Category: Restaurants

Restaurante Yuban: Comida Casera Zapoteca (Oaxacan Home Cooking in Mexico City)

Restaurante Yuban takes the iconic Oaxaca tlayuda and brings it to Mexico City with the addition of fresh, crunchy vegetables. In addition to the visible vegetables, this tlayuda is stuffed with melted Oaxaca cheese, chorizo (spicy pork sausage), and tasajo (marinated grilled beef). We four split it as an appetizer; it was just enough to wake up our appetites for more. All photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted. Click on any photo for a larger view.

One part of the charming and comfortable dining room at Yuban. The restaurant also has a very popular bar with a large selection of mezcales. Photo courtesy Gastronoma.

The state and city of Oaxaca are deservedly famous for their cuisine, and the Zapotec communities outside the city of Oaxaca are celebrated for their regional dishes. Every household has its jealously guarded recipes; every grandmother has her personal way of preparing ancestral dishes. Restaurante Yuban, which opened its doors in October 2013, continues to be one of the few restaurants in the city where Zapotec food is prepared–and prepared deliciously.

Fernando Martínez Zavala has been the executive chef at Yuban since mid-2014. A native of Uruapan, Michoacán, chef Fernando is self-taught and has 14 years' experience, most notably as chef in the Mexico City restaurants Les Moustaches and Moustache Bistrot. He comes from a family of cooks. Just prior to starting his work at Yuban, Fernando won Mexico's well-respected Cocinero del Año 2014 (Cook of the Year) competition. Photo courtesy Yuban.

Two lovely friends, visiting recently from Los Angeles, invited Mexico Cooks! to join them for comida (the midday main meal of the day in Mexico) at Restaurante Yuban, where we had not been since chef Fernando took the helm. Yuban (the Zapotec name means living earth) was a favorite of ours when it opened, but it had obviously been quite a while since we'd enjoyed both the charming room and the delicious menu.

Lengua en salsa verde (tongue in green sauce) was deliciously tangy, sweet, slightly salty, and served with a mix of organic vegetables from Oaxaca. One of Mexico Cooks!' companions at table chose the tongue but allowed me to taste it.

Two of the four of us ordered this cooked-over-low-temperature lechón en pipián de pepita (suckling pig in pumpkin seed sauce) with nopales (diced cactus paddles), pea shoots and nasturtium flowers. Although the flavors were exquisite, the meat was extremely fatty and the sauce quite over-salted. With just a bit more attention to the details, this dish will have the potential for greatness.

My choice for comida was mole negro con guajolote (black mole with turkey). I loved the vegetable garnish: tender flor de calabaza (squash flowers) and still-crunchy baby calabacitas (similar to zucchini). The turkey was tender, but once again, the sauce was seriously over-salted.

The house very graciously sent two desserts to our table–along with four plates and spoons all around. This pastel de chocolate (in this case, cake made of stone-ground Oaxacan chocolate) is presented with a leaf of white chocolate freckled with ground chile chilhuacle, Oaxaca's iconic and very scarce chile.

Our second dessert was my favorite: Cremoso de requesón (creamy ricotta-type cheese ice cream) with a streusel of pinole (toasted, lightly sweetened and ground dried corn), roasted fresh pineapple, and coconut ice cream. Its textures and flavors surprised me with their depth and fresh combination. I hoped that my table companions might let me finish it by myself, but we all loved it too much to do anything but share it to the last crumb.

Another view of Yuban's inviting dining space. Photo courtesy DondeIr.

Mexico Cooks! was grateful to have time for a talk with chef Fernando about the opportunities for improvement in his dishes. I'm sure that by the time you read this, the very few kinks we noticed will have been straightened out and that you will love Yuban when you dine there. I certainly plan on returning–maybe we will see one another there.

Restaurante Yuban
Colima 268 near the corner of Insurgentes
Col. Roma Norte
Tel: 55-6387-0358
Hours: Monday – Wednesday 1:30PM – 11:00PM
Thursday – Saturday 1:30PM – Midnight
Sunday 1:30PM – 6:00PM
Reservations recommended

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11 de July de 2015
Michoacán’s Own Soup: The Mystery of Sopa Tarasca

North-central Michoacán is frequently and with much reason called paradise on earth. Autumn's wildflowers, ripening corn, green mountains, and a partly cloudy sky combine to give you the sense that 'paradise on earth' just might be exactly where you are: in this case, near Senguio, Michoacán.

The state of Michoacán is well-known both for its lovely scenery and its even more lovely–and delicious–regional cooking. The indigenous Purépecha kitchen, in particular, is Mexico Cooks!' favorite. If you look back at the Mexico Cooks! archives (found listed on the right-hand side of this page), you'll see many, many articles about this marvelous cuisine, which dates back to pre-Hispanic days.

