A Mexican Breakfast: The Hangover Remedy

Hangovers suck. They can ruin your entire day. There are a million coping methods, most of them involving something passive, like lying on the couch watching 90’s movies on USA for a few hours. Another method is to eat a Mexican breakfast. This is something I’ve never tried because food is the last thing on my mind when I’m hungover. I asked a friend of mine who swears by the Mexican breakfast remedy and he said, “I don’t know how it works, it just does. I don’t question God’s ways.”

It’s Saturday morning and I wake up drunk from the night before. The hangover hasn’t even kicked in yet. I call my buddy Pablo, who is also hungover, and tell him we’re going to Los Tacos in Pasadena. Los Tacos is one of my favorite restaurants in LA; it’s cheap, they have great food, and the portions are big enough for lunch and dinner.

On the way to Pasadena, the hangover kicks in and I feel like shit. I have to pull off the 110 twice so I can throw up the Vitamin Waters I drank earlier. The image of me throwing up spicy Mexican food in an hour involuntarily flashes through my head. By the time I get to Los Tacos, I’m not only really nauseous, but really hungry. Pablo orders the chorizo breakfast (best deal ever, $5 for chorizo and eggs, beans, tortillas, and chilaquiles) and I get the menudo with a Jamaica drink.

I drink the shit out of my Jamaica before I even look at the menudo. Pablo’s already halfway through the chorizo breakfast and says his hangover is waning. Reluctantly, I start on the menudo. I eat slowly because if I puke it up, I want to puke as little as possible. The menudo tastes incredible and before I know it, I’m looking at an empty bowl. I can’t tell you when it happened or what happened exactly, but when I was done, I felt like a million bucks. Like I was ready to climb a mountain or run a marathon. The menudo not only vanquished my hangover, but also boosted my self-confidence somehow.

I was later told that it’s all the grease in a Mexican breakfast that takes the hangover away, and that you could get the same effect eating an Egg McMuffin. I don’t believe that. I don’t want to.