Tag Archives: 2012

La(s) Mestiza(s) Restaurant, Piste (Chichen Itzá) Yucatan, Mexico

Casual Restaurant Critic, , , , , , , ,

The other day the Casual Restaurant Critic found himself in the charming hamlet of Pisté, adjacent to the majestic Mayan ruins of Chichen Itzá, where Sarah Brightman will sing at the end of this month.

Having heard of this restaurant, the Critic stopped for a quick breakfast of huevos con longaniza which seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to arrive. This was, as the Critic later discovered, because the kitchen was taking the trouble to accompany the plate with fresh, thick, hand-made tortillas! A real treat in this age where Maseca cardboard tortillas are the accepted (by some) norm.

Food was good, the tortillas excellent, service fine and the coffee awful.


The Trotters Burger Trio

Casual Restaurant Critic, , ,

At this time of the year, Merida restaurants respond to the decline in attendance by offering promotions and specials, especially for those husbands or spouses that have to stay and work in Merida while the rest of the family vacations in and around Progreso. These husbands have no one at home to ‘serve’ them their lunch and so the restaurateurs of the formerly white city take it upon themselves to fill in for the duration.

One of these is Trotters, who have an excellently priced lunch special that runs around $150 pesos or so and includes a soup, refillable refresco, a main course and a dessert.

The Critic and his Better Half had the opportunity to sample this lunch the other day. The verdict? Take it or leave it.

The service was really rough at the beginning with an extended gap between the seating and the appearing of a menu and the offer of a drink. Drink refills were sporadic. Appetizer delivery was clueless; the busboy offered the appetizer to an adjacent table (where the diners were finishing their main courses), did not look around and headed back to the kitchen where the appetizer remained for quite some time.

Air conditioning was minimal, making it just a little uncomfortable with the humid heat Merida is suffering these days.

The soup, a cream of asparagus, was too obviously made with Carnation canned milk. The Mini Burger Trio however, was excellent. Juicy and tasty, each little burger had its own little theme going on.

The Critic can not really say that this is a Do Not Miss promotion. Take it or leave it.

Elections in Yucatan!

Life in the Yucatan, Politics, , , , , ,

Hooray for democracy!

Yucatecos and Yucatecas have, once again, the wonderful opportunity to exercise their hallowed democratic rights and obligations, and elect a diputado!

What the heck is a diputado, you might ask? It is said that the diputado is some kind of legislative political creature, that is supposed to represent the interests of the people in the district that voted for him or her. However, voting always along party lines, the diputado is about as representative of the people as a panucho would be representative of Swiss culture.

This time around, we have a few candidates to choose from according to the distrito to be ‘represented’. Today we will look at two: the PRI offers up Angelica and the PAN suggests former police chief Javier Medina.

A quick look at their websites (linked above) shows this casual observer that while the PAN continues its use of the traditional blue colors, the PRI has abandoned its green white and red colors to distance itself from its rather unpopular track record, while at the same time banking on that record and emphasizing it’s experience. OK. If you say so.

The PAN Javier website home page features a serious Javier making a speech, with carefully furrowed brows and much animated finger pointing and waving, indicating his experience and seriousness, while the PRI/PV home page loads up a video of a crowd of happy singing red-tshirt clad jovenes singing, clapping and dancing around Angelica in a kind of rapturous, can’t wait for the tortas and refrescos/I’m on TV!!/Michael Jackson We Are the World kind of way.

Oh and if you are wondering what this PV is about, it’s the Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexico (Green Party) who have allied themselves with the PRI. This is the most hypocritical of all political parties; if they have done one thing to protect the ecology or a blade of grass, I would be enormously surprised. I suspect the ‘green’ part refers to their political acumen, as in lack thereof.

As for their novel ideas, of which practically all sound very populistas, Javier’s sound a little more coherent, while Angelica stresses her ‘sensitivity to the needs of the family’ which begs the question “Whose family?” Yours? Mine? Hers, maybe? Neither of these candidates is saying “Yucatecos and Yucatecas, get off your butts and work” Probably not a real popular message.

Which brings me to the subject of how much the diputado makes in a year! According to El Semanario, in an article from 2008 (it’s probably increased by now) a diputado earned 77,888 pesos a month, along with another 45,786 to attend legislative sessions and 28,772 pesos to cover other activities. This makes a tidy little sum of $152446 pesos. A month. There is, on top of that, a savings program equal to 12% of their regular salary, medical coverage (you can bet they are not standing in line at the local IMSS (Importa Madres Su Salud) and an aguinaldo or Christmas bonus, equivalent to 40 days of salary.

