Chicano pride and marketing finesse
May 11th, 2007 by Cliff Bostock in RestaurantsBack in the 1980s, I spent the better part of a year hanging out in the Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende, which had a heavy population of North American artists and writers. By the early ’90s, San Miguel was discovered by the so-called jet set, which promptly ruined its bohemian style — much as they ruined Santa Fe and Taos in this country.
It was in San Miguel and in Houston, where I also lived a few years, that I developed a love of Mexican cooking. It’s also where I learned that Cinco de Mayo, that boozy festival of margaritas and mariachi in this country, was greatly ignored in much of Mexico. Officially, the holiday marks the Mexican army’s defeat of the French at Puebla — a town 100 miles east of Mexico City — on May 5, 1862. The victory was short-lived, however, and is mainly commemorated in Puebla, with little
attention from the rest of Mexico.
In the United States, Cinco de Mayo has become an occasion of Chicano pride and marketing finesse. Americans head to their favorite Mexican — or Tex-Mex — restaurant, guzzle tequila and listen to 347 verses of “Besame Mucho” until they are willing to pay the mariachi band any amount of money to leave their table side.
This year, I headed to a Mexican restaurant near our home in Grant Park — the very pink Mi Barrio (571 Memorial Drive, 404-223-9279), across from Oakland Cemetery, which, it occurred to me, could lend itself to a cool Day of the Dead ceremony in the fall.
Mi Barrio is one of those restaurants that has more charm than anything else. The staff is friendly, the interior design is kind of mobile-home-meets-serape and, alas, the food is mediocre at best. Better to go and simply swill booze and eat some chips like Peggy Briedis, Princess of the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club, pictured here inhaling a margarita.
This was my third time to eat at the restaurant and things have not gotten any better. A taco’s chicken filling was blander than the canned stuff they used to serve in the cafeteria of Pinewood 
Elementary School. Gorditas, thick corn cakes, were greasy and their filling of adobada (seasoned pork) lacked the spicy, deep flavor that makes this Mexican street food a favorite. A plate of carne asada was somewhat better, but it wasn’t even served with tortillas for taco-making.
Still, the evening, spent at a table in front of the restaurant, was fun and we thanked God we had arrived after the mariachi band had left. Instead, we enjoyed the company of the adorable children of staff members, who played peekaboo under a serape behind our table.
It’s really hard to understand how, in a city with such a huge population of Mexicans, a restaurant can’t find a terrific cook, but asi es la vida.
Note: The restaurant was originally mistakenly named as El Barrio. We regret the error.
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May 14th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
dude. I believe the name of the establishment is Mi Barrio, not el Barrio. If you are referring to the pink place on Memorial across from the cemetery.