Japan has a lot of food. If you or anyone you've known has ever visited Japan, you probably would have at least heard about how much better the food in Japan is. And that's not limited to Japanese food. Japan's take on Western food is a class on its own too. Hamburg steak? Omelette rice? Pasta? Check, check, and check. Japanese style western restaurants are all over the place, and they do a pretty good job of Japanizing the food for more local tastes. And then there's the "Mexican" food. I put Mexican in quotes because let's be honest, most of the food sold in restaurants labelled "Mexican" is anything but. And in Japan, there's an extra layer of deviation. Finding a Mexican restaurant that isn't Taco Bell in Tokyo is a pretty difficult deal. It's hard enough to find that the few Mexican restaurants I know of charge a lot of money for something you can get at a cart in Mexico. It kind of makes sense why that is: the Japanese mentality of doing everything to the highest of quality coupled with the relative difficulty of acquiring the recipes and ingredients involved with making Mexican food would drive up the price without a doubt. But then you come across a poster that looks like this, on the left:
Tacos. From Oregon.
A few questions popped up in my head immediately after seeing this. If you're like me, maybe you thought of the same things: Did the people that started the restaurant know Tacos aren't from Oregon? Why Oregon? It's not even near Mexico. Do they even know Oregon isn't in Mexico? I had a friend from San Diego stay with me for a week or so, and whenever we'd pass by the restaurant, I'd always jokingly offer to get something from the restaurant. He almost always ignored it. He wouldn't even give the restaurant a glance. The first time he saw the sign, he saw the words "taco" in "Oregon" in the same sentence, and the restaurant ceased to exist in his mind. It's a fair reaction. I heard San Diego has amazing Mexican food. But not in Tokyo. This restaurant is called "Pocataco's" and I've actually eaten at this restaurant a few time since that friend left. It's not bad, but in keeping with the pricing of Tokyo, it was always expensive for what it was. My go to was always the beef burrito; it was the best value since it was a good size for its price.
Anything chicken was really weird. The chicken meat was always dry, but the chicken skin was always gooey. It made for a really odd texture in the mouth. Although a bit expensive, the taco bowls were decent. The restaurant's namesake on the menu are small softshell tacos. They're small enough to eat in three or four bites, but they're also a bit expensive for what they were. A McDonald's hamburger is cheaper and you'd get more full out of eating that than a Pocataco. The food isn't bad, but it isn't great either considering how much they were. In any case, if you're in Japan as a visitor, maybe you shouldn't be looking for Mexican food.
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