Topic: Localization/Tradition
Source: Over the weekend, I saw a flyer from Rita’s Mexican
Restaurant, and honestly I’ve had Mexican food from around here and it compares
nothing to real Mexican food, so I decided to check this place out because I’ve
heard really good things about their food.
Relation: From
reading throughout Robbins chapters I learned the concept of localization is
bringing new ideas/things and localizing to the community, in this case being
Mexican food. I thought, finally I can blog about something I relate too,
involving a little tradition from my Mexican heritage, and the localization of
Mexican food in Arcata.
Description: I had been craving a torta and horchata for the
longest over the past several days, and when I saw Rita’s flyer, I told my
friend if it was a true Mexican restaurant it would for sure have torta’s. It
certainly did, I was so happy for once a place had torta’s, my next concern was
would it be a real torta? Looking through the menu I saw they had a really good
variety of main Mexican dishes such as tamales,burritos, tacos, enchiladas, torta’s, quesadilla’s, even chimichanga's and all sorts of meat like barbacoa, asada, milanesa etc. I ordered a
torta/sandwich with barbacoa, and let me tell you it taste pretty damn good. It
consisted of guacamole, melted cheese, barbacoa, onions, lettuce, and an extra
sauce that added a really good flavor. Ive had better but I think this place is
as good as it gets around here. The horchata was good too but I was
disappointed that it was powdered horchata and not hand brewed like it should
be. Although I was a bit surprised to realize that my dish came aside with
fries, I didn’t mind but “fries’? I thought this was a little twist to typical American
food, and thought it was quite interesting that they do this.
Commentary Analysis:
Its hard to find a really good Mexican place around here in
general, but Ive noticed there are several places trying to pull-off the
typical “Mexican grill”. Going into Rita’s I was actually surprised to not see
any other Latino’s than my friend and I. But I was more astonished to realize
how much white people actually love Mexican food. As my friend and I walked to
our assigned seating I felt sort of awkward because it seemed like we were the
outcast and all these white people were just starring at us, like they’ve never
seen Mexicans walking through there. I was extremely overwhelmed to know that
Rita’s is a mexican family run-on restaurant and the guy who served us had a
conversation with us talking in Spanish and it felt so nice to smell Mexican
food, I truly felt like home. By doing this observation I came to a conclusion
that Rita’s restaurant is an example of localization, they’ve gotten the
community into liking anew style of food in which is not there usual customs. I
also think Rita has a good vibe upholding Mexican tradition, in what a typical Mexican
grill would contain of. From the decorations, to the music, and paintings, even
the workers. In this case I loved the way the community has reacted to Mexican
food, its delicious and they love it!
I loved this topic, Though I dont really like the mexican food up here, I find that it doesnt have as much flavor as traditional mexican food has. But being up here there is a Humboldt county form of Mexican food, It is different from the Mexican food in the Central Valley, different from the ones in LA, and extremely different from the ones in Mexico. Standing by its own it is good, but compared to other places it is not as good, we have our own little brand of Mexican food.
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