Anyway, I know a guy who shares my love of all things Mexican. His name is J-Mao and he is a sexual deviant. Don't bother following that link either because he hasn't updated his excellent blog in over a year. Regardless, on each of the previous two May 5ths that we have spent together in this country we have approximated a Cinco de Mayo party. I'm English, as most of you know, and have no idea what the fuck Cinco de Mayo means - 5th May obviously, but in terms of an excuse for a party, I'm not sure. Nor do I really care. My American friends introduced it to me as a day to make Mexican food and drink Tequila so I was sold. Anyway, the first 2 parties we threw were fine, but we were determined to make this one (almost definitely our last, by the way, as J-Mao is pussying out and moving back to the States) the best of the bunch.
We started thinking about the catering quite early because, regardless of the fun and the frolics that would undoubtedly occur, this party was mainly a way for J-Mao and I to stuff our faces with bomb food. With this in mind, we made a recce trip to Vatos Tacos in Itaewon. Inspired by the Kogi BBQ Truck in LA, Vatos is run by a couple of Korean-Americans with the view to combining the huge flavours of Korean and Mexican food and wrapping them in home-made tortillas. The place is fire and, whilst a couple of their ideas don't quite work, some of them really, really do. Their Kimchi Carnitas Fries are a lot of fun and they do a Samgyupsal Taco which is fucking ridiculous. If you're in Korea and you haven't eaten there, you're an idiot. Go there immediately, order a Makkeolita, and tell them that Smithy sent you. Just kidding, they won't know who the fuck I am.
This year, Cinco de Mayo fell kindly on a Saturday with the preceding Friday given as a rare day off for us hapless Hagwon teachers. I spent the day shopping and eating pastrami before J-Mao arrived in the evening armed with Patron and a winning smile. Despite an insistence that we would not get drunk that evening due the amount of work we'd need to do the next morning, we simply had to try a shot of tequila to make sure it was working okay. It was working fine as it happened, and that's how we found ourselves a few hours later pounding soju, grilling galbi and cackling like rapid hyenas. We managed to make it home at a reasonable hour, thankfully, as important work was to be done. J-Mao organised an orgy of seasonings, swirled it up in a ziploc bag with some tequila, dunked the chicken and pork into it and held them down 'till they drowned in that shit. The smell was intoxicating. As was the Patron.
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| Breakfast Burritos |
I defy any hangover to cope with the onslaught of one of J-Mao's breakfast burritos and the spicy, starchy, bacony, eggy goodness that I rolled up into a warm tortilla, stuffed into my face and washed down with some stupidly strong coffee obliterated the faint throbbing in the temples from which I was suffering. I can't tell you how awesome those were. We were good to go. The Canadian and I cycled down to the supermarket for some last minute supplies and, once we returned, we got stuck in to chopping tomatoes for salsa and mixing Sangria while J-Mao worked his magic on the guacamole and the various sauces we had to look forward to. One in particular, with a nod in the direction of Vatos Tacos, had a gochujang base and was immediately christened 'Dank' by yours truly due to its intense, aromatic flavour. And the fact that it was the bomb. One of my favourite parts of this party came later in the day when, with completely straight faces, our guests were asking people to 'pass the Dank, please' as if it was the most ordinary name in the world. It was fucking dank, though.
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| Bonathan Punch & one of the bottles of Tequila ©Priscilla Vasquez |
The guests soon arrived and busied themselves in the punch that Bonathan had created. J-Mao and I hustled in the kitchen, him creating food and me being 'his bitch' according to my Canadian girlfriend. I saw it at as helping but, whatever. The food made it's way out and people were soon snarfing up the food like there was no tomorrow. My personal favourite were the beer-battered fish tacos with homemade coleslaw and a healthy slathering of dank, but the pork tenderloins were meaty and intense and the chicken was light and fragrant and damn tasty. I'm drooling onto my lap right now which is a repulsive sight for my sorry co-workers but, damn, that food was good. I wish it was Cinco de Mayo every day so I could just turn into a disgusting, fat sweaty pig. That's the plan for my 50s.
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| Chicken, Guac and yes, that is Dank in the centre. ©Priscilla Vasquez |
Anyway, the rest of the day/night was a foggy haze of leftover quesadillas and mucho, mucho tequila. We played Ring of Fire at some point which, in a moment of genius from La Canadiana, was filmed by a hidden camera. Watching that back now is like one of those 'found footage' movies (you know like Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity?) but, instead of a rising climax and jumpy moments of terror, you've got 10 drunken idiots from all over the world, screaming at each other in mockney accents and calling each other Sharon. Fun, it was.
So, what can we learn from this? Cinco de Mayo is a fun-ass holiday that should be adopted the world over. Expensive tequila > inexpensive tequila but, at the end of the day, any tequila > anything else. And mate, that sauce was fucking dank.
Ariba.
Love, Smithy x
1 comment:
You left out the part where you stole my shirt and made me chase you while I giggled like a manic toddler. I still have nightmares about that. Let me know if you want the recipe. You're the only one that gets to see it.
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