I was going to go with Rick Bayless has the best Mexican food in Chicago. If you don’t know who he is, it sounds like a complete troll, but it’s probably not far from the truth.
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I assume what you’re getting at is that the food isn’t actually that good. That’s not the case with Bayless’ best restaurant, Topolobampo – it’s fantastic. He has others but I don’t think they’re as good.
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I didn’t recognize the name and hell, idk maybe he is the best. Seems to be a little lacking in the self-awareness department though.
Just this year on the Sporkful podcast, Bayless lashed out at his critics. “Well, usually people who have that opinion of me don’t want to have a conversation. Those people that say it are usually very political, and they have a mouthpiece and they just go around saying it,” he said. “And everybody thinks, ‘Oh, lots of people must believe that.’ And honestly, I don’t think they do. I know that there have been a number of people out there that criticized me only – only – because of my race. Because I’m white, I can’t do anything with Mexican food. But we have to stop and say, ‘Oh wait, is that plain racism then?'”
There was a comedian I can’t remember now who had a joke about two Chinese generals greeting each other:
“General Tso, love your chicken.”
“And yours too my friend.”
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Yeah, this guy would be near the top in just about any city including many in Mexico.
Yeah, maybe the propensity to say dumb stuff runs in his family. But the dude knows his way around Mexican cuisine.
I imagine they don’t hand these out to just anybody:
Jaspers was almost my first table-waiting gig. But I heard about how they have to pool their tips and the (mafia) boss frequently steals from that, and also regularly punches cooks and waiters.
So I went to work for also mafia-run Chubby’s instead, where they only punch cooks, not waiters (I didn’t know any of this before taking the job). The waitstaff was me and a bunch of ex-con women. I worked with a madam, a meth-dealer and a woman who took a temp job at a bank, loaded her sweater with $12k cash and split at lunchtime on her first day. It was not boring. Many of them had to go back to their halfway house after work.
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I grew up all over KC - both sides of state line, graduated from Blue Springs.
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Seems legit. Although if the US had an equivalent award, I can’t imagine who Trump would have given it to. After Putin, I mean.
The thing about Mexican food is I don’t want to have to be the one to judge if it’s good or authentic or whatever. Too much pressure. I’m just some dude with Mexican parents. What the hell do I know?
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His might be tougher to judge since his specialty is Southern Mexican food, and my understanding is that it’s mostly the Northern stuff that is popular here.
Soy hijo de Norteños.
Don’t have any, sorry. I’m not much of a cook. I do have some of mom’s handwritten stuff that I scanned but honestly it’s hard to decipher. It’s like looking at someone else’s class notes. In Spanish.
It would be easier if I’d spent time in the kitchen with her but I had 4 sisters.
LOL, cincinnati chili is not just “chili from a can on top of spaghetti.”
Like I said, the “chili” is finely ground beef in a “sauce”. Oh, did I mention, it’s flavored with cinnamon, chocolate, chili powder, cumin, maybe some cloves, and other mediterranean flavors.
I’m telling you, if you’ve ever had real moussaka, you know what I’m talking about.
When you search “cincinnati chili” you’re getting a description of a 3-way (chili, spaghetti, cheese), 4-way (add beans), or 5-way (add onions), which is the style. The actual chili part is NOT what those pictures show. LOL.
Here:
Ingredients
- 5 cups water
- 6 oz can of Tomato paste
- 1/2 oz baking chocolate (unsweetened - I use Baker’s brand)
- 1/4 cup chili powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or less, depending on your desired heat level
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/4 lb lean ground beef
It’s reasonably easy to make at home, but you can never find cheese that is finely shredded enough, nor hot dog buns that are as soft as you get at an actual Skyline restaurant.
On another note, I 100% agree with you about Spain as the food capitol of the world, especially the north.
Also, New Mexican is the oldest and best regional cuisine in the US, and I’ll die on that hill. Nothing beats NM chiles. I would kill for a good carne adovada but you just can’t find it outside of NM
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It would to someone with an American palate brought up on the sweetness of burgers and hot dogs, of course - it’s designed specifically for that.
Also, there’s no such thing as “Chinese mainland food” as a cuisine because of the huge regional variations that you must be aware of, having lived in Wuhan. Maybe Shanghai food which is sweeter (and delicious) is more up your street.
ETA Melkerson said it
Sure it is a simplification on my part. Food in Wuhan was really spicy and Fujian province (where I lived for a year) was much sweeter.
Didn’t know you’d also lived in Fujiang. Seems like Eastern China food tends to be sweeter but inland and ofc in the South is much spicier.
I wasn’t as impressed with Beijing restaurant food nearly as much as Shanghai food, but the street food around san li tun is excellent.
Yeah the air in Wuhan was fucking me up. Got extremely sick while I was there from it. Had to move to a cleaner part of the country.
Anyway, that seems to be the case with regional cuisine. I ate a lot of street food. As a matter of fact, my weekday breakfast was baozi + water bottle. I’d eat the baozi as I walked to class and drink the water while teaching.
Don’t, it’s terrible.
The idea of Chinese or Indian food, as a monolith, is as weird as saying American food as if Texas BBQ and creole are the same thing. Indian food is especially varied regionally.
As for western Chinese, you guys don’t have ginger beef so you are really missing out!
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