Dear citizens of Mexico it is time for you rethink you emigration strategy. See what you are doing right now is no longer working all that well, not for you and certainly not for me. This whole running, walking, crawling, digging a tunnel, hitching a ride across the US border is just getting you shot, caught, dehydrated and lost to death in the desert and with those crazy Texans arming themselves well, we all know you will be target practice. Not to mention the drug cartels…yeah I can’t decide what’s worse either – crazy armed Texans or drug cartels hmm.
Anyway I have a better idea for you, one that has worked well for thousands of people from Iran, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Thailand, and many other countries…come to Australia…on a boat. See these guys turn no one away and sent no one back as long as you show up claiming to need political asylum. And with all your corrupt officials owned by the cartels well you have a case for asylum if I ever heard of one. And oh not only do they not send you back, they house you, educate you (English and school for the kids) even if it takes 7-10 years to sort out your paper work. And I have it on good authority that the housing for the boat people is better than the housing for the welfare people.
What? You have a problem with boats? How do you think the Cubans, Haitians, Santo Domingans, Jamaicans and the rest of my Caribbean peeps have done it going to the US all these years? On boats mis amigos on boats so off to find a boat you go. There are just a few conditions:
- Make sure you bring Abuela’s recipes with you
- make sure you bring a few people in the boat that can cook said recipes (the more the merrier), and
- make sure whoever is carrying the recipes has them wrapped in oil skin (water proof) and can swim
See last Saturday night I went out to what has been touted as one of the ‘best’ Mexican places in Perth – it’s so hot you needed a reservation in advance to get in and there was a line of the non reserved waiting and hoping for a seat.
I ordered a small margarita ($12.50) boy was it small and had zero alcohol in as far as I could tell and was SUPER sweet and came from a spinning frozen machine I later found out
No chips and salsa for free so I ordered the sampler ($16.50) and it came with 3 dips: salsa, guacamole, and chili con queso (I skipped the chili and got just the queso). For my main meal I ordered the shrimp enchilada ($12.00)
Everything came out together (pet peeve)
The chips were from a bag – yup they were store bought with very little corn in the corn chips. Doritos makes a plain ‘corn’ chip for the Aussie market and I swear it was that. The good news is that the guacamole had fresh avocado (not the powder stuff) but that seemed to be it, I did not taste any garlic, onion, cilantro, lemon or jalapeno. But it did have a dollop of sour cream on top of it. Hmm the salsa I am not sure what it was it was a runny red liquid that tasted as if it might have been ancho chili from the jar purred with a tomato. And the cheese was just you just cheese from a can that 3 chips in made me feel queasy so I had to stop.
The Enchilada was a single corn tortilla with 4 small tough shrimp inside the outside was covered in Enchilada sauce and cheese and the whole thing was (I believe) microwaved. The cheese stuck to the plate and came up in a whole crunchy piece - the best part of the dish (who doesn’t love hot crunchy cheese), the tortilla had dried out and cracked and there was some shredded iceberg lettuce and 6 pieces of finely diced tomato. (No beans, no rice and not a cilantro in the house)
I decided to investigate to creators of this gastronomic delight and took off to skulk around the back of the restaurant and peer into the kitchen. See what I failed to mention many paragraphs ago is that NONE of the wait staff in the restaurant were Mexican or of Mexican descent. In fact looking around I would said I was the closest thing to Mexico there. Working there were Caucasians, Asians, Black, and some Mixed but no Mexicans. So there was I at the back door peeping in when I saw two people one was male dark hair, dark skin one was female skin lighter than mine with lots of dark hair in a bun. Those two were working together but the owner was an older Caucasian guy. So I don’t know. Maybe they are Mexican but we all would admit it’s not every Mexican that can create great food.
The others I was with really enjoyed their meals so I was not about to burst their bubble by telling them that it was not even Mexican food. See I have had good Mexican food from the Americanized version to the ‘we know you just crawled across the border but don’t care because this is so good’ version.
I got home feeling queasy and sick, spent Sunday going to the toilet every 2hrs and today Thursday my system still has not fully recovered.
So until my dear Mexican friends get here by boat and get processed and start a real restaurant or hand deliver Abuela’s recipes to me so I can start the restaurant and hire them. I am going to back to what I have been doing for the past 7 months – making my Mexican at home. It’s fantastic!! If I do rather un-humbly do say so myself, I have never made myself sick and my guac brings all the boys to the yard (perhaps only in my own mind but still...)
Check out the pictures below – one is the back of the tee-shirts the wait staff were wearing and the other was from one of the dining rooms. I am telling myself it has to be a deliberate joke (the manyana misspelling)
