TACO BELL IN MEXICO

Taco Bell's fare baffles Mexicans
By MARK STEVENSON

The Associated Press

A Taco Bell recently opened in northern Mexico. The U.S. chain failed in its first attempt in Mexico in the 1990s but is more optimistic about success this time.
MEXICO CITY — It sounds like a fast-food grudge match: Taco Bell is taking on the homeland of its namesake by reopening for the first time in 15 years in Mexico.

Defenders of Mexican culture see the chain's re-entry as a crowning insult to a society already overrun by U.S. chains from Starbucks and Subway to KFC.

"It's like bringing ice to the Arctic," complained pop-culture historian Carlos Monsiváis.

The company's branding strategy — "Taco Bell is something else" — is an attempt to distance itself from any comparison to Mexico's beloved taquerias, which sell traditional corn tortillas stuffed with an endless variety of fillings, from spicy beef to corn fungus and cow eyes.

Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Ky.,-based Yum Brands, made its name promoting its menu to Americans as something straight out of Mexico. But it's a very different dynamic south of the border.

Here, the company projects a more "American" fast-food image by adding French fries — some topped with cheese, cream, ground meat and tomatoes — to the menu at its first store, which opened in late September in the northern city of Monterrey.

Other than the fries and sales of soft-serve ice cream, "our menu comes almost directly from the U.S. menu," said Yum Mexico Managing Director Steven Pepper.

Some of the names have been changed to protect the sacred: the hard-shelled items sold as "tacos" in the U.S. have been renamed "tacostadas."

This word is a play on "tostada," which for Mexicans is a hard, fried disk of cornmeal served flat, with toppings.

But while Mexicans eagerly buy many American brands, the taco holds a place of honor in the national cuisine.

Mexicans eat them everywhere, anytime of day, buying them from basket-toting street vendors in the morning or slathering them in salsa at brightly lit taquerias to wrap up a night on the town.

Taco Bell has taken pains to say it's not trying to masquerade as a Mexican tradition.

"One look alone is enough to tell that Taco Bell is not a 'taqueria,' " the company said in a half-page newspaper ad. "It is a new fast-food alternative that does not pretend to be Mexican food."

It's still a mixed message for people like Marco Fragoso, a 39-year-old office worker sitting down for lunch at a taqueria in Mexico City, because the U.S. chain uses traditional Mexican names for its burritos, gorditas, and chalupas.

"They're not tacos," Fragoso said. "They're folded tostadas. They're very ugly."

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"Defenders of Mexican culture see the chain's re-entry as a crowning insult to a society already overrun by U.S. chains ......."

Well, well, the tables are turned and guess who is whining?      Waaaaaaa

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We have Taco Bell just like you do!     

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To my grave I will defend the Enchirito as the crown jewel of Mexican cuisine!

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Illegals can come here and march our streets with their flags, demand 'rights', whimper, snival and cry, send their trucks all over, and on and on,  but US can't open chains their?  I'm sooooo confused! 

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Now they have a real "boo-hoo" story to cry about - a nasty reversal of Montezuma's Revenge.

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Dairy Queen open in monterrey but cannot sell hamburgers.

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