I don't get why Guzman Y Gomez seems to be successful. Seemed to me to be pretty low quality, sloppily made, not particularly good value for money, and not especially tasty (even if asking for the spicy choice.) Yet it seems to be a growing chain. Can someone explain why?
(By the way, I like to eat Mexican food made at home with the various kits. Tastes better to me than what I can get at this takeaway.)
It's like with anything sold in a supermarket: they'll call it 'hot' or 'spicy', but then dumb the flavour down to super-bland, so as not to offend anyone.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt there are researchers working on non-offensive smelling durians, which will probably have no detectable taste.
This shouldn't be surprising given the obsession with market size. Movies are diverging into a rich arthouse scene, while the mass market goes for CGI spectacle, with a bland plot, devoid of cultural reference, all to avoid censorship and to sell to the greatest number of people around the world.
I think you exaggerate a tad about not being able to get hot and spicy anything from a supermarket. If anything, surely the argument can be made that Australian tastes have lifted from only being satisfied with bland (go back to the 60's and 70's) to being interested in asian and indian spice and chilli, and supermarket food has gone some way to accommodate that.
ReplyDeleteDurian is in a special category of its own, as far as specialised tastes are concerned. I have not tasted it directly, but brought a durian flavoured dessert cake in Singapore once. The icing's pretty strong onion/garlicy taste made for a very strange combination with sponge cake, I thought, and I don't think I finished it...