Ever heard the story of Taco Bell? Dood named Bell moved to Cali from the east coast and opened a hot dog stand. Cattycorner from his hot dog stand was a little Mexican food restaurant where people bought tacos. He could see that these taco thingies were more popular among the locals than his hot dogs so he looked into tacos, simplified a glorious food down to its most essential denominators and started taco bell.
Many others have done the same thing.
Sometimes on a Sunday night, I'll open a can of refried beans, heat them up and dollop a spoonful onto a store bought tortilla I've heated on a burner. I'm not proud of it. I don't feel like I've accomplished much or appropriated a beautiful culture or even paid a decent homage to a beautiful culture but it's a lazy way to put some food in my belly.
And that's kind of like these places we're talking about are. Even giving them the dignity of a comparison among themselves is kind of embarrassing because we're talking about the first three mm at the wrong end of a 100 mile long continuum.
But since we've gone there, let me throw out the name El Pato. It's the Taco Bell of the Valley. You know the Brownsville, Harlingen, Edinburg, McAllen area. Folks there know a thing or two about Mexican food. On a 1-10 scale of crappy fast food Mexican food places, I'd give El Pato an 8, Taco Cabana a 6, Taco Bueno a 3 and Taco Bell a 2. Never heard of any of those other places mentioned.
