Mexican Food in Taipei

Not the right thread, but where do you buy corn tortillas? We fried flour tortillas from Costco for our tacos tonight. Not the best, but actually not bad at all.


As a retail product for b2c type purchases. I’m not sure. Some Mexican places do sell masa though. Inquire with them. I think that’s your best bet. But it’s not hard to add alkaline powders and slightly ferment. Dry corn is available here, don’t use sweet corns. One of the common complaints I have heard with taiwanese corn is it isn’t sweet and is starchy. Like animal feed level. Taiwnaese know how to appreciate this shit, hey just haven’t cared about Mexican. But we can use this advantage of Taiwanese produce and buy this starchy corn (literally as common as sweet corn) and make our own. The process isn’t complicated. But takes time.

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Taiwan even manufactures machines to do this. The hard part is most of us here, being small family units, can’t justify it for ourselves alone. And the market is still niche in terms of sales and growth for production. Message Masa restaraunt, they can probably sort you out :slight_smile: buy big bags of masa dough and roll it out :slight_smile:

What are corn meals called in Chinese by any chance? Is it 棒子粉?

I finally made it to Pang Taco tonight, situated on Wenchang Street amidst all the furniture shops.

The staff were friendly and, while the space was not large, the high ceiling helped create an open feeling. I felt I was off to a good start.

I ordered elote (which I enjoyed) and a pulled pork taco (which I did not). The taco was dominated by some thickish garlicky sauce—not at all my thing, and not at all in line with the strengths of Mexican food where the fresh deliciousness of the ingredients shine.

I then order the ā€œgrilled vegetableā€ taco to see if I was just unlucky with the pulled pork variant. This one consisted of stir fried veggies (yes, apparently cooked Chinese style) including cabbage, a green veggie, and a sweetish pineapple salsa, with the whole shebang again dominated by some garlicky sauce.

I left the shop feeling frankly repelled by this sweetish garlicky combination, and made a bee-line on my bike to My Croissant by Guillaume located nearby to find something, anything, to stuff into my mouth to try to get rid of that lingering garlicky taste.

Based on my experience, the polite comments made earlier by @tango42 and others about this shop—calling it ā€œjust good and nothing elseā€ā€”could perhaps be qualified to say: the Pang guys have a plan, they want to be ā€œcreative,ā€ they are friendly at least to me, and their vision is completely not aligned with how I want to enjoy the brilliance of Mexican food or for that matter any food at all, except for the elote.

The cake I am eating now from My Croissant, washed back with strong black tea, is however pretty damned good—a soothing balm to what was for me a largely unpleasant culinary experience.

Guy

I would say, based on my outing tonight, that this is 100% accurate.

Guy

Seems like they just give them out like candy nowadays.

Perhaps more like candy with garlic.

Guy

It’s the only demonym I know of for people in Mexico, so why not? Also, like I said (but paraphrased), nothing inherently wrong with a non-Mexican person opening a Mexican restaurant, but there are people that’ll scream ā€œcultural appropriationā€ though.

Yeah no, I’m gonna freaking run, not walk away from that place. I don’t need a Taiwanese equivalent of Taco Bell; American copies don’t survive in foreign countries for a reason. Domino’s and of course Taco Bell come to mind, and imitations never ward off homesickness; my mom insisted on going to Landi ā€œItalianā€ near my house, and I still want to recommend their spaghetti sauce to the Corrections Corporation of America to replace Nutraloaf as a form of bromatological punishment, or at least mainstream prison food. :smiling_imp::rofl:

Masa Taco used to be the most busy crowdedist restaurant on the street most nights.

These days 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, no one.

They failed after they change their processes.

Still better than the fake Michelin place one minute away.

This one impressed me. It’s pretty good

I’ve been here a while and seen some pretty dramatic falls, but this one is probably the most disappointing for me. Too bad.

Agreed. I haven’t had their tacos though, anyone who has care to comment?

What does this refer to?

Guy

The variety of things including no counter service and replaced by interaction with a machine, food just spits out of a small door when they call your number, which eventually led to cutting back on the menu options, quality, services, etc. and then less customers.

I see. It’s like the abominable QR Code trend—famously beloved by @Marco—taken to its logical limits. Maybe the computer can also prepare the tacos helping to further reduce costs and to make sure no soul whatsoever remains in the dining experience.

Guy

Plus 1. Only been twice. Both times was satisfied. Wife likes their rice set. I forgot what it was, I posted pics on this site somewhere. I had tacos. Their salsa is legit spicy. I thought it was going to be jalapeno, but I’m leaning towards Serrano or a local spicier chili.

Pingburger

Has some Mexican and other International dishes only about 8 seats

While I like the owner and the food isn’t bad, dude has a rodent problem.

at a Mexican place

Anyone been here yet?

I’ve been trying to go lunch but they don’t open until 5:00 p.m.