Misnamed "Tarascos" by unknowing 16th century Spanish invaders, the Purépecha have, just within the last 25 to 30 years, largely reclaimed their actual tribal name. Nonetheless, one of the most popular dishes in the Michoacán culinary repertoire bears the name sopa tarasca (Tarascan Soup).

Not precisely traditional, but certainly not modern, this pot of beans is cooking over a wood fire built in a deep tire rim in an open patio in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán.

You might well ask, "Sopa tarasca must be a pre-Hispanic dish, right?" Or maybe, "Sopa tarasca was first made for her family by a long-ago Purépecha housewife, no?" Over the course of years, most people who have eaten and fallen in love with this remarkably delicious and filling soup have asked me these same questions. Much to their surprise, the answer is always, "No…but let me tell you the story I know."

Once upon a time, before Mexico Cooks! was born, the small plaza in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán looked like the above photo. Part of the two-story building with the arches, just to the right of the photo's center, became the home of the Hostería de don Felipe, which had a dining room to serve its guests. Later, the Hostería was renamed Gran Hotel. In the 1960's, Rafael García Correa was a young cook in the Gran Hotel kitchen.

When I met Rafael García Correa in 1982, he was the head of the kitchen at the Gran Hotel. The photo above, taken in 2004 by Luis Jiménez of the New York Times during an interview where I was present, is don Rafa (don is an honorific title given to a revered older man) showing us a bowl of sopa tarasca in the foreground, along with a plate of corundas (a kind of Michoacán tamal).

Don Rafa told me that in the mid-1960s, he himself, along with the hotel's then-owner and the owner's American wife, invented a dish that, once offered to the public, became an almost instant classic: sopa tarasca was born, not created in an indigenous kitchen but for a tourist hotel's dining room. Today, we'd call that cocina de autor: the cook's invention.

Sopa tarasca as served at Lu Cocina Michoacana in Morelia. Read more about the restaurant here.

Sopa tarasca as served at the Hotel de la Soledad, Morelia. Some sopa tarasca is based on beans; some, like don Rafa's, is not.

Was don Rafa the inventor? He swore his story is true. He also gave me a hand-written recipe which he promised is the original. Don Rafa passed away a few years ago, and any possible secrets of sopa tarasca's origins were buried with him.

Don Rafa reported that sopa tarasca was served for the first time as part of a Pátzcuaro wedding banquet, on May 8, 1965. Years later, he opened his own restaurant near Plaza Gertrudis Bocanegra (the plaza chica) in Pátzcuaro. If you go to the restaurant, you can still enjoy a bowl of his own sopa tarasca.

Today, sopa tarasca is a Michoacán icon, prepared in almost every restaurant around Lake Pátzcuaro as well as in further-flung establishments. It's one of those you-have-to-try-it local dishes that people who know you've been to Michoacán will ask you about: did you taste it at so-and-so's restaurant? How about at this other place, did you like it there?

Sopa tarasca as served at Pátzcuaro's Mansión Iturbe, a hotel and restaurant.
Click on any picture to see a larger view.

Fortunately, sopa tarasca is a relatively easy soup to prepare at home. The ingredients should be readily available, if not in your nearby supermarket then at a Mexican market not far from you. The recipe I offer you here is don Rafa's, but there are others (notably an excellent one from Diana Kennedy) that are available either in books or on the Internet.

Sopa tarasca as served by chef Alma Cervantes Cota at Restaurante Azul y Oro Ingeniería, UNAM, Mexico City.

Sopa Tarasca Don Rafael García

Ingredients
500 grams tomato purée
2 tortillas
5 corn tortillas, cut into very thin strips and fried until crisp
100 grams chile pasillo, cut into thin strips and fried until just crisp. Be very careful not to burn the chiles, they fry quickly and burn in the blink of an eye.
250 grams Mexican table cream
100 grams Oaxaca cheese, shredded
50 grams all-purpose flour
100 grams unsalted butter
1 clove garlic
1 small white onion
10 cups rich chicken stock
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh marjoram or oregano
2 bay leaves

Preparation
In a heavy pot, prepare a roux with the butter and flour, stirring constantly so that no lumps form. Allow to cook until the roux is a deep caramel color.

In a blender, liquify the two tortillas listed, some of the fried chiles, and the onion. Add this mixture to the roux and continue stirring until it is well incorporated. Next, add the tomato purée, the chicken broth, the herbs, and salt and pepper to taste. Add half a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce and taste; if you think more is needed, add bit by bit. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes.

