Thinking about the shrimp tortillas that I had yesterday ….. tempura battered jumbo peeled and cleaned shrimp that’s such a delicious cross-cultural metaphor. As confirmed by my co-worker, there’s no such thing as a shrimp tortilla in Mexico. If you ever look closely enough, you have to realize that most of the fresh taco places, including this one, are actually run by Chinese. Some of them look and dress ambiguously enough that you aren’t sure until they call out their orders to the kitchen.
I had gone earlier in the week to pick up some other stuff for the office luncheon and realized that they are doing gangbuster business. They got the Mexican food, they do Chinese food, and they do fried chicken, and people in the neighborhood can’t get enough of it. The thing that is really bizzare is that, two doors down, there is an authentic Chino-Latino place (with real Chinese from South America that speak fluent Spanish) that’s been there since the ’70s, and they’re getting creamed by these guys that probably never set foot in Mexico. Talk about mindblowing!