Original Mexican Restaurant (TX); El Charro (AZ); El Cholo (CA)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Three old Mexican restaurants, two of which have 1998 books.

--------------------------------------------------------
ORIGINAL MEXICAN RESTAURANT (TX)

   I can't find my newspaper clipping about San Antonio's Original Mexican Restaurant.  It began in 1898 (the book below has 1899) and is credited with introducing the Mexican combination plate to American cuisine.  It went out of business about 1988, but someone bought the name.
   An early menu (1910s) showed no "taco."

--------------------------------------------------------
EL CHARRO CAFE:
THE TASTES AND TRADITIONS OF TUCSON
by Carlotta Flores
136 pages, hardcover, $24.95
Fisher Books, Tucson
1998

   This is mostly recipes, with little historical stuff.
   El Charro began in the 1920s.  Pg. 2: "Early menus from the 1920s show combination plates costing fifteen cents and a line that reads, 'No service for less than 10 cents.'"  Why not reprint those historical menus?  Where are they? After pages 2-3, there's no more history.
   The real interest here is a throw-away line on page 25:

_Chimichanga:_
_Deep Fried Burro_
When flour tortillas are deep fried, hey puff and brown, almost like puff pastry, because pf the shortening they contain.  "Thingamajig" is about as close as anybody has come to a translation for _chimichanga_, an El Charro invention.

   I failed to find any special "chimichanga" citation in a yellow pages ad for the restaurant.  No date for the "invention" is given.  Hey, author!  Help us out a little!

--------------------------------------------------------
EL CHOLO COOKBOOK:
RECIPES AND LORE FROM CALIFORNIA'S BEST-LOVED MEXICAN KICHEN
by Merrill Shindler
144 pages, hardcover
Angel City Press, Inc., Santa Monica
1998

   Also mostly recipes and very little history.
   El Cholo began in 1927--too late for "taco."  The 1927 menu is nicely reprinted in full (front and back of the book)--it has ENCHILADA, CHILE RELLENO, TAMALE, CHILE CON CARNE, TORTILLAS, but no "taco."  TOSTADA sold for 35 cents.
   Pg. 25:

   While El Cholo is the very heart and soul of the style of Mexican cooking that's become popular in Los Angeles, San Antonio can be said to be the birthplace of Mexican-American cuisine.  It's home to the eating establishment that claims to be the oldest Mexican restaurant in America (though not always at the same location, as in the case of El Cholo).  It's called the Original Mexican Restaurant, which from 1899 to 1960 sat at 117 Losoya Street, around the corner from the Alamo.  (It's since moved across the river.)  According to a curious little volume put out in 1950 by the Ford Motor Company called _The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places_, the restaurant's most popular dish was its beef taco.  In 1950, this was no doubt the very essence of exoticism.  These days, it sounds rather quaint--the recipe even calls for ground beef boiled in water, which guarantees a nice pile of soggy hamburger.  No wonder it's taken so long for Mexican cooking to earn the respect it deserves.