There is always an argument here in the US whether a given Mexican restaurant is really "Authentic Mexican" or "Tex-Mex" or "American Mexican". Tex-Mex is sort of a fusion between southern American (from Texas) and Mexican food. There are people who prefer each type of cuisine. But I imagine it's exactly the same with Indian food - there isn't one type of Indian food. There are hundreds of little sub-varieties and what you get at one restaurant is just a portion of what you would find if you motorcycled across the entire continent of India.

Still, we do have tons of Mexican restaurants all over the place, it is very common. In Massachusetts we have a high population of Brazilian people so we also have a lot of Brazilian restaurants, which my dad loves. He spent his teen years in Brazil because his father worked with IBM. So we've been to several Brazilian restaurants and loved them. When we went to the Netherlands we even found a Brazilian restaurant and ate there. That seemed silly to me, to travel to the Netherlands and then eat Brazilian food But there you have it!

I suppose I like American Mexican, mostly tacos.

American Mexican is definitely very popular in the US! In a way it "gentles" the Mexican flavor so that it goes easy on US tongues which are often not used to super hot spices. I don't mean that in a bad way. Different tongues are comfortable with different spice levels and it's good to have foods for all of us to eat

I know you are talking about Mexican wines and food. But on the general topic of wine diversity my mother drinks Portuguese and Italian wines mostly because of the proof. but she gets them at Total Wine.
I am with you Lisa i mostly see California wines in the states.

Arox2010 - that's an interesting statement - what do you mean "because of the proof"? Portuguese and Italian wines tend to be in the same proof range as wines from other parts of the world. Is it that she feels they are lower proof - or that they are higher proof?

Growing up in New York we had 'mexican food' places, but when i moved to the Southwest and So Cal I learned that they were American Mexican places back on the east coast. I really decided I loved Mexican food when I moved to states on the actual Mexican border.

Then I started traveling in Mexico and learned that even border towns in the US can't quite capture the freshness of Mexican Food in Mexico.

I suppose it's like anything else. The closer you get in distance to something the more authentic it gets. Guinness beer in the UK, for example, is FAR superior to the Guinness they export.

It is definitely true that food tastes delicious when you eat it made by natives in their native lands! It's high encouragement to travel all over the world and experience a variety of foods!