Cold Front and Mexican Food

こんばんは！How’s it going?

The weather has turned cold and so I brought down the kotatsu and set it up in front of the tv. The kotatsu is a Japanese table with blanket and small heating element. In many homes in Japan the rooms are pretty cold in the Winter, and people keep warm by using heavier clothes, small space heaters, and kotatsu.

Here in the States, we tend to keep the whole house warmer, but we still like to break out the kotatsu because it is so comfortable! It’s a little “dangerous” though, because once you get comfortable under the kotatsu, the chances of falling asleep go up considerably! In fact, this afternoon I took a nice 1-hour nap… it was too hard to resist.

For lunch today, Koa and I were going to go to Taco Bell to get a couple burritos, but I decided we’d go to another place, that served more authentic Mexican food. I wanted to eat our food there, but Koa wanted to take it home so I compromised and we got the meals to-go. (He really wanted Taco Bell!) Anyways, the food was delicious and I liked going to this restaurant because all the diners there were seemed to be Mexican workers on their lunch-breaks.

Here in Texas, we have plenty of Mexican restaurants and also Tex-Mex style. I grew up in Southern California, so I am used to a different kind of style of Mexican food, and when I first tried Tex-Mex, I thought it was strange. It was yummy, but just strange. Tex-Mex tends to use more gooey American-style cheese, whereas California-style has more fresh ingredients, most notably avocado. I actually like both styles of Americanized Mexican food, but still cannot stand American cheese in Mexican food.

However, I love to eat where the “locals” eat, and going to a Mexican restaurant in which 95% of the diners are Latino means you are getting the real-deal.