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I'm in a fairly unremarkable bit of Minneapolis, in a hotel near the airport. The hotel is fine, though devoid of even the usual dorm-size fridge, let alone real kitchen facilities.
What's interesting is that if I walk around the giant Wal-Mart, past another strip mall and into the one on the facing street, there's a little Indian grocery called TBS Mart. And it's *intense*. They have unusual vegetables like burdock root (common in Japan, rare in the US), and when you walk into their very large spice aisle you can *smell* the undertone of hing all up and down it. This is a place both proud and unapologetic about selling the real deal.
And me with no kitchen!
I bought a little pack of dried apricots (dried on the pit, not US/European-style) just to support them. It was about the closest thing to snack food in the store.
And it turns out, in the same strip mall, there's a little Mexican/Hispanic grocery called El Chinelo. They also sell pre-made food, as Mexican groceries often do.
But!
When I say "pre-made food" you might reasonably assume I mean tacos and burritos. And they had those.
But they also had chicken in green pipian sauce. When the lady got around to making it, she just yelled in Spanish to ask if it was to go. Because if somebody is ordering the green pipian you don't check if it's a white guy, you just yell in Spanish (and I replied in Spanish, of course.)
And they had pork with cactus (nopales) in green sauce on the menu. And rabbit with salsa macha. And chicken and verdolagas. In the section for what they can stuff into your chile rellenos, they had both squash blossoms (!) and huitlacoche. I've only been there once, so I don't know if they actually have squash blossoms - they *don't* keep. But it's maybe nearly their season?
But man, this is *not* what I expected at a random strip mall in Minneapolis.
What's interesting is that if I walk around the giant Wal-Mart, past another strip mall and into the one on the facing street, there's a little Indian grocery called TBS Mart. And it's *intense*. They have unusual vegetables like burdock root (common in Japan, rare in the US), and when you walk into their very large spice aisle you can *smell* the undertone of hing all up and down it. This is a place both proud and unapologetic about selling the real deal.
And me with no kitchen!
I bought a little pack of dried apricots (dried on the pit, not US/European-style) just to support them. It was about the closest thing to snack food in the store.
And it turns out, in the same strip mall, there's a little Mexican/Hispanic grocery called El Chinelo. They also sell pre-made food, as Mexican groceries often do.
But!
When I say "pre-made food" you might reasonably assume I mean tacos and burritos. And they had those.
But they also had chicken in green pipian sauce. When the lady got around to making it, she just yelled in Spanish to ask if it was to go. Because if somebody is ordering the green pipian you don't check if it's a white guy, you just yell in Spanish (and I replied in Spanish, of course.)
And they had pork with cactus (nopales) in green sauce on the menu. And rabbit with salsa macha. And chicken and verdolagas. In the section for what they can stuff into your chile rellenos, they had both squash blossoms (!) and huitlacoche. I've only been there once, so I don't know if they actually have squash blossoms - they *don't* keep. But it's maybe nearly their season?
But man, this is *not* what I expected at a random strip mall in Minneapolis.
