What is a good tip for Waiters

gringal wrote:I think you need that restaurant guide. It will give you a general idea about prices before you settle down for a meal. Even if it was special soup, there was some sticker shock.

We like to eat lunch out at sit down restaurants such as Yves', Tony's, Roberto's, Armando's, Tabarka and that general class of places. The entrees hover around 70-80 pesos each. A little more for some dishes. Soft drinks around 20 pesos. Panino's has NOB comfort food, but figure closer to 90 pesos per offering.

Happy lunching.

birria is not a soup, it is a very filling meal as served in that plaza. and a meal for 3 including 3 pops should not be sticker shock[$22.50 cdn] unless you hail from bolivia where you can get a 3 course meal for $1.00 and a cerveza for 50 cents cdn.

Is the "pelícano" restaurant still open in Joco?

A 10% tip for the bill is the norm in Mexico.

We have eaten out a few times. We're not sure what to tip. Also it seems like they discussed how much they're going to charge. We paid 270 pesos for a bowl of soup with meat and three sodas. Does that sound correct? I think they see us coming!
Angie

We don't know what they got, from that.
If they got three bowls of birria rather than a bowl of soup, they were fairly charged.

Pedro wrote:

HelperGuy wrote:There are definitely cheaper restaurants around. The average Jose won't pop 270 for, say, three bowls of pozole with Sprites in Ajijic...

get a grip. pozole ain't birria. if ya ever bothered ta go to the plaza in jocotepec ya would see the vast majority of birria restaurant patrons are mexican. and that's all the restaurants around that square serve.

Get a grip yerself. I didn't say it was. I was giving an example of a villager, on a low income. And by the way, in case you haven't figured it out yet, pozole is full of meat and is a great, great dish.

pozole is way cheaper than birria. my neighbors all eat it fer breakfast. apples and oranges comparison. i don't have ta figger,i done et both many times.

Before this gets out of hand, my point perhaps was not clear: the average village worker is not going to spring $270 pesos for a meal for three on an average day. He is much more likely to find a good feed of pozole at 30 a bowl or something, and 10 for a pop or 15 for a brew.

Yes and McDonalds is cheaper than El Fogon del Pibe, but I would be willing to bet that 90% of the birria sold in Jocotepec is to Mexicans and they are not the "high society" of Guadalajara.
I didn't get the impression that the OP was an average village worker having an average day.
Pero, ¿quién sabe?

99% and mostly to out of towner Mexicans who can afford a trip to Joco and a memorable comida for all.

Sorry, Slainte, don't see your point. I'm comparing value to a citizen, not restaurants.

I thought the OP was wanting to compare prices of restaurants, either here or to NOB, not to their ability to buy as compared to, as you noted "the average village worker".
And of course pozole is cheaper than birria, which didn't explain or answer her question.
I think we are agreeing to disagree to separate issues.

Trailrunner wrote:99% and mostly to out of towner Mexicans who can afford a trip to Joco and a memorable comida for all.

You are saying that most of the birria customers in Joco are Mexicans that come from out of town. Not disputing your statement, but how big an area are you talking about as Sahauyo, Zamora, and many places in Michoacan have some excellent birria establishments. I doubt that very much of their work days clientele is from Guadalajara.
IMO despite what HG says, the locals do eat birria, and the birria places don't seem to be going out of business as fast as some of the restaurants in Ajijic do.

During the week only a smattering of customers in those birririas but on weekends they are jovial and full of multi-generartional Mexican families having a great time. Sort of Ranchero types, look more like south shore and beyond folks than Tapatios.

The OP thought they paid too much. Everyone has speculated that she had birria. She thought it would have been cheaper. You calculated that was actually reasonable here, based on a 70 peso bowl.

My response to the OP was that there are "definitely cheaper restaurants around", if that is what they were looking for. Because if 70 peso birria is the "norm", you won't find a lot of villagers paying that price just for lunch. They are going to opt, instead, for something much cheaper; perhaps pozole. (To answer Arbon, typical pork pozole.)

Pedro took umbrage, thinking I was comparing pozole to birria, which I was most def not. That's when this took a turn askew.

My point was, to assist the OP, that a 70 peso birria restaurant is not your average restaurant, not around here or the villages both you and I have eaten in at one time or another. Far from it: a 20 peso lonche or a few 8 peso tacos is more like it for a typical worker. (Or even more likely, something brought from home.)

By the way, the last time I had birria, it was a lot less than 70p, so yes, of course the locals eat birria.

HelperGuy wrote: That's when this took a turn askew.

Absolutely outrageous!!! As nothing like this has ever happened before on this board. I'm outta here. (hasta... mañana por la mañana).

We could discuss butter instead...

The last time I had birria at Birriería Chololo on the hiway south of the airport, I think the price was 170.00 for two, which was a comida completa with frijoles, cebollitas, nopales, tortillas, etc. That would be 85.00 p/p.
Can't remember if it was carne de chivo or borrego.
A few months ago we ate birria de chivo in Cocula (west of Jocotepec) and the price was about the same as these folks paid. The clientele seemed like "average Mexicans" (whatever that means), to me.
At least, I was with average Mexicans.....hopefully.
Jaliscenses love their birria....and if they don't....they would never admit it.

Chololo is an exceptional place with the best I've had. Heck, it's worth an admission price just to ogle at the butchery and check out the goat heads. But as you say, it's a full boat for the price.

Let's not quibble about "average Mexicans". I'm thinking of the villagers, the ones with a lot of kids, where the Dad is struggling to find work, or gets paid for gardening, and the Mom maybe has a table on the street selling veggies or chips.

If the price of birria is getting that high, then that's really too bad.

Birria has been expensive (relatively speaking) ever since I got here and first ate it in Joco in 2004. Good birria, that is. Birria is a treat!

Speaking of birria. . .has anyone tried the birria de borrrego at the large puesto on the carretera between OXXO and HIO in SAT???? I walk by it all the time and think I'll try it but would like to hear someone say it's good or not first. Anyone?

My wife makes a very good birria de ternera and also de chivo,but the best I've had was in Mazamitla.

¿Qué es ternera?

Trailrunner wrote:¿Qué es ternera?

Youngish beef.

viajero wrote:

Trailrunner wrote:¿Qué es ternera?

Youngish beef.

Is it older than veal?

where she went,it is the price because every restaurant around that plaza serves the same dish. having said that,my favourite is the one on the north side beside the clothing store.
you can get cheaper birria in a lot of difernt places like upstairs in the chapala mercado but the best including ambience , is the jocotepec plaza. like i said before, a meal fer 3 including drinks fer about 22 bucks cdn ain't gonna break nobodies bank. that's why a lot of mexican families eat there.

arbon wrote:

viajero wrote:

Trailrunner wrote:¿Qué es ternera?

Youngish beef.

Is it older than veal?

I'm not an expert but I would say yes.It's not like the veal you might find NOB,but it is an inexpensive cut and prepared right is pretty tender and tasty.

viajero wrote:My wife makes a very good birria de ternera and also de chivo,but the best I've had was in Mazamitla.

¿Dónde en Mazamitla?