La Tequila in Guadalajara, Mexico

Despite the name of this place, it was actually back in Guadalajara rather than in Tequila. Either way, I've gotta say that this place was surprisingly nice. I mean, in terms of decor, I nearly thought I'd been transported to downtown Palo Alto or Santa Monica or something. But this was in Guadalajara (Av. Mexico 2830, 3640-3440), and hooray - they made salsas fresh at your tableside according to your requests as well. Nice. This was looking very promising, especially since I seemed to be the only foreigner in there too.

I started with a quesadilla de chapulines - it technically wasn't local, but I've always wanted to try those little grasshoppers. So I was a bit surprised to find how sour that thing was. I'm not sure if it's just because of the way they did it here, or if they are usually drenched in that much lime juice (yes, Oaxaca is going to have to be the next Mexican destination on my list), but I could hardly taste the little critters nor the huitlacoche that they put in there, thus defeating the point of eating it.

Anyway, what I really came here for was the pacholas above, as that was supposed to be something local to Jalisco. It turned out to be just a couple of salty and thin ground beef patties. It was fine when I shoved it into some of their lovely orange colored corn tortillas, but admittedly I was a bit let down too, as I was hoping it might be something more like a Persian koobideh or even an American hamburger steak. Nonetheless, I'm glad that I came to this place...it wasn't as touristy nor expensive as I would have thought.