Put equal amounts of the soup into each of 10 bowls. Garnish with fried tortilla strips, fried chile ancho or negro, some Oaxaca cheese, and some cream. You can add some cubed avocado and a few sprigs of cilantro. Take your cues from the photos I've included in this article.

Sopa tarasca, garnished in this serving with fried shredded tortillas and fried shredded chile pasilla.

Serves 10.

Provecho!

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4 de July de 2015
Mexico Cooks!, Touring Off the Beaten Path

A November market tour in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. I'm holding a mamey fruit. The mamey's scientific name is poutería sapote.

One of the great pleasures of my life is the number of tours Mexico Cooks! gives to lots of excited tourists. Small, specialized tours are a joy to organize: the participants generally have common interests, a thirst for knowledge, and a hunger for–well, for Mexico Cooks!' tour specialty: food and its preparation. Touring a food destination (a street market in Michoacán, an enclosed market in Guadalajara, a crawl through some Mexico City street stands, or meals in a series of upscale restaurants) is about far more than a brief look at a fruit, a vegetable, or a basket of freshly made tortillas.

A Pátzcuaro street vendor holds out a partially unwrapped tamal de trigo (wheat tamal). It's sweetened with piloncillo (Mexican raw sugar) and a few plump raisins, wrapped in corn husks, and steamed. Taste? It's all but identical to a bran muffin, and every tour participant enjoyed a pinch of it.

A tour planned to your specifications can lead you to places you didn't know you wanted to go, but that you would not have missed for the world. Here, Donna talks with the man who makes these enormous adobe bricks. He let her try to pick up the laden wheelbarrow. She could barely get its legs off the ground! He laughed, raised the handles, and whizzed away with his load.

Several times in recent years, small groups wanted to tour traditional bakeries in Mexico City. The photo shows one tiny corner of the enormous Pastelería La Ideal in the Centro Histórico. Just looking at the photo brings the sweet fragrances back to mind. And never mind the taste of the delicious pastries!

Ramon and Annabelle Canova wanted an introduction to how ordinary people live and shop in Guadalajara. We spent a highly entertaining morning at the Tianguis del Sol, a three-times-a-week outdoor market in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara. Our first stop was for breakfast, then we shopped for unusual produce, fresh spices, and other goodies that the Canovas don't often see in their home town. Annabelle said she felt right at home because so much of the style and flavor of this market was similar to what she experienced in the markets near her home town in the Phillipines.

We went for comida (main meal of the day) to the original location of Guadalajara's Karne Garibaldi. The restaurant does one thing–carne en su jugo (meat in its juice)–and does it exceptionally well. The food is plentiful, delicious, and affordable. The place is always packed, and usually has a line to get in!

Ramon wanted to try tejuino, a regional specialty in the Guadalajara area. Mixed when you order it, the refreshing, lightly fermented drink is thickened with masa de maíz (corn dough) and served with a pinch of salt and a small scoop of lemon ice.

Pillars of nopal cactus paddles, taller than a man, at Mercado de la Merced, Mexico City. La Merced is the largest retail market in Mexico, if not in all of Latin America. It's the ultimate market experience and just a partial tour takes the best part of a morning. Comfortable walking shoes are a necessity–let's go!

A more intimate, up-close-and-personal Mexico City market tour takes us through the Mercado San Juan. The San Juan is renowned for its gourmet selection of meats, fish and shellfish, cheeses, and wild mushrooms–among a million other things you might not expect to find.

Pepitorias are a sweet specialty of Mexico's capital city. Crunchy and colorful obleas (wafers) enclose sticky syrup and squash seeds. Mexico Cooks!' tour groups usually try these at the Bazar Sábado in San Ángel.

Lovely and fascinating people and events are around almost any Mexican corner. The annual Festival Internacional de Música de Morelia opens every year with several blocks of carpets made of flowers. Residents of Patamban, Michoacán work all night to create the carpets for the festival. This piano is made entirely of plant material. Enlarge any picture for a closer view.

Entire flowers, fuzzy pods, and flower petals are used to create the carpets' ephemeral beauty and design; these carpets last two days at most.

In November 2012, one of Mexico Cooks!' tours was dazzled by a special Morelia concert given by Tania Libertad. With Tania is Rosalba Morales Bartolo, a fabulous traditional cook from San Jerónimo, Michoacán, who presented the artist with various handcrafted items from the state–including the lovely coral necklace and rebozo (shawl) that Tania is wearing.

No matter where we start our tour and no matter what we plan together for your itinerary, a Mexico Cooks! tour always includes a terrific surprise or two, special memories to take home, and the thirst for more of Mexico. Marvey Chapman had a wonderful time! By all means come and enjoy a tour!

