Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years Of Food And Art
In 1975, when Miguel Ravago and Tom Gilliland opened Fonda San Miguel in Austin, a restaurant featuring authentic Mexican cuisine was a daring idea in a city where Tex-Mex food reigned supreme. As they overcame the challenges of importing ingredients from Mexico in 55-gallon drums, and attracting customers who expected a No. 1 Enchilada Dinner on the menu, a loyal clientele of adventuresome eaters began to develop. Food critics discovered the restaurant and printed rave reviews of the fresh-lime margaritas and Chef Miguel's subtle and complex dishes. Tom, a longtime aficionado of Mexican art and culture, brought furnishings and fine art from Mexico to give diners the experience of being transported to Mexico while they ate. Today Fonda San Miguel consistently ranks as one of the Southwest's top restaurants for both food and ambience.Published to celebrate the restaurants's three decades of success, Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years of Food and Art presents more than one hundred recipes from the restaurant's menus over the years. The selections include many of Fonda San Miguel's signature dishes -- Ceviche Veracruzano; Enchiladas Suizas, an old favorite from Sanborn's department store in Mexico City; Cochinita Pibil and Pescado Tikin Xik, both Yucatan specialities; and Carne Asada, steak sliced and grilled in the traditional Tampico style. From appetizers like mouth-watering Chihuahua-style chile con queso to the cajeta crepes and other delicacies, the home cook can now prepare a delicious assortment of the restaurant's most popular dishes from Mexico's diverse regional cuisines. Supplementary sections contain tips on buying and cooking with the various chiles and other ingredients, like huitlacoche and nopal cactus, as well as information on basic preparation techniques, equipment, and mail order sources.Full-color photographs illustrate special dishes as well as capture the romantic hacienda-style decor of the restaurant's lush tropical courtyard, custom-made punched-tin light fixtures, and hand-painted stuccoed walls. representative works from the impressive Fonda San Miguel art collection are also pictured with notes on the artists.