I find that most of the interesting Mexican food places to try in the LA County area tend to be outside the city limits, usually in places with more recent immigrants and in communities with a larger Mexican labor force. As in many parts of the world, Capital is coming back to the inner core and displacing workers out to the edges. AKA the old suburbs. Within the core there has also been a push to make Mexican food more Foodie-ish with refined ingredients, higher expectations, fancier locations, and of course, higher prices. It’s some weird dream of well-to-do Latinos to join into that world of Food as Recreational Eating rather than food as sustenance and nutrition. As if making your grandma’s favorite dish a luxury item somehow validates your hard scrabble life of barely getting by. I don’t get it. But it’s a sad reality that working people are experiencing as old favorites get replaced by some new concept that “plays” with some traditional dish. First they gentrify your neighborhoods, then they gentrify your food. Sad!
Today we find ourselves scoping out the terrain of City of Industry since we are headed to the nearby Fry’s for some random computer cable. Might as well take advantage of the vicinity. La Poblana seems promising, a ver que tal!
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