It is good. The trouble is expectations.
You come in expecting Texas-style chili, a stew with tomatoes and ground beef and beans and lots of chili powder and cumin that you eat out of a bowl, you’re going to be shocked and disappointed.
You come in expecting a sauce made with meat that’s meant as a topping for other things (like spaghetti or hot dogs) that has the flavor profile of moussaka or other Greek/Mediterranean things, then you’ll be fine.
Probably not.
The only people I don’t tell to try Skyline when they visit are Texans. They just can’t get over the fact that we call it chili, even though it’s really…not. If anything, it’s closer to a bolognese, except with greek flavors instead of italian.
Honestly though, I tell people to just try a Skyline coney dog first. It’s a much easier ask.
I thought the main difference in the cuisines is that Chinese restaurant owners learned long ago that the best way to sell Asian food to Americans is to make it meaty and greasy.
I spent a week in Mexico in Celaya and San Miguel de Allende, and the food was less spicy and more limited in variety than typical Tex-Mex.
*ahem*
Yeah, as a proponent of beans in chili, I’ll never make the mistake of calling it Texas style in my advocacy.
Canonical Texas style doesn’t have ground beef or tomatoes either.
I’ve had authentic Indian food made by my friend from India and it sucked compared to the local Indian restaurant because my friend isn’t a chef.
Right, I deleted the part of my post about chunks of beef and tomatoes before posting for brevity, but I should have left them for accuracy. FTR, I go chunks of beef, beans, and tomatoes. Texas style is tasty, but I like some more vegetables in there.
Is your friend a 50+ woman who was raised in India and learned to cook from her mom? You can’t go wrong with someone like that. Although I’m sure there are others that can pull it off.
I often do a mix of ground and cubed, and usually add beans too.
When I used to go to the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin I’d actually skip the red all together and get their white chili, which is made with pork. Definitely not a purist.
What chilies do they put in their white? And is it cubed shoulder? Ground? Something else?
It’s cubed. Not sure on the chilis, probably a lot of poblanos? It’s been over a decade since I’ve had any. Here’s a pic I stole from the internet.
I was really lucky that I used to live close to a Mexican seafood restaurant that was so successful that the owner was able to leverage the success into a more upscale joint a few blocks down the street in a better part of town. Mexican food is a lot of things that many Americans and even Mexicans don’t get to experience. There’s a ton of variety in Mexican cuisine, and not all of it is spicy, but you may have to be reasonably well-to-do, and in a place that has great restaurants.
Yeah, looks like a somewhat less green chili verde. As a chili verde lover, I’m sure it was pretty great.
Minus the later in lifeoverzealousness of dictators though. Early stuff was great
Great summary. Thanks.
I think the most eye opening thing was the varying degrees of wealth. In my head they were all (including Panama) classified as pretty poor and not really that different from one another.
As a son of Mexican immigrants, I feel a sense of dread when someone tells me that X has the best Mexican food in Y.