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27 de June de 2015
Your Flaneur in Mexico: Out and About in the Distrito Federal and Beyond

Roof at Casa Luis Barragán, Calle General Francisco Ramírez 12 and 14, Col. Daniel Garza, Distrito Federal. If you are at all interested in modern Mexican architecture, this museum is a must-see. Arquitecto Luis Barragán changed the face of Mexican building, pioneering in the use of forms and space.

Baby bok choy at the Mercado de San Juan de Dios. Each of these little bok choys is about six inches long, perfect for steaming. Most of the most-used fresh Asian vegetables are regularly available at this downtown Mexico City market.

One of my favorite market stall signs: Bacon Shop "La Guadalupana", a Mercado de Jamaica pork butcher puesto (booth) that sells far more than bacon.

Just around the corner from Mexico Cooks!' Mexico City headquarters, this tree wears a multi-colored and textured knit jacket.

A wheelbarrow full of mamey (pouteria sapota), perfectly ripe, beautifully cut, creamy sweetness. Sunday market, Tlacolula, Oaxaca.

Molinillos (carved chocolate beaters), Sunday market, Tlacolula, Oaxaca.

Pink graffiti on a window. The little sign reads, "Fresh paint".

Tomatoes for salsa, roasting directly on the red-hot embers. Private home, Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. "Sí, siempre los asamos así. Agarran más sabor." ('Yes, we always roast them this way. They take on more flavor.')

Tortillas freshly toasted on the comal (griddle). These tortillas, prepared in Puebla by traditional cooks from Querétaro, bear a "Q" stamp indicating their place of origin. In long-ago years, tortillas were often stamped with similar carved wooden stamps. The stamps were carved with pictures or letters that identified the owners.

Crystallized fruits, Mercado Medellín, Mexico City. Clockwise from the top: a whole orange, a slice of sweet potato, a slice of squash, a whole green limón, a pale slice of chilacayote squash, another orange, more sweet potato, and several wheels of pineapple. In the center, a whole limón and a fig.

Fresh morel mushrooms, Mercado de San Juan, Mexico City. Morels are available at this market fresh during the rainy season and dried all year long.

A pre-Hispanic waterspout in the shape of a monkey's head. Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City.

Jícaras (hand-carved or painted drinking gourds), Mercado Benito Juárez, Oaxaca.

Misitu, the Purépecha word for cat. Mural detail, Santa Fe de la Laguna, Michoacán.

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13 de June de 2015
Fresh As The Morning: Mexico’s Tianguis (Street Markets)

Fresh from Mexico's fields, these gorgeous pimientos morrón rojo y amarillo (red and yellow sweet peppers) sell for about 40 pesos the kilo ($2.50 USD the pound) at the tianguis where Mexico Cooks! shops.

Nearly eight years ago, in August 2007, Mexico Cooks! featured every sort of produce, dairy product, and meat sold at a local tianguis (street market) near Guadalajara, Jalisco. For the entire month of August 2008, you read about seasonal availability of fruits and vegetables at the dozens of regularly scheduled tianguis (it's the same word in singular and plural) in Morelia, Michoacán.  Mexico Cooks! would rather shop at a hot, crowded, and sometimes smelly tianguis than at an air conditioned supermarket, rather shop for supremely fresh foods at a tianguis than give a second glance to anything frozen, boxed, or canned that's offered for sale elsewhere.

A signmaker with a sense of humor stuck this tag on his fresh Roma tomatoes: "Like you saw it on TV". These were offered at 14 pesos the kilo (about 45 cents US the pound).

The tianguis, wherever in Mexico it's held, is a basic part of the culture of modern Mexico.   Its name comes from the Náuhatl word tianquiztli, market. Although Nahuatl markets are centuries old, the present-day form of the tianguis is fairly recent, originating during the 1970-76 Mexican presidency of Luis Echeverría Alvarez. The author of the tianguis project in Mexico was José Iturriaga, Echeverría's former finance minister.

Cooked in a sweet syrup, whole calabaza de castilla (squash, left), camote (sweet potato, right), and higos (figs, rear) are available at the tianguis by the kilo or portion of a kilo. They're to be eaten for breakfast or supper.

Although Iturriaga was himself a wealthy, educated, and cultured man, he worried about the ability of Mexico's poor to feed their families. He was especially concerned about the availability of nutritious fresh foods sold at reasonable prices. The tianguis, otherwise known as a mercado sobre ruedas (market on wheels), was his idea. The government took charge of giving Mexico's working-class housewives and other food shoppers stupendous quality at the lowest possible prices.

Beautiful cebollitas de cambray (knob onions), ready for serving with carne asada (grilled meat, usually accompanied by grilled whole onions like these.

