Mexican food

[foolwholaughsatdeath]

As a native of Southern California I grew up eating mexican food about 50% of the time.  While I can easily conquer my farang food cravings over here in Thailand through a number of excellent (and not so excellent) restaurants, good mexican fare seems a lot harder to come by.  

I've been to a few places:

Larry's Dive In (good chicken nachos for thailand)

Senior Picos? (In Rembrandt hotel, live music, decent food, but expensive)

Tequilla something or another in Pattaya (always good by Thailand standards when I went, but I was always drunk too, so who knows for sure)

A tex-mex place in Chaweng, Ko Samui (not so good, forgot the name)

Another joint in Hat Rin, Ko Phan-gan (better, but expensive and not good enough to remember either)

I've also saw a place near Saladaeng skytrain stop, but was too busy to stop.   Anybody tried this place or can reccommend other places where I can appease my Taco Loco?

[Jim_E]

The Bourbon Street Restaurant has a Mexican buffet every week.  At least they used to, and I'd be surprised if they don't still.  Pretty good, too.

The place is terribly hard to find though; it's in a seedy place behind an old theater near Soi Nana.  Your best bet is to take the Skytrain to Nana stop.  Call them and ask for better directions.

Copied from Bangkokpost.com review online:

Washington Square, 29/4-6, Sukhumvt Soi 22

Tel:  02 259 0328-9

Jim

[Nat]

Another joint in Hat Rin, Ko Phan-gan (better, but expensive and not good enough to remember either)

That place was awful - from memory they used popadoms for their nachos  

[JonnieB]

most of bangkok is seedy man...what's your prolem!!!

bourbon street's mex buffet is on monday nights if memory serves me correctly.

it is located in washington square...right off suk soi 22 and NOT anywhere near nana (suk soi 4).  take the BTS to emporium/phrom pom station and walk to soi 22, walk down maybe 150 meters and when you see a parking lot on the left walk in there straight and about 50 meters will be BS on your right.  you can also cut-in from suk at the delaney's pub and walk around the mambo cabaret theatre and BS is there.

i have your same craving and you will not satisfy if anywhere in LOS     la fiesta, the place you see near patpong, from all my reports, is a tourist trap and not very good at all.  in pattaya, besides techilla reef which you mention, there is also the blue parrot on soi pattayaland 2 and a place called moonshine joint on jomtien beach road, soi 4 that has passible burritos.

funny enough, the best mex food i have had is in the gulf...at the backpackers islands like you found in samui and lanta...but for me, it was at ko tao (part of the samui group).  there are like 3 mex places on this little island (el toro, safety stop (not purely mex but has great nachos, burritos, and other mex munchies), and another place i forget the name).  i guess all the divers there like to load up on carbs by eating mex food with lots of tortillas and beans. anyway, trust me, the mex food there is the best i have had in los and cheap too (thank those backpackers again).

as a bonus, if you go to tao, all the food there, for some reason, is cheap and good.  the thai at jp resort is the best.  also, the BEST pizza i have ever had in los (and i have lived here over 4 years) is at la matta on tao (their pesto, potato, and onion is to die for) and their pastas are great too.  all this and cheap diving and bungalows...it's my favority relaxation spot in the country.

just my 2 centavos worth.

[JOAQUIN SAVAGE]

horale vatos!  there's a place down the street from the narcicius night club tia maria i think  also woodstock at NP has mex dishes i read (i think in trink) there some guys doing tacos somewhere down soi 4 but i havent found it yet. hasta.

[Percy1]

Easiest way to find Bourbon St. is to get off the sky train at Emporium as per JonnieB but then you don't have to walk all the way to Soi 22. Enter Washington SQ. at its Sukhumvit entrance easy to find The Dubliner Irish Pub is right on the corner. Then walk around the back of Mambo's (the old cinema) Bingo !

Regards

PS Blue Parrot gets my vote.

Used to Tia Maria's on the green route between Suk. 23 and 31 but about 5 years ago the food went right down hill and didn't recover. Than again I haven't tried it for a couple of years.

[randyksf]

I've also saw a place near Saladaeng skytrain stop, but was too busy to stop.   Anybody tried this place or can reccommend other places where I can appease my Taco Loco?

I made the mistake of eating at the place in Saladeang. It tasted more like Cafeteria food from high school. Being from Monterey California I might be a Mexican food snob. Oh meal with one drink cost 700 baht.  Chips Salsa, two chicken tacos and a margarita. Nothing crazy. I pay 500 baht the states with and it tastes better.  

