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 Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | June 2006 
True Flavors of Mexico Emerging in U.S.
 Matt Leingang - Associated Press
Columbus, Ohio - The tamales at Jose Avalos' Mexican restaurants are wrapped and steamed in corn husks, a traditional way to give them flavor.
The chiles rellenos - roasted peppers stuffed with pork or fresh Mexican cheese - are no longer made with generic green bell peppers but with authentic poblano ones.
It's part of a push to introduce Americans to more authentic Mexican cooking.
With the country's Hispanic population swelling to more than 41 million - a majority with Mexican origins - U.S. restaurants are slowly moving beyond the casual fare of tacos, burritos and combo plates that are little more than sanitized versions of the real deal.
Avalos, 34, left Mexico with his parents in 1978 and now owns 12 restaurants, including Las Margaritas in suburban Columbus. Most of his customers aren't immigrants or Hispanic.
"Americans are more open to trying new things than they were 10 or 15 years ago," he said. "We're trying to be authentic with our food, but there's still an educational process that needs to take place before people really adopt it."
Mexican restaurant chains reported $9.7 billion in sales in 2004, the latest data available from Chicago-based Technomic Inc., an industry research firm. That's up from $7.4 billion in 2000.
Mexican food - along with Italian and Chinese - has become so popular that it's joined the mainstream and is hardly viewed as being ethnic anymore, said Steve Anderson, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association.
But what most Americans consider "Mexican" food is essentially Tex-Mex, a style developed more than 50 years ago with the fusion of recipes brought by Mexican immigrants to Texas and other border states in the American Southwest, observers say.
Hard taco shells filled with ground beef, cheese, lettuce and sour cream are as familiar as hot dogs in the U.S., but they're not Mexican. Neither are nachos.
Another misconception is that Mexican food is spicy hot. That's not the way Mexicans enjoy their food, said Rick Bayless, a Chicago chef and restaurant owner and host of the PBS series, "Mexico: One Plate at a Time."
Real Mexican food is never covered with melted cheese, and most authentic dishes are never served with rice and beans, he said.
"You're starting to see Mexican cooking in this country evolve, but we're probably a generation away," said Bayless, noting that it took decades for Italian restaurants in the U.S. to move away from generic spaghetti-and-meatball dishes that were mass marketed.
Some restaurants, though, are sticking with time-tested formulas. Taco Bell, the fast-food chain that helped popularize the hard-shell taco in the U.S., has no plans to abandon what it calls its "Mexican-inspired" menu, spokesman Rob Poetsch said.
Defining "authentic" Mexican food is tricky because of regional cooking differences within the country. But roasted chile peppers are used extensively to make a variety of salsas, which aren't used for dipping chips but to garnish and season shredded beef, pork and chicken.
Many Americans are also unaware of Mexico's exotic soups and rich seafood dishes, said Jim Peyton, 62, a San Antonio-based restaurant consultant and author of four Mexican cookbooks.
Immigrants who want the real thing typically stay at home and make it themselves or seek out neighborhood mom-and-pop restaurants, Peyton said.
"Words like 'authentic' and 'real' are scary to some Americans who might not know what they're ordering and might not like it," said Bob Hogan, senior vice president for marketing at Madison, Ga.-based Avado Brands Inc., which last year bought Don Pablo's, one of the largest Mexican restaurant chains in the U.S.
That's a big reason why many Mexican restaurants are being cautious, Hogan said.
To help customers feel at ease, the menu at Abuelo's Mexican Food Embassy contains detailed descriptions of each specialty entree, said Bob Lin, president of Lubbock, Texas-based Food Concepts International, which operates 34 Abuelo's restaurants in the U.S. Also, the wait staff is trained to know the ingredients of each dish so they can thoroughly answer questions.
Revenue at the privately owned company has grown from $46 million in 2003 to $84 million last year, Lin said.
Don Pablo's, which was founded in Dallas in the mid-1980s, watered down its menu as it expanded into the Midwest - fearful that consumers wouldn't embrace bold flavors, Hogan said.
But the company is slowly adopting the trend toward authenticity. Carnitas - shredded pork served with fresh avocados - was put on the menu last year, and customers were provided with eating instructions on how to put the pork in a tortilla and add various toppings.
"Americans aren't used to squeezing limes all over their food," Hogan said.
The experiment was successful enough that in July, Don Pablo's plans to introduce a shrimp and rice entree based on recipes popular in the port city of Veracruz, Mexico, he said.
Even in the Southwest, some restaurant owners are abandoning Tex-Mex.
Henrique Valdovinos, 51, of Albuquerque, N.M., opened Los Equipales restaurant in December, hoping to "awaken the American palate to the true taste of Mexico," he said.
The salsas are prepared with fresh vegetables every day - nothing canned - and the menu features seafood delicacies such as ceviche, raw seafood marinated in lime juice.
"I wouldn't have tried this 10 years ago, but I think people are ready for it," Valdovinos said.
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