Things I Miss About American, Part II: Mexican Food

Bobby and I went to a meeting of American Ex-Pats last week. I was expecting to talk to everyone about the US Democratic Primary race and was ready to defend my support of Hillary, however, I ended up talking to no one about that subject but did talk to about 12 different people about how London how no decent Mexican food. Oh how I miss it. And, as it turns out, i'm not alone.

Bobby and I have found one REALLY good Mexican restaurant. But, while it is VERY good, it's upscale authentic Mexican, and that's not what I really miss. What I miss is that hole-in-the-wall Mexican food. You know how every town has that Mexican restaurant whose name starts with El and whose menu is numbered 1 - 64? Yeah, thats what I miss. I miss my taco salad with chicken.

We've explored quite a few very BAD Mexican restaurants in our quest of find a decent burrito. What we've determined is that the lack of any good Mexican food is due to two factors: 1- There are very few (if any) Mexicans in London and 2- You can't get the products needed to produce good Mexican food here. Let's discuss:

1- There are very few (if any) Mexicans in London. Now, this is obviously a gross generalization. But, while i've met people from all over the world in this city (including many Latin American countries), I have yet to meet someone from Mexico and i'm not convinced that the chefs at these so called 'Mexican Restaurants' are, in fact, Mexican. As I discussed in an earlier post, we have been impressed at how authentic the European and Asian food is in this city. However, I wouldn't be surprised if you found a bunch of Italians or Indians in the kitchens at the Mexican Restaurants here (while it would be the exact opposite in the states).

2- You can't get the products needed to produce good Mexican food here. This, is not a generalization. One problem you face when trying to reproduce Mexican food is the lack of a variety in the cheese department. They basically have one type of cheese here: cheddar. It comes in different types (ie, mild, strong, aged, etc), but its all just cheddar. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we can find some feta or mozzarella in the grocery store, but if you wanted something like monteray jack, well, just forget about it. Another problem you face is the fact that they don't have tortilla chips here. They have dorritos and sometimes we can find the just plain old salted variety that come close to American tortilla chips, but, when we've ordered Nachos in restaurants, we've usually gotten Cool Ranch Dorritos covered in melted cheddar. Gross. Another problem Bobby and I face when cooking Mexican food is the lack of ground meats. At home, we would always make burritos with ground chicken or turkey (since I avoid beef) but here, you can't find it. They do offer ground beef, along with ground pork and lamb, so we usually opt for the pork, but its just not the same.

Now, when I come home to visit and just want to go to El (fill in the blank) for every meal, you'll understand why.