Suro, 33, describes Tequila's as his second home - a place where "I can create my own version of Mexico." What brought him to Philadelphia was Annette, whom he met while she was on vacation in Cancun 11 years ago.
Annette, 31, had gone there with a friend who was dating a man in Mexico. The long-distance beau was David Suro's roommate; he introduced Annette to David.
"The first time I met him," Annette Suro said, "I turned to my sister and said, 'This is the man I'm going to marry.' I was working for American Airlines, and I used my travel discount to visit David in Cancun 60 times in a year and a half.
"Originally, we planned to live in Mexico, but I come from a very close, loving family, and I could not leave them. So David came to live in Philadelphia, and we decided to bring Mexican cuisine to the city for others to enjoy."
The authentic food of Mexico is vastly different from the Tex-Mex style. David Suro placed a whimsical skeleton at the entrance of Tequila's and jokingly says, "He's the last guy who came in here and ordered a chimichanga," a deep-fried burrito.
"Tex-Mex is a type of food developed in the U.S., not Mexico," David Suro said. "When people from Mexico emigrated to the U.S., they brought their recipes, but often found it hard to get the ingredients. Their food was transformed, then simplified and commercialized in American fast-food restaurants.
"Many people think typical Mexican food is fried, fatty and spicy. But it isn't. An example of this is the burrito. It comes from northern Mexico, where the people use wheat flour for their tortillas rather than corn, which does not grow well there. Near the coast, in Baja California, they put seafood in the burrito, while at Ciudad Juarez further inland, they use poultry."
Most Americans aren't aware of the distinct regional differences in Mexican food.
