"you can't judge a mexican restaurant by it's salsa"

[kid a]

oh yea you can . . . i do.

Picking a place for lunch today, my "fool" of an assistant made this comment!

What a FOOL!

[djeseru]

1. Er, sorry.

But if it's crappy salsa, the rest of the meal's going downhill from there. Life's too short for bad Mexican food.

[Crazy Dave]

2. Quote from Jerry to George in "The Pitch"

"Salsa is now the number one condiment in America do you know why? Because people like to say Salsa"

[ChoralScholar]

25. immediately followed

by some comment about Hispanics not being able to order 'seltzer' because people keep bringing them 'salsa'

[henslee]

59. I agree. And if its a serve yourself salsa bar... its always better to

wait for a new batch than the soupy stuff at the bottom.

[anarch]

3. yeah, that's kind of an ignorant thing to say

let's see here: salsa is food, so this statement might be generalized to say "You can't judge a restaurant by its food". I disagree.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. Now, now, Cynthia....

:silly:

Absolutely agree. If the salsa is mediocre I have little hope for the rest of the menu. Same deal with bread baskets in other restaurants. Under baked faux sourdough rolls aren't a good sign.

[meegbear]

5. But you can judge a Chinese restaurant by it's fried rice

[Xipe Totec]

7. My wife judges Chinese restaurants by smell

She opens the door, breathes in the aroma, and makes a choice to leave or stay. It's all about the spices in the right proportions.

I can do the same with Mexican restaurants; they either smell right or they don't.

[meegbear]

10. That makes sense ...

and a lot better than buying a meal and finding it's not to your liking.

[benburch]

12. Some places are so spotlessly clean...

...and have such good air that there is almost no smell, though.

[Xipe Totec]

14. Those restaurants are missing a bet

There is no better advertisement than the smell of good food, well prepared.

Food is a sensual pleasure, and smell is an important component of that sensual experience.

I don't want just to be fed, I want to be seduced. :9

[benburch]

20. Perhaps!

But spotlessly clean has its own appeal.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

46. Most of the fine, 4 or 5 star restaurants I've been to are "clean"

Methinks they're doing just fine. :-)

[Xipe Totec]

47. Since when has the aroma of food become "unclean"?

very strange.

:shrug:

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

48. If that aroma is getting out of the kitchen,

it has to do with either cleanliness, lack of proper ventilation, or both.

[Xipe Totec]

50. That's one hypothesis n/t

[henslee]

62. A chef once told me, she would start cooking a boullabaise in the

morning. You could smell it a block away.

[Xipe Totec]

64. My wife too!

She's a gourmet; I'm a gourmand. Perfect match.

When she prepares seafood stock for a Caldo Verde Mazatlan, it takes hundreds of dollars worth of seafood to make a couple of quarts of stock. I can smell the stock as I pull into the driveway.

Persian Koresh with dried lemons, Thai green curry with beef and eggplant, Seafood file gumbo with crawfish. Each has a distinct aroma that I can sense even before I open my front door.

Only a privileged few have had the pleasure of eating dinner at our table. And they know it.

So when I say my wife can tell a good restaurant by smell, It is not bragging; it is stating flat fact.

:9

[henslee]

65. You are truly blessed. Hey ever read Kitchen Confidential? If

not, check it out. It is a must read by the Bourdrain guy (spelling?) I dont really go for his other books or or his tv show. But that book rocks. Funny as hell.

[trof]

29. And if they have cats.

;-)

[Xipe Totec]

33. Please, the PC term is Urban Cabrito

:evilgrin:

[petronius]

32. I was always told to judge Chinese places by the noise

According to my friend's mom, if the place is full of Chinese people talking loudly (or even better, yelling across the table), that's a sign that the food is good...

[Xipe Totec]

52. There's truth in that too

The best restaurants are high traffic and frequented by their respective ethnic groups.

And they are noisy places with large extended families eating together. I love seeing that.

[Initech]

6. Actually, I can agree with that statement

And this is coming from someone who has been to probably every Mexican restaraunt in Southern California.

[Duer 157099]

43. Yeah? What do you think of El Abajeno?

(in Culver City)

[Initech]

58. OK, maybe I havent been to every mexican restaraunt in So Cal..

I've been to most of them, I cant recall eating at that place.

