Mexican food restaurants as a metaphor for genre in electronic dance music

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So like Taco Bell and Del Taco and the other big Mexican fast-food chains are your pop mall-cart trance and happy hardcore and eurodance. They're kind of cheap and garish, pretty homogenized, of dubious nutritional value, not even remotely 'authentic', sell the most food, are what the uninitiated consider to be the archetype of Mexican food. Despite all this, you kind of get the Taco Bell jones once in a while.

Next you have your casual upscale Mexican chains; Baja Fresh, Rubios, Chipotle, et.al. This is your sasha/digweed prog-house/trance. Still pretty far removed from the gritty 'authentic' stuff, but made to a higher level of qualtiy. Often appeals to a more 'adult/sophisticated' aesthetic. Still not very adventureous, though, and rarely will you find any food here that would put the average joe off. This stuff tastes ok, I guess, but I get a vague sense of treachery to the true mexican food cause when I eat here. Also, if they play music, the singing will be in Spanish, but it'll be latin pop, salsa, or cuban music, never real Accordians and Horns waltz-time puro mexicano music.

Old mother house music, then, is the true blue So-Cal taco stand restaurant. All your robertos, albertos, filibertos, la fuentes, juantias, karinas, etc etc. These resturants range from the sublime to the merely servicable, and they all do a pretty close variation on the same menu they've always done. They're probably owned by a real live mexican family, all the music on the jukebox has people with big hats and huge belt-buckels on the cover, and probably has accordians in it. You can eat here every day of your life and feel spiritually fulfilled (and very fat)

― tylero (tylero), Monday, 30 January 2006 05:53 (twenty years ago)

This has been bubbling in my mind for years now. It's my own personal insanity.

Carne Asada Burritos all night long!
Carne Asada Burritos all night long!
Carne Asada Burritos all night long!

― tylero (tylero), Monday, 30 January 2006 05:54 (twenty years ago)

http://www.jatbar.com/images-t/t-441-3.jpg

― tylero (tylero), Monday, 30 January 2006 05:55 (twenty years ago)

Do you have dreadlocks?

― Twunt Patrol (noodle vague), Monday, 30 January 2006 05:56 (twenty years ago)

Burritoville => DFA
Uncle Moe's => Thievery Corporation (?)

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:13 (twenty years ago)

being a mexican myself, i find this thread really funny...in a good way

but what would the IDM/microhouse/techno equivalents?

― manuel (manuel), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:22 (twenty years ago)

but what would the IDM/microhouse/techno equivalents BE?

― manuel (manuel), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:23 (twenty years ago)

those upscale dining experience where three empanadas the size of quarters cost $28

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:24 (twenty years ago)

xpost-- sorry that's based on my own observations (prejudices) about the customers I have observed at those establishments rather than the type and quality of their cuisine, which is not nearly as interesting

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:24 (twenty years ago)

I think this all makes more sense if you grew up/live in So-Cal so take that for what you will.

But yeah, idm/microhouse/techno = fancy sit-down restaurants with stuff that joe sixpack would find wierd like nopales and mole sauce and birria and cabeza etc etc etc...

― tylero (tylero), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:27 (twenty years ago)

yeah, that's a good one

i think millsian techno would be tortas ahogadas...so spicy it's rushy, meaty, sloppy and pretty much a kick in the nuts to your ears/stomach

― manuel (manuel), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:31 (twenty years ago)

microwavable vegan burritos in Wild Oats freezer => tribal

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:34 (twenty years ago)

happy hardcore = frozen jalpeno poppers

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:44 (twenty years ago)

Kompakt/Get Physical/Border Community et.al. = Trendy San Francisco/No-Cal upscale burrito joints, like Zona Rosa. A zona rosa burrito is kind of wierd and pretty far removed from the true so-cal archetype (rice on the burrito? black beans? wtf???) and it's not a million miles away from the upscale (prog house/trance) burrito chains. It's really white but it's still really good. Besides, they're got an excuse (Restaurants: They're San Franciscan, Kompakt: They're German) for being wierd.

