NY Times — “41 of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States” Updated

Some yankees from the New York Times compiled a list of “41 of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States.”

According to this post from SanAntonio.CultureMap.com:

Mostly written by James Beard Award-winning food writers Brett Anderson and Bill Esparza, the duo “visited dozens of Mexicans restaurants across the country over the course of a year” to compile the list, the Times explains.

And not one El Paso restaurant? Come on. At least 30 of the 41 greatest Mexican restaurants in the United States are in El Paso. They could have visited dozens of great Mexican restaurants in El Paso in a week, if they were trying. Like lots of us do, not trying. In El Paso we don’t call it Mexican food. We just call it food.

“This list is not an attempt to rank the best Mexican restaurants,” the duo write. “It is, rather, a mosaic of great places to eat, from food trucks to corner restaurants to tasting-menu counters. We hope it tells an expansive story about Mexican cooking in America today — a dynamic cuisine all its own, and as American as any food.”

Mexico has a varied culinary landscape. Different regions have different cuisines. Cochinita pibil, and tamales in banana leaves, for instance. Fish tacos. Last month I went to Veracruz, and they don’t have burritos in Veracruz. Horrors. You have to go no further than Sonora to get green menudo. To stand out, a food stand in Nacozari offers Juarez menudo.

El Paso’s Mexican food is its own cuisine.

Our diaspora has even taken El Paso’s Mexican food different places. There are El Paso Taquerias in cities all over the United States. There’s even an El Paso Taqueria on 97th Street in New York City. You’d think those writers for the New York Times could have taken the hint.

Did they try the machaca at Lucy’s? The chile con queso at the L&J? The nachos at the Tap? Menudo at the Good Luck? The green chicken enchiladas from Kiki’s? The daily comida corrida (great at least 4 days out of 5) from El Jacalito? Chiles rellenos from Chope’s? The gorditas from the Little Diner? Those are all hard to beat, and I know I’m leaving dozens out. Forgive me.

(I know Chope’s and the Little Diner aren’t in El Paso, but they’re close enough.)

Maybe those excellent meals aren’t pretentious enough for some yankees from New York. Maybe they should try the duck breast mole at Taft-Diaz, even though Taft-Diaz isn’t really a Mexican restaurant, even though it’s 100% Mexican, Mexican owned, and Mexican operated, with an award-winning Mexican chef. Taft-Diaz pulls off some pretentious takes on Mexican food (like duck breast mole).

When I was younger, traveling across the U.S. to go to Frisbee tournaments, you couldn’t even find a good Mexican restaurant past Las Cruces, and Cruces only had one that was worth the claim. Now, every city in the United States has a passable Mexican restaurant. If your standards are low enough.

You know what they say about opinions. Everyone has one. Maybe the New York Times was just trying to be ironic with their list of greatest restaurants, as judged by a couple of yankees. New Yorkers are famous for being ironic. And friendly. But . . . .

In the almost forgotten words of some commercial for jarred salsa, “New York City? Get a rope.”

Update 5 Sep 2023: ElPasoTimes.com reports that Taqueria Elemi over there in Westworld made the New York Times list of the 41 Greatest Mexican restaurants in America. I, of course, don’t have a subscription to the New York Times. I rely only on the echoes of the trees falling in the forests.

I stand corrected. Please forgive me. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.

I’m sure Taqueria Elemi is very good.