[Duer 157099]

61. Yeah, well it's a dive, hole in the wall.

But! If you find yourself in Culver City (Inglewood and Culver, I think) check it out. The carnitas taquitos are ... oh... and the hot salsa, oh boy.

Seriously recommend.

[Initech]

68. The best Mexican joints are holes in the wall!

My personal fav is El Farolito in Fullerton. I go there at LEAST once a week.

[tigereye]

8. yes, yes you can

watery salsa, the kiss of death IMO.

[benburch]

9. Here in Elgin we have dozens of real Mexican restaurants...

Makes me wonder how the Taco Bell stays in business?

[WildEyedLiberal]

34. There are several down here, too

They're not much more expensive than Taco Bell, either! A la carte enchiladas, burritos, and tacos are anwhere from $1.50-$3.50. Not to mention that it's actual food.

I guess authentic Mexican places should have drives thrus and be open till 3 am.

[benburch]

37. Most of our Taquerias here ARE open til 3 AM.

But no drive-throughs. Not efficient to do that when real food takes a few minutes to prepare.

[WildEyedLiberal]

38. Yeah, sadly, we don't have any quickie taquerias

Some really good sit-down authentic places, though. I loves me the Mexican food. :9

[benburch]

39. Damn. Now I want a BBQ Burrito...

That would require getting dressed, though...

I guess I'm safe,

[WolverineDG]

11. I also judge a Mexican restaurant by

whether the chips are Doritos or home-made. Bonus points are given if they are home-made AND free.

dg

[Bridget Burke]

17. Here in Texas, there is a God Given Right to Free Chips & Salsa....

That applies to visitors, as well. It may be in the State Constitution--same amendment as Free Refills of your Iced Tea?

Upscale Mexican restaurants have opened here & not offered the chips because they don't serve them in Mexico. But they learned the error of their ways.

And, yes, if the chips & salsa are not good, I'm not happy. Extra points for multiple salsas. Like Ninfa's--with a good cooked red salsa & the famous green avocado/crema salsa....

[WolverineDG]

18. I was going to add that criteria

I'm from Texas too & folks don't like it when you make 'em pay for chips & salsa!! :)

dg

[NoPasaran]

66. ¡Salsa o muerte!

[2bfree]

51. Well ain't that the truth!

:)

[WildEyedLiberal]

35. It's automatically not an authentic Mexican restaurant

If it does not have free, homemade chips and salsa.

If you have to pay for it, it ain't real Mexican.

If it came from a bag and a bottle, it ain't real Mexican.

[giant_robot]

13. I disagree with that statement

My favorite place has fresh homemade salsa, guacamole, and pico de gallo. It makes all the difference in the world, imo.

on edit: brainfart.

[KitchenWitch]

15. Salsa is the BEST thing to use to judge a mexican restaurant

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. The crappier the restaurant, the better the food.

...is what I've usually found. The best food comes from very recent immigrants who are just starting up their family-owned business and can't afford to rent a very nice place. The best mexican food I ever had came from a little walk up shack with a picnic table outside.

[Innoma]

24. I have to agree...

Some of the best Mexican food I've had has been in out-of-the-way places where, more often than not, the family live on the premises, and your huevos rancheros or menudo is punctuated by Saturday morning cartoons from the back room. And nothing is worse than all those bland, Americanized Mexican restaurants that serve tacos in rock-hard, preformed shells, filled with sloppy hamburger meat and a gargantuan dollop of sour cream on the top. Ptui!

Tres lengua tacos, por favor!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. Same goes for any foriegn food, I suppose.

I was eating at an Indian place the other afternoon, and a school bus rolled up to the front, three kids got off, went straight to the back of the restaurant, and started playing.

[Innoma]

31. I can still remember...

I can still remember going to work on weekends with my dad, and he would drag me out of bed, bleary-eyed and semi-violent at 7 am, just so we could start off the day at a local, hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant who's owner hobbled around precariously on a bad leg and whose wife was at least as big as a refrigerator. In those early days, getting me out of bed before 11 a.m. took something more than divine intervention, but once I sampled the food, packs of wild dogs and a Saturday morning marathon of Bugs Bunny and Science Fiction theater couldn't keep me away!

