Mexican Food (Cuisine)

Subterms

    Latest story

    100 Shares189 Views

    Chi-Chi’s, Former Mexican Restaurant Chain, Plans a Comeback

    by

    The chain, which closed in 2004, is poised for a revival next year after the son of one of the founders reached a deal with Hormel Foods.Chi-Chi’s, the Mexican restaurant chain that closed 20 years ago, is poised for a revival next year after Michael McDermott, the son of one of the founders, announced a deal with Hormel Foods.Under the agreement with Hormel, which owns the brand’s trademarks, Mr. McDermott will be able to use the Chi-Chi’s name on newly opened restaurants in 2025.In a news release announcing the deal, Mr. McDermott said he had “fond memories” of growing up in Chi-Chi’s restaurants.He credited his father with instilling in him “the passion and determination to pursue my own career in the restaurant industry.”Mr. McDermott said in a statement on Friday that the new business venture was “in the early stages of planning by securing funding” but shared that the first two restaurants to open will be in Minnesota.He did not clarify where in Minnesota the sites would be or how many restaurants might ultimately be opened under the revival.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      The Hard-Shell Taco Deserves Your Respect

      by

      The version that once thrived at the midcentury fast food stands of Los Angeles is now a regional treasure.Bar A Tí is a serious taqueria: fresh blue-corn masa, a dark and cryptic mole that ferments for a full school year, duck confit, the works. The crispy taco, however, is a crinkled half-moon of braised beef shank flickering with garlic, chiles and cilantro under a heavy fringe of neon orange cheese.This is not, at a glance, a serious taco. Though Andrew Ponce uses thin Kernel of Truth tortillas for his crispy tacos, and excellent tomatoes for the salsa, he also invokes the tacos of Cal-Mex diners, fast-food chains and family meal kits. He calls back, with some nostalgia, to the American hard-shell tacos that thrived in midcentury California and, for better or worse, shaped the iconography of tacos around the world.Mr. Ponce, a Mexican American chef who opened his Echo Park restaurant about a month ago, grew up in Culver City, and when he wanted to go out for crispy tacos at Taco Bell or his local spot Tito’s Tacos, his father disapproved. Hard-shell tacos were a goofy and inauthentic misunderstanding. Besides, the family had real Mexican food at home!”I wasn’t supposed to have it,” Mr. Ponce told me, “and that made it so much better.”Andrew Ponce opened his cheffy taqueria Bar A Tí just over a month ago.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesThe crispy tacos are fried with braised beef shank inside, then crammed with orange cheese.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesThe seasoning-from-a-packet, Cheddar-crammed, hard-shell taco was my childhood introduction to the form — an exotic box kit delivered to my family in France by an American relative. But I’ve minimized its once- thrilling effect and long since learned to wave it away as a meaningless speck in the taco universe.So much so that when I stopped recently at Taco Lita, in Arcadia — open since 1967 and conveniently close to my doctor’s office — I realized I’d forgotten the pleasures of this style entirely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Northgate González Market Has Become a Whole New Scene in Orange County

      by

      Northgate González Market, one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country, imagines the future of food as a family-friendly mercado.On a summer weekend, mid-heat wave, the promising smell of clean fryer oil drifted through a parking lot in Costa Mesa, Calif. Inside Mercado González, children were on tiptoes, squeaking hands against the glass at El Moro, watching cooks pipe and fry swirls of dough to a precise golden brown, then snip the coils into curved batons and roll them in cinnamon sugar. It was an efficient and beautiful routine.Good churros aren’t hard to find, but El Moro is both a chain and an institution, and before the mercado opened last fall, the only place you could try its famously long, thin, thoroughly crisp-edged versions was in Mexico. The thrill is still fresh. A group of teens in front of me, dazzled by a promo video for the churro ice-cream sandwich, workshopped their orders out loud while the line shuffled along.El Moro’s first location outside Mexico serves long, thin churros at a stall inside the mercado.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesCommunal seating for the mercado’s diners is set next to a stage where live music often plays.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesNorthgate González Market is one of the largest Mexican supermarket chains in the country — family-owned, with 43 locations across Southern California and more than $1 billion in annual revenue. But when the company unveiled its splashy new project last year, it didn’t lean toward a slick imitation of Erewhon or Whole Foods Market.Instead, Northgate planned a 70,000-square-foot, open-plan, emphatically Mexican mercado with a bakery, butcher, tortilleria and a strategic lineup of food vendors with regional Mexican specialties, all bundled together under one roof.If you arrive when the mercado is particularly busy and parking seems impossible, don’t worry, you can valet.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More