Mi Casa es su Queso

[substitute]

This restaurant is part of my childhood. There's no longer a cigarette machine, but not much else has changed. It's "Mexican Food" as it was understood by Anglos in 1972 Costa Mesa. Hard shell tacos, refried beans with rice with every entrée, no surprises, and literally deadly quantities of cheese.

For adults there is a great emphasis on margaritas.

Mi Casa is not Mexican food. Most people who are aficionados of good food would not consider it to be worth considering at all. I like it. It's my childhood, and there is nothing modern about it. No authentic cochinito en pibil, but no Chili's waitresses with flair upselling me on the Chi-Chi-Tastic Balsamic Nacho Wrap, either.

They never lost the red leather booths or the hanging baskets at Mi Casa, or the sixty year old women in miniskirts and tights serving food, or even the original tables, which as you can see were from a Roy Rogers steakhouse circa 197... 1971, I bet.

Why yes, I would like another margarita, ma'am.

Comments

[eyeteeth.livejournal.com]

Because I'm a New York Jew that place for me is the long-defunct Chun Cha Fu, the gigantic Chinese restaurant that was on the Upper West Side back when the Upper West Side was seedy and vaguely undesirable. It was the phrase "cigarette machine" that brought it back to me. Chun Cha Fu was a New York Chinese place such as you can't find much anymore, with the padded booths and the tasseled menus and the Shirley Temples for the kids. There was this fake opulence that seems no longer to be the goal for Chinese restaurants. I miss that place.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

There's a place like that in SF, the name of which I forget but anyone from there would know. It's upstairs, with something of a view I think, and it's all red leather booths and have another mai tai, etc.

[srl.livejournal.com]

If you're ever planning to be in Boston, ping me and we'll go to the Hong Kong, favored by generations of Harvard students for their scorpion bowls and late-night munchies satisfaction. More downmarket than faux-opulent, but still an experience.