Just when I got good and acclimated to 7 a.m. mornings, the owner sadly passed away and the restaurant closed down permanently. I can safely say their huevos rancheros were an absolute revelation, and never again have I witnessed their like on this planet, although I've been searching in vain for something even fractionally similar for a good two decades now.

Where most huevos rancheros are little more than a couple of fried eggs on a soggy tortilla with a thin slathering of tepid, watery red sauce on top, their huevos rancheros were a kind of alchemical magic using ingredients certainly not available to mortal men - they were that good. Try as I might, I have never been able to duplicate that heady concoction on my own, and all other Mexican restaurant offerings are mere pretenders to the throne.

Alas, what I wouldn't give for one last sampling of those magical huevos rancheros! But, if nothing else, at least I'll stop at every off-the-beaten-path hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant until the end of my days hoping to find that holy grail of huevos rancheros that I knew in my youth.

[Bridget Burke]

44. Calvin Trillin has said he prefers Mexican restaurants that serve tripe.

He probably won't order the tripe. But its presence on the menu means the restaurant shows promise.

[Sequoia]

55. La Cabana in Santa Monica

on Rose Stree is great and I miss it like nothing else. Hand made torts too over fire. God how I miss that place.

[SOteric]

19. There's no excuse for bad Mexican food, salsa included.

There are myriad talented Mexican cooks looking for employment. It just shouldn't be that hard to find one.

:hi:

[alarimer]

21. Yes you can

If they serve Pace they are no good.

[fudge stripe cookays]

22. Bullcrap.

It's the ONLY criteria as far as I"m concerned. Yeah, the other stuff is important, but if I go and the salsa sucks, I won't be back.

And I want it to be a full-bodied red- hot but so nasal-scalding that you can't taste it.

And there has to be a nice pepper to cilantro ratio. That watery shit's for the birds.

Texan here too. 36 years.

[GOPisEvil]

23. If a place can't make a decent salsa, it's a safe bet the food sucks.

It's salsa for crying out loud...

[Sequoia]

54. Went to a local Mex place in N. Cal and

the salsa was as mild as baby's breath. I asked the girl I was with why her dad's place made salsa that wasn't hot and she said the people couldn't handle it!!!!! Gasp! Then another co-worker blabbed how it was the best one in town. Clueless. Mild salsa is just mashed up tomatoes.

[trof]

26. The hell you can't.

period.
And the chips.

[GOPisEvil]

27. If the chips are stale, pay your drink tab and leave.

[trof]

30. Bingo

[Lethe]

36. yep you sure as hell can, except for one trend i see lately

in austin, some texmex restaurants purposely give you shitty salsa so you will be more apt to buy queso or another dip to go with your chips.

[Pithlet]

40. There is a restaurant near me that serves excellent salsa.

But the food sucks. Generally, you can use salsa as a rule of thumb when predicting how good a meal will be, but this place is an exception. :puke:

[nemo137]

41. If it's open til 3 am, not entirely full of drunk frat boys, and serves

free chips, then it's a good Mexican Restaurant.

Naturally, this disqualifies Qdoba and Chipotle.

[Bridget Burke]

45. I don't count Chipotle as a "Mexican Restaurant"

It does serve pretty good upscale tacos. One of the better options on fast food row, although more "authentic" stuff can be found elsewhere. (Especially in Houston.)

[Seabiscuit]

42. Before ordering food I always ask for salsa/chips and Dos Equis Amber

If the salsa/Dos Equis sends me to heaven, I'll order food. If not, I'll just have one more Dos Equis and leave. Always works like a charm for me.

[cleofus1]

49. i believe

you can judge a mexican resteraunt by it carnitas...(are they large tender and tasty)?

[Sequoia]

53. Yes, you can. I sure do.

[bridgit]

56. nonsense, among the things you judge a mexican restaurant as to...

is it's chili relleno B-)

[DawgHouse]

57. I go to a particular restaurant just because of the salsa!

Yummy!

[henslee]

60. You can always judge a restaurant by the cleanliness of its bathrooms.

[Left Is Write]

63. Sure you can.

[Jade Fox]

67. As it happens.....

my favorite Mexican restaurant has lousy salsa. That's why I don't go there very often, is spite of the fact everything else is wonderful.

Good salsa: very importante.