Chicken stock is a common ingredient in recipes. Don’t know if this holds true in Oaxaca.
The lard?
I cook Mexican food at home that is substantially better than at any place in LA, with the exception of Coni Seafood, which I cannot duplicate at home. It requires only rudimentary cooking ability, buying good ingredients, and loosely following the recipes in The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy. Try it and I’m sure you’ll agree.
I have had pretty good Mexican food in Mexico City and Oaxaca, but nothing too special, and I tried to eat at the best places there. I’m surprised given the substantial number of very wealthy people in Mexico City that there aren’t more high-end Mexican restaurants. It’s definitely a cuisine that is better cooked at home, at least because you can use the highest quality ingredients and you can focus more on execution.
To the folks making comments about vegan Mexican food: For what it’s worth, I think Gracias Madre (Cafe Gratitude’s vegan Mexican sister restaurant) is atrocious.
Have to agree.
looks G\great!
Honestly though, you can say that about many cuisines.
I can certainly cook Italian better than most places around town, but if I’m not inviting the FTCers over any time they feel like dropping in- doesn’t do them any good. Or telling them to buy a Marcella Hazan cookbook and good ingredients.
Since this isn’t the Home Cooking board it’s not very helpful to those that either don’t cook, have no interest in learning or just want to spend a nice night out NOT cooking.
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I literally eat out for 100% of my meals. I have a near-zero desire to cook for myself, so I particularly appreciate your sentiments here.
I wish you would open up an Italian restaurant if you can make better Italian food than anywhere in LA though. Until you ascend to the multiple michelin star level of obscene service it’s hard for me to imagine Italian food getting much better than the best of Italian in LA, different for sure, but idk about better. Even when I was in Italy I can’t say I enjoyed the food any more than the best places in LA. If another level exists I am sure the market exists for it here. Have you ever considered sharing your talents with the rest of us?
I’m kind of curious, what makes the Italian cooking around town not very good btw?
Like say you were tasked to make a spaghetti rustichella, what makes Bestia’s version not very good? How do you improve upon it? Are you just better at making pasta? You use more uni? etc…? Just really fascinated what is holding the Italian in LA back.
You are confusing my post with Alkie’s I believe. Mine was in response to his. Please read both.
I said I can cook better than most Italian places around town. Let me amend that to say as good as.
That certainly doesn’t stop me from going out for Italian frequently. Heck, I love Tana’s and they are serving shitty Barilla pasta.
Alkie said there is only one Mexican restaurant in LA that he cannot duplicate at home and suggested people buy a cookbook and good ingredients.
I never said I can cook better than anyplace in LA except one.
Wasn’t this in your post?
This seems to imply you cook better Italian than pretty much anywhere in LA? Or did you just mean better than like the shitty American Italian places that makeup the majority of the market, but not the truly great Italian places like Sotto, Bestia, Angelini, Alimento, etc…?
I can’t say the same thing about Italian. I can cook good Italian food using Marcella Hazan’s classic cookbook. While it may be better than, let’s say, Colori Kitchen or Terroni, it’s not on par with Drago Centro or Valentino. The food at those restaurants is prepared with more skill than I possess.
On the other hand, my home Mexican cooking is more skillful, and uses better ingredients than, the cooking at any of the Mexican restaurants that I’ve been to on J. Gold’s list or anyone else’s list. Certainly, I can cook better Mexican food than Border Grill, Guelaguetza, and La Casita Mexicana. There’s a tendency to conflate ethnic food with good food, because ethnic food is new and interesting, but the vast majority of Latin American restaurants in LA are mediocre at best, and not one of them that I’ve been to is particularly refined.
You ever been to Broken Spanish, Taco Maria, or Corazon y Miel?
No to all of those. And let me just say: I hold Coni’Seafood and B.S. Taqueria in high regard, so I’m not trying to make absolutist statements here. I’d like to try Taco Maria in particular.
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Is Border Grill known for good food? I’ve been there a couple of times and always thought it was very average food priced for Santa Monica tourists…
Back-handed self-flagellation.
Not to be confused with back-handed compliment.
I think you are missing most of the best Mexican cooking in LA then.
I would rank my meals at Border Grill and La Casita among the worst or at the very least most overrated Mexican meals I’ve ever eaten. Even Guelageutza has never been nearly as good as is claimed.
Compared to those three spots, B.S., CyM, and TM are practically from a different planet, and are all sensational.
I (and a number of homecooks I know) can cook on the level of restaurants for single dishes (even replicate dishes from French Laundry etc) but the hard part is to do it hundreds of times a day with many dishes. That’s why even excellent homecooks can’t simply open a restaurant but need many years of experience in a commercial kitchen and enough kitchen staff
Well, I would assume homecooks of such talents have no reason to dine out then. I, whether it is shameful or not, am not amongst the ranks of those able to cook at the level I enjoy when I go out to eat.
Is it truly so simple to replicate recipes from places like Saison? Or family traditions from hole-in-the-wall Thai, Mexican, etc… eateries one enjoys? Just by tasting are you able to understand everything needed to make the dish back home when of sufficient talent?
Nobody said it is simple - for very complex dishes from high end restaurants if you really want to truely replicate you need recipes and most importantly a lot of time. If you want to really remake some of the dishes fir example from French Laundry (with all its sub-recipes) we are talking about a weekend project (if not longer). For ethnic cuisines a combination of reasonable good ability to recognize flavors and a good cookbook library/basic internet research will bring you far.
There are still many, many reasons to dine out but perhaps the interests are shifting - for me the highest interest are restaurants which are either trying very unique regional ethnic dishes or trying to push the boundaries with unusual flavor/ingredient combinations (Bistro LQ is still one of our favorite restaurants - and according to Laurant we had by far the most tasting menus/dishes during its time on Beverly even though we live in SD).
You try Chichen Itza yet? If you consider your panuchos better than theirs can I please come over?
time
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