In the early 90s I went to Oahu for the company I worked for on a construction project. There was one Mexican restaurant listed on the island, downtown Honolulu. Decided to try it, the menu had mexican sounding dishes... what came out was unrecognizable as anything mex and tasted even worse.
Kent
Sounds like a place I went to in Jamestown NY. Late 90's. I lived down the road a bit in PA, asked a couple of folks where to get some Mexican food, as there was no place nearby. Jamestown was the "Big Town" in the area with the Sears store and such, so I found the place they recommended next time I was up there.
Probably should have known better than to take any Pennsylvanian advice about Mexican food given that in the 70's when I lived down in So PA one of the folks I fixed homemade shredded beef burritos for told me he preferred the beef and bean ones from the cooler in the 7-11. Then again, I think he was born in Binghamton NY.
Ordered a beef burrito at the place in Jamestown.
Waitress asked "Do you want onions on that?" Uh, yeah.
"You want peppers on that? " Uh, yeah.
"You want chips and "salsa"? I think I was nice and didn't say "well duh" and just said yeah.
Order comes, burrito swimming in red stuff that turns out tasting like spaghetti sauce, it even had ground beef in it, not spicy or even much chili flavor at all. The peppers in it were bell peppers, at least the onion tasted like onion.
Check came. $0.50 extra for the onion. $0.50 extra for the peppers. $3.50 (I think) for the chips and salsa
WTF I think. I figured she was being polite in asking about those things as I learned a long time ago about some Pennsylvanians, the ones that don't have family from warm places like Italy or Spain, think garlic in spaghetti sauce makes it "too spicy".
I gave her a bit of an earful when I told her those things, including the chips and salsa, are normal and free where I come from. Paid the check and never returned.
Good thing was, traveling through Bradford PA, having already eaten though, my wife and I noticed a sandwich board type sign on the sidewalk downtown. Mexican Food. One day we returned, myself somewhat reluctantly but with high hopes after the Jamestown experience, sat down, were greeted by a nice gringo lady, ordered our food. We were pleasantly surprised and told the gal so. And asked where she learned to make such good Mexican food.
She told us she grew up there but lived for a number of years in Buckeye AZ, where her Mexican husband managed a restaurant there. When she got homesick and wanted to move back to Bradford he agreed and opened a restaurant of their own when they got there.
The folks where I lived thought we were crazy to drive the hour or so, sometimes in winter with snow, just for Mexican food. When I told them I have probably eaten more tacos, enchiladas, burritos etc than hamburgers and hot dogs, they still didn't seem to understand.
It was hard enough in the 70's in PA for me to go to various stores just to get the ingredients to make the aforementioned burritos for my friends. I can make stuff I need to when I get to jonesin for Mexican food, but I cannot fathom living somewhere without a decent Mexican restaurant within a relatively short drive.
