Random Rantings by Douglas E Ryan

Tacos in the US are completely different from the US. There is no lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, etc on them. And yet, they are far superior. So with that in mind, this will be another cheap food post on how to make tacos.

1) Very thin meat (2.80 for half a kilo. You need about a third of that for 3 filling tacos)
2) A slice or two of Queso Machego (a bit on the expense side 25.04 for about 1/4 a kilo, but you only need a little)
3) A dash of Tajin Salsa en Polvo. This is a salt and red pepper mixture with a dash of lime (10 pesos for a bottle that will last bloody forever)
4) Corn Torillas

Slice you meat into thin strips and put them in the pan with hot oil. Add you dash of Tajin. When cooked, set aside. Put the torillas in the pan and cheese on and allow the cheese to melt. When cheese is melted put the meat on the torilla and fold and eat. Do not add sour cream, etc. You can serve with salsa verde or any real Mexico salsa. The flavor comes from the nice warm tortilla and cheese and meat and boosted by the Tajin. Maybe a dash of lime and clilantro would be good added to the meat, but I haven´t tried that myself.

Last night a group of us went to Ireland Pub. At first it was the hostel manager, a Spanish guy staying at the hostle and girlfriend. We also had guy from Liverpool who´se also studying to be a teacher.

There was a bit of a queue to get in and we stood outside for like fifteen or twenty minutes maybe. Once inside, they had the stereotypical tacky "Irish" stuff plastered over the wall like Guiness signs and the like and sign proporting to the directions to various places in Ireland, but why is Dublin to the left and other places to the right? Or maybe we´re meant think that´s a authentic Irish signpost? Like most shit bars, it was overcrowded with no proper dance floor or room to stand. The music ranged from total shit to decent with everything from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to some weird dance remix of The Happiest Days of our Lives (Pink Floyd´s "We Don´t Need No Education" song)

Of course, everybody was dancing and drinking in the Irish Pub in Mexico City full of Americans.

But then I traded with the enemy.

It´s true!

Treason!

We ordered a bottle of Havana Club, Cuban rum. Made in Cuba The stuff is brutal in the mornings, let me tell you.

And the night was finished off with some dodgy street hotdog and me thinking "Am I seriously eating this dodgy street hotdog at four O´Clock in the morning after going to an "Irish" bar in Mexico City?

These are some very cheap meals that I came up with. You can eat cheaply with ramon type food, but with that you`re eating little more than salty water and noodles.

Pasta and Frijoles

Half a small package of pasta (4 pesos for the packages)
A third a can of black beans (10 pesos for the whole can)
1 tomato (5 pesos for a kilo)
1 onion (10 pesos for a kilo)
Optional: A chipotle pepper (5 peso for a can)

These directions are very complex, so pay attention Boil the pasta using purified water. Maybe tap water will work, since the water is boiled but I don't want to chance it. While that's boiling cut up the tomato and onion. When pasta is done drain 90% of the water, add the beans, cut up tomatoes and onion and the pepper. Continue cooking untill the tomatoes are soft. Total cost: 2 peso for the pasta, 3 peso for the beans and a peso or so for the rest is about 6 peso or 60 cents. I got complaints on how this smelled.

Pasta and guten. The same only replace beans with a third a pack of flavored guten. Total price is horribly expensive now...about a dollar.

Guten and tortillas. This is sorta like fajitas only cheaper.

a third a bag of fajita flavoured wheat gluten (22 pesos for the whole bag)
1 tomato and an onion.
Optional a chipotle
a few corn tortillas (5 pesos of 1/2 kilo)

chop the tomato and onion. cook tomato and onion in a pan with the guten untill the guten looks like cooked meat and the oninion is soft. Heat the tortillas in the same pan until hot. Put the guten mixture in the tortillas and eat. Cost about 8 pesos.

I decided to go to the real supermarket today, instead of the Oxxo so I could get some nice meat and vegetables Walking there I noticed that there was some sort of farmer´s market going on in the park, so I decided to take a look. It´s amazing how good fresh fruit and vegetables smell. I could have lingered there forever. But I decided to just take note of the prices and see what the supermarket had to offer in the way of fruits and vegetables. I thought I was being a good, smart shopper.

Access to the supermarket parking lot is controlled by a gate and people in a both. When the cars entered, they were directed where to park by traffic control people. I guess with the many people, they didn´t want people driving around forever looking for a spot that might be six feet closer to the enterance like people in America do.

Entering the shore, the impression was like a Super Walmart (which they do have, I saw one from the plane ) There was general merchanise, on one side and food on the other. Well, there wasn´t as much general merchanise as Walmart. So I went up and down the aisles seeing what was available for while. The meat was not impressive. It was too expensive. What looks like about 3/4 pound hamburger was about 3.50. And why was the pollo (chicken) YELLOW?! Ok, where are the vegetables? I looked all up and down the aisle, no fresh vegetables. In some corner of the store? No! Unless I was completely blind the supermarket seriously did not have fresh veggies! I wonder if this normal for Mexico?

A lady was demo'ing some guten wrapped in a tortilla. That was surpisingly good, so I bought that, some salsa verde, tortillas and Lift (apple soda) for 49 pesos.

Back at the farmer´s market, I noticed somebody was selling old video game consoles, Atari 2600's, Intellisions, some weird 1970´s Pong game. That was kind of interesting, but I didn´t buy one. What was gonna do with one the novelity wore off in about 5 minutes? I wound up getting a kilo of onions and a kilo of tomatoes for 15 peso´s (about 1.50) So on my big shopping day, I spent all of $6.50. Also at the farmer´s market, there were taco stands galore but I didn´t get a taco. One place was kind of strange though. The seller put what looked like creamed corn into a cup, added some mayonaise and what looked like cayenne pepper and served it to her customer. It´s hard for me to imagine that would actually taste good, but I´m sure there are American foods that Mexicans will say "What the hell?" to as well.

Well, that´s it about shopping for now.

Something pursuaded me to purchase Paloma Real Charro Negro. It´s some sort of nefarious tequila cola, 5.5% alcohol. The cost was 12 peso (about $1.20). The smell is something like rum and coke, only sweeter. The colour, far from being negro, is lighter than regular cola, something like strong icedtea.

Here goes the first taste :sluuuurp: ´cuse me . Actually not too bad. The alcoholic taste hits first, followed by a sweet cola taste. It´s hard to make out that the alcohol is tequila, though. After a couple more drinks, the taste is growing on me. I feel like I´m drinking something more alcoholic than 5.5%.

I do have a complaint though. This losses it carbonation too quickly. But I get they only wanted light carbonation because when you mix coke and alcohol, the result is less carbonated than just coke by itself.

As I drink it down, the carbonation is becoming a biggier issue. It taste kind of flat and very sweet now. I´m getting a slight buzz now, probably because I´m drinking it realively quickly.

:final drink:

The verdict: Not bad, but nothing too exciting either. It needs either more carbonation or to be sold in a smaller bottle. Of course there´s always the possiblity that you´re not supposed to just drink it like a soda, but maybe drink shots of it?

I give this three raccoons out of a possible 5.

ps

I took a picture of the bottle, I´ll post it if I can find a economical way to transfer the pictures to a computer. (If the internet connection is present on a phone, you should be able to use it instead of idiotic artifical restrictions placed by the carriers and possibly the governments)