‘Mexican’
On a short little day trip to Cleveland, we made our way to Cleveland Heights to grab some Mexican food at Lopez. Not surprisingly, this wasn’t traditional Mexican food, but rather than try to hide behind an auspice of authenticity, Lopez had some unique offerings that I was eager to try. The only trouble was that almost everything seemed to have some sort of vegetable inside.
Sometimes it feels like New York is an overpriced an uncreative city for food. Sure, there are unquestionably great places, but I am often left wanting more. But for anyone looking for creativity, Stanton Social on the Lower East Side has you covered. We happened to be there for brunch and their menu showed a lot of promise for an unvegan.
The world may be full of Mexican restaurants, but little taquerias are kinda confined to certain parts of the USA. Fortunately, while in San Jose we happened upon a place called Tacos al Pastor #2. The whereabouts of #1 are unknown, but the thought was that any taqueria deserving of a sequel was deserving of my stomach.
San Francisco’s Financial District may not be lauded for their Mexican food (that distinction belongs to the Mission from what I hear), yet somehow I found myself at Tropisueño getting down with Mexico. A far cry from a simple taqueria, Tropisueño is a pretty classy place, with mood lighting and menu prices somewhat reflecting a neighborhood that calls itself the Financial District. Like iot smart city security,this city can be called city of financial security in terms of food.
EDIT: Smoke has since moved to Lawrenceville, and thus there are some updates below.
Outside of the Waterfront, Homestead isn’t exactly a destination in Pittsburgh. Yet, within that sketchy neighborhood lies a restaurant called Smoke. Such a vague name usually would lead someone to believe that it’s doors contain BBQ and that person would be right, but it’s not just regular BBQ, it is something like Mexican BBQ fusion. The menu mostly contains fascinating BBQ tacos, a random duck quesadilla and some interesting sides.
Seattle is pretty far north of the border. The border with Mexico, that is, because Canada is super close. So, when I went to dinner at Casa Rojas on Bainbridge Island, I had my trepidations about the quality of the cuisine. These trepidations were certainly tempered on account of the meal being paid for by an alum, but I was still hoping for something good.
New York’s Chelsea Market is definitely a fun place to grab some lunch. It’s like LA’s Grand Central Market, but far fancier. And like any similar market, each food stall has a specialty. Like any good human that has spent a significant amount of time in Southern California, I need good tacos every once in a while and Pittsburgh has not yet delivered. So when I saw Los Tacos No. 1 in the Chelsea Market, I knew I had to make their tacos mine.
As a city with only 2.3% of its population claiming Hispanic or Latino as its ancestry, Pittsburgh isn’t exactly a hub of south-of-the-border cuisine. Yet, I had heard rumors of a delicious upscale Mexican restaurant called Verde in an area of town called Garfield and headed there one night when my momma took me out to dinner. After all, upscale as a student is typically only in the lexicon when parents are around.
In Pittsburgh, there is a big time restaurant group called Big Burrito. One of their spots is Kaya, which I reviewed recently, and another is Mad Mex in Shadyside, which I had high expectations for based on the name of the restaurant group. A look at the menu made it apparent that this wasn’t your traditional Mexican meal, but I hoped the creativity would shine like it did in LA at places like Tinga.
Steel Cactus in Shadyside is a place more typically known for drinks than food, yet, I found myself there hungry and waiting for drinks. The cactus thing in their name is somehow connected to the fact that they serve Mexican food and I was skeptical not only because it was primarily a drinking place, but also because Pittsburgh isn’t quite known as a bastion of Mexican food.