Tex-Mex Temptation | Tentación Tex-Mex
"A food blogger's critical review of her family's restaurant leads to a confrontation that becomes something spicier"
Tex-Mex Temptation
Tentación Tex-Mex
The review was brutal.
"'Adequate queso but uninspired entrées. The fajitas lack the passion that makes Tex-Mex sing.'" I read aloud, my blood boiling. "Who the hell is 'Austin Eats' and why is he destroying my family's reputation?"
"Mija, it's one review," my mother said.
"One review with 100,000 followers!"
I tracked him down at a food festival—Gabriel Reyes, pretentious food blogger, wearing a stupid cowboy hat and sampling barbacoa like he had any right.
"You're Austin Eats," I said, blocking his path.
"And you're that angry woman who's been tweeting at me all week." He smiled infuriatingly. "Carmen's daughter, I presume?"
"That's right. And I'm here to tell you your review was ignorant, unfair, and—"
"Accurate?"
"Our restaurant has been in my family for forty years."
"And that's supposed to make the food good?" He crossed his arms. "I review what I taste, not what I sentimentalize."
"You didn't taste anything real. You ordered the tourist menu."
"There's a secret menu?"
"There's a family menu. Dishes we don't serve to critics who show up unannounced and judge us by their gringo standards."
"I'm not a gringo. I'm Mexican-American, same as—"
"Then you should know better."
He showed up at the restaurant the next night.
"I want the real menu," he said. "The family dishes."
"Why should I serve you?"
"Because you want to prove me wrong." He sat at the counter. "And I want to be proven wrong. I don't like writing negative reviews."
"Then don't write them."
"I write honestly." He leaned forward. "Change my mind, Carmen's daughter."
I cooked for him myself that night—birria the way my grandmother made it, tamales from her secret recipe, tres leches soaked to perfection.
He ate in silence. Then he looked up.
"I was wrong," he said simply. "This is extraordinary."
"Then update your review."
"I will." He stood. "But first, teach me how you made that birria. It's the best I've ever had."
"Why would I teach a critic my family secrets?"
"Because I'm not a critic right now." His voice softened. "Right now, I'm just a man who wants to learn from a woman who clearly loves this food more than anyone I've ever met."
He came back every night for a week. I taught him birria, then mole, then things my mother would kill me for sharing with an outsider.
"You're better at this than I expected," I admitted.
"My grandmother cooked like this. Before she died." His hands paused over the masa. "I became a food critic because I was searching for her flavor. Never found it."
"Until now?"
"Until you."
He kissed me in my kitchen, tasting of chile and longing.
"This is a terrible idea," I said.
"The best food is risky."
"I'm not food."
"No." He cupped my face. "You're the whole meal. Appetizer to dessert. Everything I've been looking for."
"That's the cheesiest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"I'm a food writer. Cheese is my specialty."
He updated his review. Five stars. "Carmen's Kitchen serves the most authentic, passionate Tex-Mex in Austin. I was wrong before; the tourist menu doesn't reflect the family's true talents. Ask for the off-menu items. Tell them Gabriel sent you. Prepare to fall in love."
"That's a conflict of interest," I pointed out.
"You're a conflict of interest." He pulled me close in the now-closed kitchen. "You've compromised my entire critical objectivity."
"Good."
"Great, actually."
He stopped writing critical reviews. Started writing food features instead—human stories about family restaurants and abuela recipes and the love that goes into traditional cooking.
"You changed my career," he said on our one-year anniversary, in the kitchen where we'd first fought.
"You changed my perspective." I fed him a bite of tres leches. "I thought all critics were heartless."
"And now?"
"Now I know some of them just need to be fed properly."
Tex-Mex temptation—sometimes the spiciest dish is the one you least expect.