No wonder they are so excited to ‘serve’ selflessly the needs of the population. And no wonder we have to pay more taxes!
Have a look at the candidates, their proposals and make up your mind. Imagine who you would vote for if you could vote. If you can, but don’t want to, you could try the Voto Blanco option, proposed by former elected officials now out of the running, who are now saying that the voting system is flawed and people should abstain from participating (in the system that elected them in the past) Sour grapes? Gee, ya think?

Have a great election season, enjoy the visual and audio pollution!

Viva la democracia!

And if you thought that last post was fun…

Life in the Yucatan, Politics, , , , , , , , ,

Here’s another one!

When filing your business’s annual tax declaration, you make out the onerous paperwork – well, your accountant does because the Mexican tax system is so complicated that it is virtually impossible for anyone to understand what the hell it is you are supposed to actually put in the scores of little boxes and what to deduct or declare – and you file it, paying at the bank via internet since Mexico is such a modern country. Once you have paid and received/printed your receipt, and have verified that your money has been removed from your bank account in order to help promote a comfortable lifestyle for Mexican politicians once they have retired and live in France, you think you are done right? Wrong.

It turns out that there is a little-known and never-used (up till now) in the marvelous taxation laws of this advanced democracy that states that besides filing your declaration and paying, you have to (or your accountant has to) LET HACIENDA KNOW THAT YOU HAVE PAID by means of an official letter or notification. Failure to do this will result in a $50,000.00 peso fine! Can you believe this? You pay and they already have your money, but since you didn’t tell them you paid, you automatically get slapped with a fat fine which will presumably cover the cost of Mr. Carstens weekly lunch bill.

This is nothing less than outright highway robbery and a wonderful incentive for investors to come to Mexico to subject themselves to this abuse. Perhaps the Mexican government should consider promoting the country to the International Masochist Businessmens Association, whose members might enjoy this kind of pain.

I am not making this up. I have first-hand knowledge of such a case right now. The accountant alleges that while it is technically his fault because he is supposed to be watching his clients’ back, he prefers to fight the fine legally (with the clients money of course).

Meanwhile, for your enjoyment, look for a photo of Mr. Carstens, Mexico’s Minister of All Things Taxable and believe me as you will see, he needs the money.

More on the $2000 Peso Rule for Small Business Owners

Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This note is of interest for those considering coming to Mexico and starting a small (or large) business…

In their infinite and constantly increasing wisdom, the powers that be at the Secretaria de Hacienda y Planeacion (SHCP) known simply as ‘Hacienda’ established a rule that said you can not declare as a legitimate expense any expense that reaches or exceeds $2000 pesos if you paid for it in cash. This ingenious little rule will somehow make the country less prone to tax evasion and help the 30% of Mexico that pays taxes pay more taxes either directly or in fines and therefore support the other 70% that pays no taxes whatsoever.

Let’s say you are buying something in Costco and the bill comes to $1999.99. That’s OK, you can pay in cash. But if it comes to $2000.01 then you must pay with a company check.

There are a couple of ways around this little rule, none of them particularly illegal (check with your accountant though, don’t take my neurotic word for it):

  • Let’s say you have $7000 pesos worth of goods you have bought for your business. You ask the cashier, or the person who is making up your invoice, to split the purchase into several separate purchases with each invoice totaling less than the $2000 peso total. This way you can pay for them in cash (petty cash) and then issue a check later for reposition of petty cash. This helps because if you want to pay by check in some of these places, it’s a pain in the butt since you will need to have extra paperwork done in the case of Sam’s Club or Costco, for example.
  • The other way is to pay your $7000 in cash; then make the check, and it’s accompanying poliza* out separately. Make the check out to yourself, but on the poliza make it look like the check was paid to the company in question.

This ‘petty cash’ rule is one of the rules that business owners must abide by and that make doing business in Mexico such a downright pleasure, especially when you see so many people not paying any taxes at all; it makes you feel proud to be part of that select group that pays for all the rest of the population.

The poliza is the copy of the check that must accompany each and every check in your accounting records and contains all the information on the check. It’s usually green which is another bit of completely useless information.