Delicias Restaurante Latino
Here is another of my periodic posts about places I eat in Charlotte run by immigrants from Latin America, who are under attack constantly both here and nationally. Today my wife and I ate lunch at Delicias Restaurante Latino on Albemarle Road (not too bad a drive from the university). Like a good number of Charlotte restaurants (including Lempira), it is Mexican-Honduran-Salvadoran.*
We ate baleadas (some with beans/cheese and some eggs/avocado) and tamales (which come fried or steamed), with excellent hot sauce. The tortillas were thick and tasty, and the lunch special includes three. Go there tomorrow if you don't have lunch plans.
*I wondered about this combination. There are studies of this and the logic makes perfect sense. When Central American immigrants arrive at new destinations, some find work at Mexican restaurants. When eventually they open their own, they have learned Mexican dishes and also want to expand their potential clientele, so add the Mexican food (with their own twist, whatever that might be) to the Salvadoran and/or Honduran options. In Charlotte, these restaurants have large, diverse menus that appeal very broadly.
2 comments:
Great observation, I have noticed the same thing and heard from immigrants that, depending on their location, there is not a good market for purely Ecuadoran food, for example, outside of the Ecuadoran diaspora. For most people in the US, Latin American food is Mexican street food, so they gravitate towards familiar dishes like tacos, enchiladas, burritos, chiles rellenos, etc. Restaurant owners lose out by not preparing what many customers may expect, so they either call the restaurant "El Paisa" and serve guata as well as tacos, or just call it "El Tequila" and have a secret menu for Ecuadorans. In my home town, there is a restaurant called "Los Paisanos" with a Mexican flag as the backdrop of their logo, but the owners are a Salvadoran/Honduran couple. There is a Guatemalan restaurant that also serves Mexican food as you would find it in Central America, but they only serve one Guatemalan dish that is aptly called "Guatemalan Dish." We have a Mexican restaurant called Inca, but there isn't an Andean dish on the menu.
These mixes are so interesting. At least in Charlotte, Mexican and Central American food are offered together in a restaurant, but to my knowledge not with South American (though there is Mexican-Dominican). Meanwhile, Peruvian and Brazilian (the traditional steakhouse) don't mix with anything else. And then we have an arepa restaurant that labels itself as a mix of Colombia and Venezuela. Nothing from Ecuador that I know of, unless there are secret menus!
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