― tylero (tylero), Monday, 30 January 2006 07:47 (twenty years ago)

hi,

I will be in San Francisco next week, anyone have a favorite burrito place? do they even have burritos there?

― ziti sanskrit (sanskrit), Monday, 30 January 2006 13:29 (twenty years ago)

please someone make a technos analogy for el hat

not that they're worth shit since they painted over chico - you don't do that - there's only so many of those things

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 30 January 2006 14:50 (twenty years ago)

Are all the restaurants that advertise as "Mexican" but are really Cuban, Puerto Rican, Chilean or Dominican the equivalent of people like Bob Mould doing electronic albums? Or are they more like EBM- coming from industrial, but most people can't tell the difference anyway?
(Weirdly enough, these are usually my favorite places).

Then you've got the Mexican restaurants where they don't have any of the general Tex Mex fare, instead focusing on an incredibly specific geographical location's cuisine (also usually family owned), like Chiapas's weird potato and cactus omlettes or Tijauana seafood?

― js (honestengine), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:31 (twenty years ago)

true so-cal archetype

whateva! I've had your so-cal archetypes, you can keep them

― Serge Protecteur (nordicskilla), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:33 (twenty years ago)

Of course I wouldn't know, because all of our taquerias are yuppy and upscale and NOT owned by real Mexicans in authentic clothing.

― Serge Protecteur (nordicskilla), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:35 (twenty years ago)

You realize you're assigning these not based on Mexican food but like general place on a shopping heirarchy? Like you could substitute burgers or soap and the answers would line up equivalent.

(Actually body soap would be fun cuz Axe = Audio Bullys.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:49 (twenty years ago)

I was thinking that techno and IDM would actually be the taco truck(maybe this is a Texas thing) of electronic music.

Cheap and nasty operations running by the seat of their pants. The people running the stand actually made the food in their kitchen. They are getting the food out in the least glamourous way possible. It comes pre-wrapped in tin-foil in an old oven in the back of a pickup. It isn't as glamourous as baja fresh or chango's, but it costs half as much and the food is twice as good. You have to show up at the right place at the right time to get it.

I feel good about doing business with this kind operation because it is the business model that most reflects the way I would like the world to work. Small, unique, individual operations that service a very specific niche market. It is Individuals running their own businesses according to their desires. You know that the people that are doing the work(the family) are reaping all of the profits. They are not trying to homogenize the world, they are just trying to turn an honest buck by making a good breakfast taco.

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:12 (twenty years ago)

this guy = this guy

― naus (Robert T), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 03:48 (twenty years ago)

"What does Underground Refritos stand for?"
"Revolucion for Chimichangas. It stands for the de-gringoizing of the gringo-ed burrito"

- "Mad" Miguel Bancos

― tylero (tylero), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 04:07 (twenty years ago)

http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/682/urefrit7wf.gif

― tylero (tylero), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 04:14 (twenty years ago)

ziti, asking about the best burritos in san francisco can only lead to acrimony.

tyler, don't forget that the rice and black beans can also be vegan. donnacha costello.

― breakfast pants (disco stu), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 04:18 (twenty years ago)

soyrizo!

― breakfast pants (disco stu), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 04:21 (twenty years ago)

fucking a, i want to be that guy.

i have yet to discover any mexican food in barcelona (ok, i haven't dared, but there is one restaurant in gracia that serves huitlacoche, which i take to be a promising sign.... fools who don't know wouldn't fuck with huitlacoche, right?), and i'm freaking dying here. can't someone just fedex me a super burrito from SF's taqueria cancun? (and, for my upscale side, a nice papalote burrito w/ gambas while we're at it.)

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 15:36 (twenty years ago)

these analogies sound amazing! can someone translate them into british?

