to "The Bell" with Jason "The Wagoneer" McGrath to grab a soft taco 6-pak...all the while just waiting for the coroner to pick my ass up off the curb. Damn, though, how good was that shit??

During college, I gave up The Bell for good, but when I moved to San Francisco, I embraced real Mexican food for what it is...sweet, beautiful melodies played over the sounds of steak cooking over the open flame. The burrito, sweet Jesus, the burrito...when you watch a technician, a true craftsman, at work, taking not 12 seconds to somehow throw meat, beans, rice, lettuce, salsa, and whatever else he can get into your shell, you know you are salivating just READIN' about this shit right now.

And, the size of it! Man, in California it seemed like every meal for two years, the burrito grew in size, from six inches in length to a whopping 12-incher by the time I was packing to leave; I was buying burritos late night so I had something for now AND something for lunch the next day. What made it even more special, though, was quite simple: you were dropping three, maybe four bucks for what many of my friends thought were two meals. You can't beat that kind of value, especially when you are living paycheck to paycheck and all you can count on is that next soft wrap to get you through the night.

Did you know that Mexican food is more than just tacos, burritos and chips & salsa?? Until I left for California, I had only heard rumors about such sweet truths, but there it was for me, in the flesh--real quesadillas, enchiladas that were worthwhile, chorizos, 12 kinds of meat to throw into your burrito...it just grew out of control! When I worked at that title company in the Mission, I was eating Mexican and Chinese every single day...I couldn't believe Mexican food was so diverse!!

Then, I came back to the East Coast.

I remember, soon after coming back, having dinner with my friend Wendy "Kabul for Life" Robison, at a Mexican place in Dupont Circle. When I opened the menu, I almost flipped the table over, I was so irate at the pricing. $12 for an "Enchilada Platter"? Oh, so the refried beans, rice and four-inch enchilada were, what, fucking imported tonight from the motherland and served to me during a fucking embargo? What, is this the finest set of fucking motherfucking refried beans your "chef" could serve? Was the rice aged before being delicately placed on my plate?

Man, I almost lost it that night. But, I didn't let it show, because I knew that moving back east would be an adjustment. When I went to Rio Grande a month later with my friend Kristin, I had a similar experience; as Gordon "The Professional" Stokes said during this dinner, it's funny how many of these Mexican joints have the same Mexican "flava" from spot to spot. Our checklist of

Amazingly-blasé salsa music
Pictures of smiling, happy, banjo-playin' fat Mexicans on the menu and walls of restaurant
Beer selection of Tecaté, Corona and...Bud Light
Senoritas in costume and
Cosmopolitan hostesses matched with Spanish-speaking waiters

was all good. Like most chain Mexican spots, they had the Basics category, where you could get one soft taco (with "the fixins" like rice, beans, etc.) for $8...or two tacos for $9...or three tacos for $10. Whenever I go out to chain Mexican joints and people get something off the Basics menu but get just one of any particular item, I ask them

"Why the hell don't you just get three? The reason why it only costs you $2 more to get TRIPLE the food is because the ingredients for this shit costs the restaurant nearly nothing. Even if you only make it 2/3 of the way through, you still get more value than getting one taco for fucking eight bucks!"

Seriously, you KNOW that the food costs the restaurant nothing when you can get double the order for like a dollar more. This is like when Little Caesar's (are they even still in business?) used to charge you like $10 for a pizza, and for a dollar more you could get two pizzas and a couple of toppings. Shouldn't that be enough to scare you off??

Sit-down Mexican spots have done a good job of scaring me off, that's for sure. Last week, I went to Taco Bell for the first time in about four years, and I must say, getting four soft tacos and a Dew for four bucks felt pretty good, even if I took a nose dive in the quality department. Hey, I may have a job, but I still have a pretty good eye for tasty, cheap grub!

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

DJ Enferno's recent Thursday-night set: Opening Weekend
Handling a chain saw: $9.50 Show
Being a 49ers fan...up until 2000: Matinee
Reese Witherspoon, lately: Rental
Cicadas: Hard Vice

bellview--muchos besos

Mexican Grub