They tack on a service charge of 10% plus Vat. So its 20% more than the menu states.

[JonnieB]

the place is called la fiesta.  they advertise in all the tourist mags so you know it's a tourist trap.  

tia maria is the place down from narcissis club on soi 23.  food there is passible mexican...but keeping in mind that you are in los, so you can't be too picky.

it's a pretty glum situation in singapore too so it's not just a thailand issue.

[PvtDick]

What is it about Mexican food that makes it so hard to reproduce?  I mean, Bangkok's got passable-to-great Indian, Japanese, Italian, and just about every other kind of ethnic food, but no Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex, or Mex-Mex worth a sh*t.  Basically, it's the same everywhere else in the world too.  Come to think of it, I've never found decent *-Mex food outside of the Southwestern US and Mexico itself.  What's up with that?  It can't be any harder to make than that high-falutin' French stuff.

[JonnieB]

maybe not that well known as a cuisine outside of mex, central american, and sw usa so not too much demand, except for us tex-mex starved american expats.

maybe another business opportunity for you, greg/sunbelt, now that you have satisfied our cravings for foot-long sandwiches...another american culinary oddity.

[tutsiwarrior]

For what it's worth I've never found nothing to compare to LA mexican food (quite different than Mex DF food) anywhere out side of LA except for a few places in Salinas, Gilroy, San Jose and the Mission in SF.

So don't anyone think you're about to find anything suitable in SE Asia if you know about the real thing.

(Nachos?...what the <deleted> are nachos???...something invented by a gabacho bar owner in New York...)

Yeah...somebody should start up a local string of Taco Bell franchises...probably be better than the present local offering...Taco Bell man gai...Taco Bell mu daeng...

[Heng]

^ They had one in Udon of all places that went belly up.   I think the main problem is that most Thais seem to be anti-bean type foods.   What's Taco Bell without the beans?

[mowlem]

Scarily there are two places in Mae Hon Song that do good Mexican food (a friend who worked there was Mexican), one is opposite the 7-11 in the main street. It also does Greek dishes! (She had no idea how the cook came to do this either.)

[tutsiwarrior]

well, you know...goat and lamb are interchangible in greek cuisine...now authentic mex places do a good number with birria, a goat stew, very greasy and good for a hangover (along with a number of bottles of whatever beer you've been drinking...)

Did goats originate in Greece like chocolate in Mexico? Do Thais realize that their beloved chiles originated in a place that had human sacrifice???

Heng...you are right about the beans...I went to Tesco to get some canned beans for a bean salad and couldn't find any...don't look too good for Taco Bell

[dr_Pat_Pong]

The Saladaeng joints food would kill a Soi dog. A suggestion here, why not phone the Mex Embassy and ask a first sec for a suggestion  02 285 0995   02 285 0815-8   ya never know

[frequentatore]

tia maria is the place down from narcissis club on soi 23.  food there is passible mexican...but keeping in mind that you are in los, so you can't be too picky.

it's a pretty glum situation in singapore too so it's not just a thailand issue.

I went there many years ago; the food was mediocre. I don't know who was the cook but any Mexican mother would do better!

I ate by example some good Mexican food at TGIF in Taipei; with a few imported ingredients and the right chef, you can certainly get any authentic ethnic taste anywhere in the world...

[Heng]

well, you know...goat and lamb are interchangible in greek cuisine...now authentic mex places do a good number with birria, a goat stew, very greasy and good for a hangover (along with a number of bottles of whatever beer you've been drinking...)

Did goats originate in Greece like chocolate in Mexico? Do Thais realize that their beloved chiles originated in a place that had human sacrifice???

Heng...you are right about the beans...I went to Tesco to get some canned beans for a bean salad and couldn't find any...don't look too good for Taco Bell

You can get them at any Foodland.     "Danitas" (no doubt a variation of "Doritos") tortilla chips, ground beef, said beans, and 2-3 different cheeses from Foodland can make for a somewhat decent nacho salad snack.    

[bangkok-bob]

Check Charlie Browns at Town in Town, great food, good margaritas, middle of nowhere!

[sbk]

blue lotus resort in koh phangan, ban kai beach. used to be called ban kai cafe, open for 12 years, serving homemade tortillas, homecooked beans and homemade salsa.