― The Lex (The Lex), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 15:43 (twenty years ago)

omg that ur parody just made everyone in my office look at me

― james van der beek (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 15:45 (twenty years ago)

Shit, when I was in Barcelona, there was a fantastic vegetarian Mexican place run by expats that was super fucking cheap, but I can't find the address around here. It was in the magazine Herbavore once I got back, but it was in one of those little free magazines around town while I was there.
I do know that there's a restaurant less than a block from the museum of contemporary art that serves faux mexican stuff as part of a rotating menu (and it's like four courses for less than 20 euros). But that's more of the form of burritos than their actual content (beans, spinach, some sort of soft cheese...)

― js (honestengine), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 16:21 (twenty years ago)

this is only making me jealous - please no mentions of texas bbq

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 16:44 (twenty years ago)

This thread has helped me understand mexican food better!

So what would be the food equivalent of hardstyle/gabba?

― Jacob (Jacob), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 03:37 (twenty years ago)

Philip OTM regarding cuitlacoche

cuitlacoche, of course, is a fungus that grows on maize/corn...you eat it on quesadillas and it's delicious. it is.

― manuel (manuel), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 05:50 (twenty years ago)

phil, you wanna see what it actually costs to UPS a papalote burrito to spain? i'll do it!

― that's so taylrr (ken taylrr), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 06:40 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Happy hardcore would be The Big Bomb microwavable burriots from 7/11.

Prog would be an upscale "tapas bar."

STANDARD

― Cliff =C= (OnoSendai), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 01:54 (twenty years ago)

I take offence to the equation of Eurodance with Taco Bell.

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 02:06 (twenty years ago)

this is the most imporant thread re: my education in electronic music.

DAMN I LOVES ME SOME TACOS AND SHIT.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 02:24 (twenty years ago)

What would be the equivalent of Chipotle? Maybe I could actually like electronic shit more if there was a Chipotle equivalent.

― regular roundups (Dave M), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:34 (twenty years ago)

I'd imagine it would be kind of like regular electronic music with a whole bunch of rice inexplicably crammed into it.

― Okeigh, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:39 (twenty years ago)

Next you have your casual upscale Mexican chains; Baja Fresh, Rubios, Chipotle, et.al. This is your sasha/digweed prog-house/trance. Still pretty far removed from the gritty 'authentic' stuff, but made to a higher level of qualtiy. Often appeals to a more 'adult/sophisticated' aesthetic. Still not very adventureous, though, and rarely will you find any food here that would put the average joe off. This stuff tastes ok, I guess, but I get a vague sense of treachery to the true mexican food cause when I eat here. Also, if they play music, the singing will be in Spanish, but it'll be latin pop, salsa, or cuban music, never real Accordians and Horns waltz-time puro mexicano music.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:40 (twenty years ago)

You know, I'm a big fan of ginger ale. Once I was trying to describe Vernor's Ginger Ale to someone to no avail, and then I said "If the Bay City Rollers were a Ginger Ale, they'd be Vernor's". The person actually didn't find it that enlightening, but I suddenly had a new appreciation of both Vernor's and the Rollers.

― Okeigh, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:44 (twenty years ago)

San Francisco burrito places ...

1. La Tortilla (Castro)
2. El Ballazo (Haight)
3. THE ENTIRE MISSION DISTRICT.

there is nothing BUT burritos in San Francisco.

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 05:58 (twenty years ago)

My bad xxpost. I scanned and didn't find it. I would like to think the issue of authenticity w/re: Chipotle is actually more moot in the sense that Chipotle uses a basic template to create food that, in my mind, operates somewhat outside of the realm of true ethnic food. So I imagine the Chipotle electronic dance music to be something that uses those elements to make something different than trad. dance music, i.e. probably some cheap indie shit. But still, I like Chipotle.

― regular roundups (Dave M), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 07:27 (twenty years ago)

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