Still operated by local government, today's tianguis only sometimes reach Iturriaga's ideal. Often the produce can be second-rate, the meats and seafood far less than fresh, and the market's hygiene questionable–while prices are often as high or higher than the días de plaza (sale days) in upscale supermarkets.

Higos–figs, at the peak of maturity and ripeness–enjoy a relatively long season here in Mexico. We recently paid 100 pesos for two kilos of beautifully ripe figs and prepared half a dozen jars of you-don't-want-to-know-how-good fig conserve. Later this winter, spread on a toasted and buttered bolillo (small loaf of fresh-baked bread) from our tianguis, served over ice cream, or simply licked off the finger, the conserve will be an intense memory of summer.

Mexico Cooks! is a regular customer at one of the better tianguis in Mexico City. Our tianguis, set up early Wednesday mornings, is quite near our house. Our normal purchases include tortillas, bread, seafood, excellent pork ranging from maciza (fresh pork leg) to tocino (bacon), marvelously fresh chicken (whole or whichever part you want), all of our fruits and vegetables, cheeses and cream, grains, and flowers for the house. We don't eat much beef, but if we did, we'd buy it at the tianguis.

Tiny plátanos dominico (finger bananas, about 2.5 inches long) are just one of the banana varieties we usually see at the tianguis.

Prices at the Wednesday tianguis in our neighborhood, while not substantially lower than those at the supermarket, are still not higher than we care to pay. We usually budget about 700 pesos (about $50 USD) to buy what we need at the tianguis for a week's meals, including pork and sometimes shrimp. We budget another 400 pesos for purchases at the supermarket.

Mangos stacked high at a tianguis. This large variety is known as either Paraíso or Petacón.

On a recent Wednesday–when the refrigerator was bare of produce, as we had been out of the country for more than a week–these were our purchases:

6 large fresh white onions
1 huge cantaloupe
4 Petacón mangos
6 red-ripe Roma tomatoes
1/2 lb mushrooms
1/2 large white cabbage
8 Red Delicious apples
1 large avocado
2 large bananas
1 large papaya
1 lb fresh green beans
1 large head of broccoli
8 ounces crema de mesa (table cream, similar to crême fraiche)
1 kilo freshly ground-to-order beef
Total cost: 350 pesos–the equivalent of about $23.00 USD.

Stands offering prepared foods are always popular at any tianguis. This woman at the Tianguis del Sol in Guadalajara is preparing hand made huaraches (a long, thick oval of corn masa (dough), similar to a tortilla, served with various toppings).

Times and needs change. Urban Mexico views the tianguis as both a terrible bother (who would want one on their street, with its attendant noise and mess) and a joy (but where else can we get produce this fresh!).  Mexico Cooks! knows people who will not shop at a tianguis, and we know people who will not shop anywhere else. Come with us some week and see what you think.

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30 de May de 2015
Restaurante Merotoro, Baja California’s West Coast Cuisine in Mexico City

Restaurante Merotoro, Av. Amsterdam 204, Col. Hipódromo Condesa, Mexico City. Photo courtesy El Modo.

Sometimes we human beings wander far from home, looking for what we later discover to have been just around the corner all the time. In our case, we found superb food and generous, attentive service in an attractive room at Restaurante Merotoro, open since 2010 and literally just around the corner from the place we've called home since 2011. Sometimes it seems that Mexico Cooks! is the last to really *get* a completely open secret. It's only taken us these four years to stroll up the street and plunk ourselves down at a Merotoro table.

Chef Jaír Téllez, above, partnered with Gabriela Cámara and her team (of Contramar fame) to bring Merotoro to Mexico City. The restaurant's name refers to mero (the fish known in English as grouper) and, of course, toro–bull. Together the words make a sort of surf 'n' turf, although the only beef dishes on the menu on the day we learned to love Merotoro were oxtail and beef tongue. Photo courtesy Flickr.

The restaurant's charming surf 'n' turf logo.

The menu at Merotoro changes daily. It's divided into four courses, appetizers through desserts, with numerous choices in each. We were five at table, and we five proceeded to order several dishes from each of the first, third, and fourth courses–often one per person and an extra–and we managed to devour every bit without a single regret. Now that I think of it, perhaps we did have one regret: we did not order from the second course choices.

First came the salads:

Ceviche de pez sierra (swordfish) with avocado, chile poblano, and caramelized onions. One of our group ordered this to overlap as both a salad and a main course.

Ensalada de betabel con hinojo, nueces, y vinagreta de uva pasa (beet salad with dill, nuts, and a raisin vinaigrette.

Ensalada tibia de pulpo a la parrilla con salicornia y morcilla hecha en casa (warm grilled octopus salad with salicornia (a succulent also known as grasswort) and house-made blood sausage). Two of us ordered this salad.

