So this weekend was my first wedding anniversary, and Paul and I decided to go to Fonda San Miguel, the original upscale Mexican restaurant in town. After I let y'all know about the amazing food we ate, I'm going to get a little deep about a controversial and delicate subject that I think is very important to discuss openly and often.
But first, Fonda San Miguel is in an ornate stone building with a massive carved wood door and an entry way decorated with naked baby angels surfing on swirly clouds and pouring out their overflowing cornucopias.
The lounge area is really spectacular. Lush sofas topped with brightly colored pillows are scattered in every corner creating little nooks so you can sneak away and enjoy a beverage while you wait for your table. The main dining area is expansive and decorated with massive pots of fresh cut tropical flowers and brightly colored table cloths and tiles. The waiters wear bright blue guayabera shirts and are prompt, jovial, and professional.
The menu had a list of specialty cocktails, but I went for a frozen guava margarita. It was fruity, smooth, and a little tart. Amazing.
For my meal, I decided to go for the special, the calabazas with shrimp and a jitomate sauce. It was spectacular and unlike anything I've eaten at a Tex-Mex or Mexican restaurant. The squash was soft and loaded with extremely fresh shrimp. The sauce was rich and tomatoey, almost like tomato soup, but lighter. I just wanted to lap it up.
For dessert you can't beat a tres leches cake in a pool of sweet cream, topped with mango puree and whipped cream.
And now this is where I'm
going to get real heavy on y'all and perhaps piss off some people, especially since I admit that what I have to say may be a bit presumptuous.
Fonda San
Miguel has been producing top notch Mexican cuisine since the 70s. It's an
Austin fixture and nobody else does it quite like them. Fonda stays true to Mexican
and Tex-Mex flavors, only enhancing them with quality ingredients and
sophisticated preparation. No to mention, the decor is dazzling.
Bottom line, Fonda San
Miguel is a really nice restaurant, so why were we the only couple enjoying a
romantic dinner? Why, on a Saturday night, were the diners mostly families with
children, squawking and clamoring about?
At first I thought perhaps
I was mistaken about the type of restaurant Fonda San Miguel is - perhaps it
was a fancy Chili's and there I was expecting to have a romantic dinner... And
maybe it was due to the openness of the dining room and the fact that there
weren't any little intimate corners for us to hide away in that the sounds of
the children resonated so much.
But then something didn't
compute in my brain. When my husband and I have gone to Wink or La Traviata for
a nice dinner we were also sitting in an open room, there just weren't kids in
there making lots of noise. So why, again, do people think of Fonda San Miguel
as a family restaurant and not a date restaurant? Unfortunately, I'm of the opinion that it's because
Fonda serves Mexican food, and folks don't think of Mexican food as classy.
We still think of Italian
and French food first when we start planning our anniversary and birthday
dinners. It is really hard to imagine a white husband in Texas saying
"Honey I know you've been wanting this for a while, so I'm taking you out
to a candlelight dinner at the magnificent Ethiopian restaurant on Main
Street."
Some might note that there
isn't an upscale Ethiopian restaurant on Main Street, but there is an upscale
Mexican restaurant on North Loop. Fonda San Miguel is gorgeous. The food is
amazing, yet it's relegated to serving children's portions and scraping rice
off the underside of the table while couples take their date night budget to
Chez Nous.
It certainly could be that Fonda San Miguel wants to be the place families go to have a nice meal. But I can't help but think that there might be more to it. Racism is alive and well,
and in Texas a lot of overt racism these days is directed toward Mexican
immigrants and Mexican Americans. Stereotypes about the happy-go-lucky, yet
lazy and classless Mexican are everywhere. But with the prevalence of Mexican culture
in Texas, Dia De Los Muertos celebrations in public schools, and our
head-in-the-sand concept of multiculturalism, we Texans have lulled ourselves
into a false sense of inclusion and acceptance. We need to check ourselves
because, first off, that's no way to be, and second, "Mexican fine
dining" shouldn't sound like the punch line of a vulgar joke.
Fonda San Miguel - 2330 North Loop
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