Cinco de Mayo fun at home in China
Cinco de Mayo, or the fifth of May, celebrates the day Mexico drove out occupying French forces in 1862. The date is often confused with Mexico’s independence day — that’s actually Sept 16, which marks the beginning of the country’s war of independence from Spain.
The “holiday” has been called an invention of bars and beer companies along the Texas-Mexico border, where for decades the only wall has been a huge pile of empty Corona bottles on the morning of May 6. Marked in Mexico by military parades, Cinco de Mayo in the US has become a week-long celebration of Mexican-American culture. The fun has spread around the world, and Mexican eateries around China will embrace the party spirit on Friday.
As a native Texan, I took the opportunity of the upcoming holiday to check out a Mexican eatery in Beijing with Texas roots.
Lucky Lopez is far from the flashiest Mexican restaurant in town — nearby hotspots like Q Mex and Cantina Agave will have much livelier Cinco de Mayo parties this weekend. But Lucky Lopez, hidden in an alley near Sanlitun’s bar street, offers home-style fare that owner-manager June Chow’s Dallas neighbors would recognize immediately.
“We make our horchata fresh every morning,” says Chow of the traditional Mexican milk-based drink with a touch of cinnamon, a great palate cooler if your food choices are a bit spicy. A source of pride here are the flour tortillas, also freshmade daily with a tortilla press Chow toted over from the US. These are indeed beautifully soft and satisfying, especially for Americans who tend to prefer flour tortillas to Mexico’s almost sacred corn versions.
“At first, Chinese people had a hard time understanding our tacos,” says Chow, who first opened the cafe in 2010 in another location. “They like hot foods with hot foods, so piling fresh cold lettuce and tomato on top of hot grilled meat seemed weird and even unhealthy to them.”
The menu’s array of TexMex favorites also includes burritos, chorizo, salads and bowls that can be built with your choice of ingredients, including guacamole and salsa. The carefully crafted small tamales are soft and succulent. The basic salsa is dominated by fresh tomato and not too spicy; a chipotle sauce on the side allows you to raise the level of chili-kick.
Mexican-food fans in South China will find plenty of festivities this weekend at Al Chile, a small restaurant in Dongguan near Guangzhou. Chef Cristian Salazar serves up traditional pastor, nachos and chorizo as well as homemade tortillas and Mexican sauces.
Tucked in a corner of the pedestrian street, the restaurant offers the flavors of Salazar’s native Monterey in a cozy environment of colorful Mexican wrestling masks and lively Colombian music.
An intriguing cocktail menu includes a refreshing mojito, a Moorish mango margarita, a strong traditional Margarita and what Dongguan HubHao declares to be “an extremely delicious Blueberry Caipiroska”.
When you make money, you cannot just save it and sit on it. The way to stay competitive is to invest and innovate.” Eldwin Chua, Singaporean restaurateur
If you go
Lucky Lopez Sanlitun Nan Jie 34 Yuan, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-6466-0302 and 0106466-0320.
Al Chile Yonghuating pedestrian street), A20, Dongguan, Guangdong province. 15015220963.