Tostadas de callo y pulpo con vinagreta de pata de res (scallop and octopus tostadas with cow's foot vinaigrette).

Ensalada de naranja sanguínea, colinabo, y aceituna negra (salad of blood oranges, turnip, and black olives). This salad, made with an unusual mix of flavors, was placed in the center of our table to share. It was my favorite.

The light, bright, unpretentious offerings at Merotoro are simple, but with a depth of complex flavors that make you sit up straighter at table, make your palate crave another taste (and then another). If it weren't for your upbringing, you'd almost want to lick the juices from your dish, just before a waiter asks if he can take it away.

The main courses followed:

Lengua de res en su jugo con frijoles, aguacate tatemado, y salsa martajada (beef tongue in its own juices with beans, grilled avocado, and coarsely chopped salsa).

Dorado a la parilla con puré de chícharo y condimento de aceituna negra (grilled dorado with puréed peas and a black olive condiment). Two of us also ordered this main course.

My good friend John Sconzo, serious food lover, writer, and photographer, first ate at Merotoro in 2012 and had this to say about it:

"The culinary ideals of Merotoro reflect chef Jaír Téllez’s own varied background. He grew up on the border and spent much time living and cooking in the United States. The cuisine that he applies to Merotoro is one that, like Contramar, relies extensively on good product, served to highlight the attributes of that product. While his dishes were well designed, original and structured, they showed strong influences from Mexican tradition, from the Mediterranean, from California and even from Japan."

Huachinango rostizado con puré de colinabo, nabos, y acelgas (roasted red snapper with a purée of two kinds of turnips and Swiss chard). Although I tasted just a bite of each of the main courses, this is the one I ordered and this is the one I liked best. The crisp, crystal-crunchy skin of the fish was the perfect complement to its extraordinarily flavorful, sweet flesh.

We finished with desserts, of which there were five choices. We ordered one of each item on the sweets menu, asked for five spoons, and lined the desserts up down the center of the table to share. We did, we truly did, and we ate every morsel.

Brownie de chocolate de la Casa Tropical, crema de almendra y helado de hoja santa (Casa Tropical chocolate brownie, almond cream, and hoja santa ice cream).

Plato de queso artesanal mexicano, compotas, y pan de nuez (plate of Mexican artisan-made cheeses, compotes, and nut bread).

Pastelito de almendra con tapioca, helado, y dulce de plátano (a little almond cake with tapioca, ice cream, and candied banana).

Pannacotta de coco y litchi con granizado de Campari y tomate de árbol (coconut and litchi pannacotta with Campari ice and tree tomato, also known as tamarillo). The flavor combination was superb: creamy, tropical sweetness combined with that knife-edge of bitter Campari to make all of our taste buds sit up and take notice.

Granizado de jamaica con sorbete de naranja, mezcal, y sal de gusano (jamaica crushed ice with orange sherbet, mezcal, and maguey worm salt). Let me just say: I coulda had two. Usually I prefer chocolate or creamy desserts, but this glass of sweet, tart, salty, and spicy crushed ice won my prize for best in show.

Word to the wise: make reservations. Merotoro's staff went overboard to accommodate our group even without a reservation, but we certainly should have called ahead. Would I go back? I would–in fact, I already have a reservation!

Merotoro
Amsterdam 204
Between Iztaccíhautl and Chilpancingo
Colonia Condesa
Mexico City
Tel: 5564-7799

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16 de May de 2015
Restaurante Pujol, Mexico City: Enrique Olvera, Re-thinking Mexican Food

Entrance, Restaurante Pujol, Mexico City.

Enrique Olvera, the founding thinker and chef/owner at Mexico City's Restaurante Pujol, graduated in 1999 from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Pujol opened 16 years ago, and its name has become a household word among followers of Mexican cuisine and its trends. Pujol, in case anyone here has been snoozing under a rock, is presently considered to be the best restaurant in Mexico and the 20th best restaurant in the world, according to San Pellegrino's 2014 "50 Best Restaurants" list.

Chef Enrique Olvera. Photo courtesy Suena México.

Several weeks ago, invited by a lovely friend, Mexico Cooks! made a reservation for three at this temple of gastronomy. Several recent reviews of Pujol's dishes and service have reflected a shadow of decline; chef Enrique has naturally devoted tremendous time and attention of late to the December 2014 opening of Cosme, his New York City restaurant.

I felt excited, on guard, and a touch nervous about dining at Pujol; I deeply wanted it to be fabulous and, in the name of pure contrariness, I deeply wanted to turn up my nose. You're absolutely right: ambivalence was my middle name.

