Tuesday, April 16, 2013

            Mexican food is an enigma wrapped in a tortilla shrouded in enchilada sauce.  Even though I grew up in Phoenix, because Dad was not a lover of Mexican food, my exposure as a child was limited to what the lunch ladies at the grade school prepared occasionally.  Not bad, as I remember, but probably not too authentic.  It wasn’t until I was old enough to make my own eating choices that I began to sample the fare from south of the border.  A high school classmate’s family, the Tangs, owned a Chinese restaurant called unsurprisingly, “Tangs”.  They also had a Mexican restaurant called “El Tango” that I enjoyed in high school and college.  My wife’s family is  from Solomonville, Arizona where Mexican food is a staple and my mother-in-law fixed pork-green chile and green chile-chicken enchiladas frequently. Every Wednesday night, she fixed red-chile enchiladas.  My wife has spent a lifetime weaning me off the meat and potatoes I was raised on, and Mexican food was often a part of our menu. 

            In Arizona as well as at Taco Bell everywhere, a tostada is a corn tortilla hard-fried flat with beans, meat, and salad on top. The taco is  the same tortilla folded, crisp fried and stuffed with about the same things, depending on preference.  (A soft taco has a soft-fried corn tortilla.)  In Solomonville, a relative of the tostada made with a flat-fried flour tortilla with all the fixings on top was known as a “Big Daddy”.  (Probably only at La Paloma restaurant, but who knows?)  And therein lies the enigma:  In Anchorage, except at Taco Bell, a tostada or a taco salad is a bowl-fried flour tortilla with the fixins in the bowl.  Now that is just wrong!  The Spanish words are the same, but somehow false meanings have been perpetrated on the good people of Alaska.  I actually don’t care for the traditional tostada, preferring the Big Daddy.  No one here has heard of that, of course, so I request a taco salad on a flat-fried flour tortilla, which is one of my favorite dishes.  The first time the server will look at me like I am loco, and tell me they can’t do that.  I ask them to check with the chef, who always knows how to fry a tortilla, and they accommodate me.  In Solomonville, this is the most popular item on the menu and I try and convince them to add it to their menu guaranteeing it will be a big seller.  I mean, a taco salad in a bowl-shell is a soggy mess at the bottom and the flat tortilla is way more fun to eat.  When the kids were at home, Beverly would fix Big Daddys for dinner and the standing offer was $1.00 if you could eat the whole thing without breaking it.  I didn’t have to pay off very often.

            A new genre of Mexican restaurant has opened in Anchorage.  It started out as a single location, but it’s popularity has driven 5 more locations to open.  The menu is an on-the-wall over-the-counter variety with a limited number of items available, but the food is fast, cheap, and surprisingly good making it my wife’s favorite restaurant.  Taco King is the name, and don’t be surprised when these guys open one in your neighborhood.