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by kbenson 1054 days ago
Honestly, one of the the things that worries me the most about possibly moving out of California (being a native) to another state at some point is lack of good Mexican food if I'm not careful about where I move. I'm sure it's much worse in the majority of countries I'd be interested in moving to as well.
2 comments

Most of the US, in cities, you can find solid Mexican food. Chicago probably has the best "authentic" non-Cali Mexican in the country even. You won't have to worry just might have to hunt a bit.

The rest of the world? Yea you're screwed. I found one place in Berlin that did legit Mexican because it was run by Mexicans (Santa Maria in Kruezeberg) but that's literally the only decent Mexican I've found in the 50+ countries I've visited and trust me, I've looked in all of them.

Good news is you can find the ingredients for good Mexican in pretty much all of them and do it yourself. The hardest to source is proper jalapeños or any dried peppers, but there's usually a speciality shop somewhere that will be able to give you most of what you need. Cilantro can also be a bit of a pain, but it's way easier than it used to be even 10 years ago.

Yeah, I'm not worried about it in sizeable cities, but me moving out of CA would probably be coupled with being a bit more rural (and that's coming from not living in a "large" city already, as I live an hour north of SF). I can move anywhere in CA or any of the southwest states and probably be within 20-30 minutes of some fairly good passably authentic Mexican food. My confidence in that erodes the farther from the southwest or a large city I am.

We actually cook a few dishes fairly regularly (the pork tinga recipe from America's Test Kitchen is actually amazing, if you're looking for something, and dead simple to boot), but there's something comforting knowing it's easy to get some of your favorite food done well on demand on short notice for those days you really aren't feeling like dealing with making dinner.

Luckily mexican immigrants live all over the US, so if you hunt hard you can probably find some good places, even in rural areas.
The sad irony is there are many places with Mexican immigrants, working in kitchens of non-Mexican restaurants, without any Mexican restaurants around.

(Looking at you, Connecticut)

The worry is real. You cannot find a decent mission burrito afield. It really a local specialty of San Francisco. I suspect the same is true for burritos found in San Diego. And those tacos in Texas, on flour tortillas, well those aren’t tacos at all but incomplete and unfinished burritos. OK if you want to rebrand a half assed burrito and call it a taco go right ahead. And none of it is a sandwich - not burgers, dogs, falafel, shawarma, gyros, burritos or tacos. A taco is not a sandwich