Pujol's menu for our comida (main meal of the day) on March 8, 2015. The extensive tasting menu changes daily; no other menu is offered. Click on any photo for a larger view.

In order of appearance:

Elotitos con mayonesa de hormiga chicatana, café, y chile costeño (tiny ears of corn roasted with ground ants, coffee, and coast-style chile), served still steaming in a bule (a kind of dried gourd).

Bocol huasteco, con relleno de queso y pico de gallo. A tiny infladita (puffed-up tortilla) filled with cheese, topped with a salsa of minced raw tomato, chile, onion, and cilantro.

Crudo: mejillón salvaje con pepino y cilantro (wild mussel with cucumber and cilantro).

Tempura de huauzontle con consomé de cebolla quemada (huauzontle tempura with burned onion consommé).

Each of the entradas (appetizers) was a revelation of flavor. As I study these photographs, my mind's palate is reminded of the "OH!" that inadvertently accompanied the first taste of each dish. That 'oh' was a composite of surprise, recognition, and sheer joy at chef Enrique's inventiveness.

Mole verde (green mole).

Huitlacoche, higado, mollejas (corn smut, liver, and gizzards).

Pesca del día, plátano macho, salsa verde, curry blanco, aceite de cilantro (fish of the day with plantain, green sauce, white curry, and cilantro oil).

Pulpo, tostada de tinta, mayonesa de habanero y orégano (octopus, octopus ink tostada, habanero mayonnaise, and oregano).

Taco de barbacoa, adobo de chile guajillo, hoja de aguacate, puré de aguacate (pit-cooked lamb flavored with chile guajillo, anise-y avocado leaf, and puréed avocado).

Huevo escondido (hidden egg). Photo courtesy Pamela Gordon.

Is this Mexican food? I think the offerings are nothing that a standard-issue Mexican home cook would recognize. On the other hand, she would definitely recognize the components of these dishes, if not their specific uses in the Pujol lexicon.

Tamal de papa, hoja santa, y frijol criollo (potato, hoja santa, and native bean tamal).

Polomo, kumquat y vegetales fermentados (tender and juicy roast pork, served with fermented vegetables).

Among his numerous special gifts, you can expect that Enrique Olvera will be full of culinary surprises. He is an outside-the-box thinker in the kitchen, an innovator par excellence and much imitated. In the photo two paragraphs below, you see his personal take on mole, that icon of central Mexican cuisine. Chef Enrique describes in his own words the dish that he calls mole madre:

"Our mole changes on its own, unpredictably. Some days it’s tired, other days it’s lively and bright. We never treat it the same way. The only thing we know is that the seasons and the mole’s attitude on the day in question are going to determine the preparation. Sometimes we add macadamias, sometimes almonds. Once, because we thought the mole was starting to get bored and needed a little kick in its ass, we threw in a dash of tamarind. Last summer, we incorporated purple bananas for a few days, and one time, we mixed in some great panochera apples. Of course, a traditional mole recipe will call for local and seasonal ingredients, but because people don’t tend to add new mole to their old mole, I guess there isn’t one like ours out there.

"This mole is an example of what most of us strive for: creating something that is personal, but not necessarily new. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, our ability to consciously build upon the knowledge of our ancestors is what gives us an advantage over a lot of the other animals on the planet. It’s part of our nature as humans — and as cooks. This, for me, is what makes progressive cooking so important. Younger cooks will end up being better than we are now, just as we’re better than those that came before us. Well, some of them."
–Enrique Olvera

Mole madre ('mother' mole), 604 days old the afternoon that we were there, with a central disc of 'new' mole. Served without protein, with fresh-from-the-comal (griddle) tortillas.

Five desserts, listed on the menu as simply "Final feliz"–happy ending.

Manzana verde con mezcal (green apple with mezcal), a salty, savory, palate-cleansing dessert with a surprise: sal de gusano (worm salt) sprinkled atop the apple slice.

Crujiente de manzana con crema de canela (crisp apple slices with cinnamon cream). The apple slices look like banana chips–but instead, they are finely cut and perfectly delicious apple crisps.

Helado de lichi con sopa de coco, con un toque de gengibre (litchi ice cream with a coconut 'soup'–heightened by a touch of ginger). The form of both the plate and its contents were a visual echo of the huevo escondido, and yet each was totally different from the other.

Did we love what we ate? We did, we definitely did. Would I go back again? Yes, probably, for the most special of special occasions. At this particular meal, the three of us very carefully chose from the long menu of tasting portions, choosing specifically so that we could each try everything.

And the shadow of decline that I mentioned as I began writing? It was nowhere in evidence. The room, the service, and the food were all top-notch. If I were to grade our experience, I'd give it a '10'–Mexico's highest grade.

