In my experience, asian food pretty much is a bad bet in Mexico. We have a couple of Chinese restaurants in San Miguel. All of their dishes, whether kung pow chicken or Hunan smoked pork are served in the same greasy, strangely bland brown sauce, with lots of sliced carrots and celery.

Bok choy is unknown here. The new Comerciál Méxicana Mega supermarket offers mung bean sprouts: shriveled, brown, slimy. Forget fresh water chestnuts. Forget canned ones.

Japanese food is even worse. A Mexican-owned and -operated chain offers sushi in its Querétaro restaurant. At least they serve actual sushi fish imported from Japan. But as I reported earlier, offerings like tekka maki with chipotle sauce nuke any nuances the raw tuna may have once offered. For that matter, the Mexican affinity for lots of vinegar ensures diners' mouths will pucker as they chew their hamachi nigiri.

I was only mildly surprised to see sushi offered in the restaurant section of the Guadalajara Mercado Libre. There must be a hundred restaurants there, and with half of them offering carnitas, product differentiation is a competitive must for the rest.



This place is called Mariscos Fujiyama. I seriously doubt that a Japanese person has ever been within a mile of the place. I doubt that the proprietor has ever tasted real sushi prepared by a trained sushi chef. I doubt he even knows what Fujiyama is.

OK. That last was unfair. But I bet he's never been to Mt. Fuji. Given how sushi is interpreted in Mexico, I think he'd have done well to name the place Mariscos Popocatepetl. If he wanted to stick with the volcano theme, that is.

His sign illustrates three varieties of maki: green, red and gold; colors that evoke the Mexican flag. Also depicted are a pair of chopsticks, an egregious example of false advertising since there are no chopsticks in the place.

Not for a moment was I tempted to eat there. But out of curiosity, I approached the cold case to check out their fish.



Yep. That it. There ain't no more. There's cucumber (for teppa maki), Mexican octopus (tako), Mexican shrimp (ebi), avocado, surimi artificial crab and some unidentified substance wrapped in aluminum foil. I like the plastic bowl thrown on top of everything. Probably has chipotle salsa in it.

Sushi just isn't treated with the reverence it gets in the USA, much less in Japan. For a Mexican, what's the big deal? It's just fish and rice. Here, throw a little more vinegar on that rice—I can still taste the fish.

In San Miguel we have a touristy restaurant that sells tacos, paella, pizza and sushi. Do you think they do any one of them well? Another entrepreneur invested a couple of weeks trying to sell prepared sushi from a card table next to the street taco stand beside Espino's Market. No takers. Even the people who line up next door for lengua tacos have their limits.

We have a new Korean restaurant in town. It's OK: The noodle salad and the Korean barbecued ribs are great, but the kimchee lacks fire and garlic. For some reason, given that they are a Korean restaurant, they offer Japanese sushi. Basically California rolls with cream cheese added. The taste of the cheese and the vinegared rice swamps any other flavors, and the texture is like spackle.

—§—

I found a street vendor offering sushi near our Guadalajara hotel, Villa Ganz.



I include this photo to illustrate another aspect of Mexican culture: They don't avoid racial stereotypes. Here we have Sushi, Inc.'s mascot, a squinting, buck-toothed, round-eyglass-wearing, pajama-clad figure. Try to get away with that in Sausalito.

Among Mexicans, the word chino has many different connotations. Besides referring to Chinese persons, it's often used to denote anyone from Asia. I'm sure Japanese people would find the term as offensive as Mexicans find the word chicano, but hey, that's there, this is here.

Mexican culture allows for terms that would not be acceptable elsewhere. They'll call perfect strangers nicknames like calvo (baldy) or gordo (fatty).

The adjective chino is used to refer to curly hair (pelo chino) and to chaotic situations (cuento chino)—what today's politically incorrect American would call, "a Chinese fire drill." Somehow, Mexico's relaxed attitude toward stereotyping and nicknames seems kinder, gentler than our harsh condemnation of those who fail to avoid any whiff of possibly insulting one group or another.