When I was in grade school, my parents helped start a church in a neighboring town. It was the first spanish Mennonite church in that town. For a number of years, it was the only church we went to. All the services were in spanish and none of us spoke spanish! My mom did take lessons and became fluent. The rest of us just limped along!
On Sundays, after the service, the whole church came together for a pot luck meal. The food was 'authentic' mexican food! Fresh made tortillas, chicken and mole, beans, rice, and a whole bunch of other wonderful foods. Even as a young person, I could tell this food was the real thing! It tasted so different from what we were used to getting at home. Macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, pot roast, corn, etc.!
For years, I've tried to make my own mole sauce. I could remember that flavor of that dish but could never replicate it, or find it in any Mexican restaurant...UNTIL TODAY!!
Our daughter recommended a little unassuming restaurant in Napoleon, Ohio. My mother-in-law wanted to take us out for dinner so we thought we'd be brave and give this place a try. It's hard to find mexican food that tastes REAL when you've had the real thing cooked by real Mexican cooks!! The only complaint we had about this place was that the tortillas weren't all that great. They were dry, a bit tough, and tasted like any tortilla available off the shelf at your local grocer. But, the mole? The enchiladas? The tamales?? They were just fabulous. My MIL had a chicken dish served in a hollow pineapple which she really liked.
The dining room is pretty cool with lot of great murals on the walls in bright colors. The tables and chairs are hand carved wood and on some weekends, they have Mariachi music!! If youlive in the area, you might want to give this place a try if you like mexican food. The mole was the real deal...it brought back such vivid memories with the very first taste! The waiter was extrememly friendly and helpful in our selections. We tipped him well, he really deserved it!
The chips and salsa that they bring to the table before you order were freshly made. They were light and crispy and the salsa was good. Both Cole and I prefer our salsa a little hotter and they brought out their 'hot' salsa which was different from anything I've ever tasted. It had a 'roasted' pepper flavor, full of the seeds that make it hot. It didn't really burn like hot salsa does. It was like an oven being turned on...it just kept heating up and getting hotter...and hotter...and hotter!! We also tried several varieties of their habanero sauces in bottles...on which was XXXHot. Now that was extremely PAINFUL!!!
When we got home, I walked straight to the cupboard and popped 2 Xtra strong TUMS!!! The servings were very large and two of us brought home enough leftovers for another meal. Since tomorrow is a work day for me, I'm thrilled to have some leftover mole, 1 tamale and a few chips to take with me! I hope I remember to take a couple of TUMS with me, too!
Authentic Mexican food is my all-time favourite! Your pictures are making me crave it like nobody's business. :)
ReplyDeleteyup that place rocks! close to the river on the edge of town ... tammy and i had some good meals there :)
ReplyDeleteSchoch
Wow...that's the one! We can't wait to go back. Cole said we were going back even if HE had to pay!!lol We will have to take him up on his offer!!
ReplyDeletethere is a lot of real mexican food out here. we found a little place near the airport that was so good. almost no one working there spoke much english at all, but we just pointed and smiled it all worked out.
ReplyDeleteTammy, that's the kind of joint that is usually the best! If the cooks and servers are 'authentic' the food usually is, too! I was so disappointed at Azuls that the tortillas we NOT fresh. Richard said mine were a lot better than theirs! I wondered WHY they didn't make fresh ones. We used to like going to Don Pablos for the tortillas..they made them fresh and you could watch them. Nothing quite as delicious as fresh tortillas!! When we come out to visit you MUST take us to some good mexican food places!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like the real deal! That pineapple dish looks really really good! I am always in search of good mexican food - we lived in Southern California before moving up here to the Seattle area - and we took the Mexican food for granted! I do have a very good cookbook though written by Dianne Kennedy. She spent a lot of time all over Mexico learning how to cook the regional dishes.
ReplyDeleteKim-I will have to look at the library for the cookbook you mentioned.I love watching Rick Bayless's cooking show, but his cookbooks never seem very user friendly, which is a big disappointment. I've learned a lot from his show, but don't favor his books. I'll chek our the Dianner Kennedy one!
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