The other thing you have to keep in mind is that it’s not like you can go and get all of the ingredients to make foreign food. For instance, Thailand is not a huge beef eating country and when they do eat beef it’s usually in a curry or mixed with other foods so they’re not exactly known for prime cuts of beef.

From my experience, if you want decent beef you have to get imported Australian beef but that’s quite expensive and not something they’re going to put into a beef taco. So, from that standpoint, it’s never going to be quite as good as back home where you can get very good beef relatively cheaply and they do use it in tacos.

In terms of Mexican food over here, there are two places I frequent:

Charlie Brown’s
Sunrise Tacos

Charlie Brown’s has a pretty decent selection of Mexican dishes and for the most part they’re okay. Back in Los Angeles they don’t compare but it’s still way better than any Mexican food I’ve tried in Europe so go figure.

The thing I like the best about Charlie Brown’s is that they give you chips and salsa free. The salsa reminds me of a nice Americanized salsa you get in restaurants back home like El Torito’s or Acapulco’s.

Sunrise Tacos is more fast foodsy. They have a salsa counter where you can get everything from mango salsa to super-hot spicy salsa. I can appreciate what they’re going for but I still like the Charlie Brown’s salsa for chips.

Oh, and just to comment on the Los Cabos salsa . . . it was basically chopped up tomatoes and onions in a slightly spicy liquid. Not necessarily bad but I was hoping for something more like Charlie Brown’s.

And one last comment about foreign food over here . . . you gotta keep in mind that Thais don’t frequent these places much. Thais mostly stick to Thai, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese dishes. Not that you’ll never see Thai people in a Mexican restaurant but if I had to guess, I would say over 80% of the customers of most western food restaurants are westerners.

And on top of that, Thais tend to like only certain aspects of even those foods. Like, not that many Thais like sushi but they like many of the noodle dishes. Most Korean restaurants here specialize in Korean BBQ. Outside of that, I don’t think the Thais like too many Korean dishes.

There are a few exceptions such as Aunt Annie’s Pretzels, Starbucks, Swenson’s, A&W, McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and such but if I’m sitting in Charlie Brown’s, the only Thai customers are usually there with a foreigner. Same at Sunrise Tacos.

But like a good Italian restaurant . . . mostly westerners as customers. Even Indian restaurants tend to be either Indians or westerners. Not many Thais like Indian food. You’ll rarely see a Thai in a fish and chips joint. Steak house? Yeah, probably mostly westerners in there.

The few Thais who do eat out at foreign restaurants tend to be more westernized. Maybe they have a foreign husband or perhaps they’ve spent time studying or traveling in the west. Like my landlord used to be a cop in the anti-money laundering division so he spent a lot of time traveling in the US. He loves Italian food.

But the vast majority of Thais don’t fit that profile. I know many Thais who simply won’t even try any food that isn’t Thai. They’d starve to death before they ate western food. That’s why so many western restaurants will also have at least a small selection of Thai dishes. That way the foreigners can bring their girlfriends or wives. I mean, it’s not like some Thai is going to wander into a western restaurant for the Thai food.

And a funny aside as it pertains to Thais and beef . . . I’ve asked over and over again when someone tells me they don’t eat beef why they don’t eat it and they always say that it’s not good to eat large animals. Of course, I ask why they eat so much pork and they say pork isn’t big. It’s small so it’s okay.