Rating: ****
Address: 92 Marua Rd, Ellerslie
Phone: 580 2497
Open: Thursday and Friday 11am-3pm; Saturday 10-4
Well, I can't say I didn't ask for it. My remarks about Mexican food ("pale and wan and looking like something you might have knocked up while camping") unleashed a blizzard of correspondence.
Some emails made suggestions which were certainly distasteful and, I suspect, physically impossible and one pronounced me a moron, which is at least technically incorrect. One correspondent, for whom I feel genuinely sorry, suggested a particular Mexican fast-food franchise. Another said "authentic Mexican cuisine is amazingly hearty, delicious and well-flavoured".
I don't dispute this last comment (although it was also true of my late mother's oxtail stew and I wouldn't have gone out to eat that) but the point I was making is that the food in most Mexican restaurants is not any of these, least of all authentic.
It's a sort of sedated Tex-Mex, tacos, burritos and enchiladas, made without care or originality and it's the same in Parnell, Perth and Paris.
Mexican food, like Chinese, has been ill-served by export which has made it standardised and bland.
The suggestion that a fast-food chain might refute my assessment makes the point much more eloquently than I can.
Maria de la Macorra is on my side. She and husband Jose Carlos run a small but perfect eatery in the back of their gift shop in a small block of suburban Ellerslie shops.
As I sat down on the old school chair at the slightly rickety table with its plastic tablecloth, I picked up on a comment she'd made about "real Mexican food" as she'd run through the menu.
"So I take it you don't think most Mexican restaurants are any good," I said, elevating the leading question to the status of an art form. "No, unfortunately," she replied. "It's mostly fast food and people are more interested in making money than making food."
If the hours of opening (see above) at Mexican Specialities are any guide, these two are more interested in making delicious food than money.
"I like what I do," says Jose Carlos. "If I do it all the time, maybe I don't like it any more."
What he and Maria do is run a gift shop cluttered with art works, jewellery and religious artefacts ranging from lurid, through kitsch to surrealistic; a Mexican deli where you can stock up on chipotle, hominy and chicharron; and a restaurant.
This is a restaurant as far as may be imagined from the Mexican standard because the food is made by a man who likes what he does.
His guacamole is lumpy and zesty and textured and you dig it up with light-as-air corn chips he makes each morning; the pozole - a soup of chicken and hominy (a kind of puffed corn) is delicious; the tostadas - crispy tortillas topped with ceviche (marinated raw fish) are, like all the food, bursting with fresh clean tastes, testament to Jose Carlos' commitment to cooking without fat and salt; the home-made plum crumble or the Mexican flan (a sort of creme caramel) finish things off perfectly.
Don't expect airs and graces; it's like eating at someone's house and it's the best lunch I've had in years.
I stand by my comments about Mexican restaurants, but I'm delighted to report that Mexican food can be done this well.
Wine list: Unlicensed. Unusual soft drinks. The home-made lemon-and-lime juice and the alcohol-free pina colada are great.
Vegetarians: Welcome and well-catered for.
Watch out for: The wall of crucifixes and the opening hours.
Sound check: Conversation-friendly.
Bottom line: Viva Mexico!
