Mexicans are everywhere in the country. Mexican food is everywhere in the country. However, it's not everyday where you drive by a Mexican neighborhood, where the majority works for the local agricultural farm lands, and walk into a shack, 11pm at night to order some freshly made quesadilla with barbacoa.
It was a coincidence that we happened to drive by and felt a bit hungry. Strangely, even by the setting where it was dark, with a make shift road sign and poorly lit shack in front of a residential property, we didn't even think before we pulled over. It was like.... the right thing to do.
So what's good food? What is authenticity?
It didn't matter.
We were ordering from a menu (pasted on the broken down food truck) that had no sign of English. We were lucky that the guy taking the order spoke English. We were lucky that we were hungry for everything they can throw at us.
That's made it good and authentic.
Was the meat good? It was well prepared. Was it the best in the world? Probably not, but who cares?
Was the corn tortillas good? Absolutely. It had a strong corn presence in it unlike other Americanized Mexican food.
Was the experience unforgettable? Perhaps I will forget it when I get my butt to the real Mexico. Otherwise, sitting on a fiber glass bench under dim yellow light with Spanish music playing from a made-in-China radio, surrounded by Mexican families who live right across the street while realizing that we are sitting in the front yard of the owner's house..... pretty unforgettable.
This is by no means any different from road side stalls in Taiwan or Penang or any Asian cities. It's just that this will be a treasure to be found any where in the US where everything has been overly commercialized and commoditized. The corn tortilla may not have much value, but experience is not a commodity.
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