Foreign foods have a charm of their own. Especially when eating them in a different country. But often the appearance and taste are very different than what the native versions.
What irks me though is when the waiter or restaurant staff try to convince you that what they served you is actually the original !
Now this has happened to me twice with Mexican food.
The first time was a few months back at a California Burrito outlet nearby where we had gone for lunch as a family.
Among other items we had ordered a set of tacos.
Expected crunchy tacos with veg fillings but got soft tortilla bread with some filling instead. On raising the issue with the staff only brought back a curt response that this how tacos were ! Well if they had run out of tacos, they could have said so instead of using tortilla bread and insisting on calling them tacos.
The second instance occurred last weekend when I decided to Eggsplore. This place promised to serve various forms of eggs - recipes from different parts of the world including Burma, Japan, Texas and Indian variants. Decided to try a Mexican scramble that came with tortilla chips as a side and ordered the same. While I got some scrambled eggs and some salsa (almost Mexican), the chips did not look tortilla from any angle. I tasted the chips and they were more like some Bikaneri namkeen. When I pointed this out to the waiter, he repeated what I said and kept smiling.
Difficult to argue with a smile !
In spite of this debacle, I continue to root for Mexico at the ongoing World Cup. They started brilliantly with a win against the reigning world champions Germany but suffered a big defeat in their last league match against Sweden.
Some Mexican Gumbo should help :-)
What irks me though is when the waiter or restaurant staff try to convince you that what they served you is actually the original !
Now this has happened to me twice with Mexican food.
The first time was a few months back at a California Burrito outlet nearby where we had gone for lunch as a family.
Among other items we had ordered a set of tacos.
Expected crunchy tacos with veg fillings but got soft tortilla bread with some filling instead. On raising the issue with the staff only brought back a curt response that this how tacos were ! Well if they had run out of tacos, they could have said so instead of using tortilla bread and insisting on calling them tacos.
The second instance occurred last weekend when I decided to Eggsplore. This place promised to serve various forms of eggs - recipes from different parts of the world including Burma, Japan, Texas and Indian variants. Decided to try a Mexican scramble that came with tortilla chips as a side and ordered the same. While I got some scrambled eggs and some salsa (almost Mexican), the chips did not look tortilla from any angle. I tasted the chips and they were more like some Bikaneri namkeen. When I pointed this out to the waiter, he repeated what I said and kept smiling.
Difficult to argue with a smile !
In spite of this debacle, I continue to root for Mexico at the ongoing World Cup. They started brilliantly with a win against the reigning world champions Germany but suffered a big defeat in their last league match against Sweden.
Some Mexican Gumbo should help :-)