My opinion? There's no other restaurant in Mexico City that compares with Pujol.

Pastelito de chocolate negro y plátano (a tiny dark chocolate cake with banana filling).

Churros y chocolate, estilo Pujol (churros and hot chocolate, Pujol style).

After our meal, the waiter did a great job taking la foto de recuerdo (our picture as a memento of the occasion). Left to right, Pamela Gordon, Judith McKnight, and Cristina Potters.

Restaurante Pujol
Calle Francisco Petrarca #254
Miguel Hidalgo, Polanco
Mexico City, Mexico
Telephone: 5545 3507

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25 de April de 2015
Mercado de San Juan, Mexico City: Purveyor to the City’s Gourmets

The definitive book about Mexico City's marvelous Mercado de San Juan, available in Spanish at the market. Mexico Cooks! has never seen it for sale anywhere else. It was published in mid-2010.

Everybody in Mexico City who loves to eat, including Mexico Cooks!, loves the small but mighty Mercado de San Juan. Both wholesaler to restaurants and tourist attraction, this market offers its public almost anything you can think of to eat. Food that is available almost nowhere else in Mexico is available at this unassuming venue: bitter melon sits cheek by jowl with wild boar, deep green baby zucchini the size of golf scoring pencils rub shoulders with living escargots, fresh-killed deer hangs silent next to a row of ready-to-cook osso bucco. Want a quarter kilo of beautiful jamón serrano or a handful of chile serrano? Both are yours, just step up to the counter at their respective stalls.

Unusual stall-mates: a goat head, skinned but complete with long luxurious eyelashes, and live red maguey worms.

A huge bouquet of gorgeous baby artichokes, leaves tightly closed and tinged with purple. Each of these was smaller than a baseball, unlike the usual giant-size variety I've seen for sale elsewhere.

Imported cheeses and imported dried sausages. Buy an entire length or just a few slices of salami, buy a wheel or 100 grams of cheese–you may never see any of these at any other market.

Real honest-to-god crunchy-on-the-outside, densely-chewy-on-the-inside baguette to accompany your sausage and cheese! The Travel and Leisure magazine displayed on the lower shelf features the Mercado de San Juan among the 40 travel memories mentioned on the cover.

Among other items (including yet another shopping bag to cart home all our purchases), Mexico Cooks! bought ten lovely baby bok choy, a quarter kilo (half pound) of large, crisp snow peas, and a big hunk of fresh ginger for 33 pesos (about $2.50 USD).

Lechón (suckling pig), ready to roast.

Tiny zucchini, each approximately 3" long, and wee yellow squash, each about 2" in diameter. These miniature vegetables are among the few that come pre-wrapped.

Bottles and jars of Asian spices, sauces, and other condiments, including sesame oil, coconut cream, oyster sauce, snow mushrooms, hoisin sauce, and more. The only thing I didn't see that I sometimes need is thick soy–not black soy, but thick soy, like slightly salty molasses.

Fresh and glorious osso bucco, lined up for your viewing and purchasing pleasure.

Back to front: fresh oysters, big brown clams, and small white clams.

Lovely shiny purple Asian eggplants, beautiful ginger root, and assorted greens.

Detail of fresh octopus. Click to enlarge any photo for a closer look.

Rabbit is extremely popular–and generally quite delicious–as served in Mexico. These, fresh-killed, include the heads. Many are sold with the furry feet still attached. A butcher told me, "Some people think we sell cat meat. The heads or feet are left on to prove that the animals are rabbits."

Savoy cabbage and a variety of lettuces.

Preparing machitos for sale. The lacy membrane spread out on the butcher block is caul fat. The butcher is wrapping the fat around a small bundle of tripas (intestines). The packets are steamed, then browned and served in tacos with a spicy red salsa.

The wild mushrooms at the Mercado San Juan during and just after central Mexico's summer rainy season are simply glorious. These giant morels–most are as long as my outstretched hand–are beyond beautiful.

Your landmark. The Mercado de San Juan is just west of the Teléfonos de México (Telmex) central offices and tall tower of antennas.

Truly, there isn't another market in all of Mexico that is as beloved by chefs, gourmets, and gastronomes as the Mercado de San Juan. If you fall into any of those categories, let Mexico Cooks! know and I will happily tour you through the market stalls.

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18 de April de 2015
Thirteenth Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Michoacán: Festival of Michoacán’s Traditional Cooks

The latest chapter of the Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Michoacán took place in Morelia, Michoacán during the weekend of February 27, 28, and March 1, 2015. It was this unique festival's thirteenth much-awaited edition. Attendance for the three-day weekend topped 30,000 people, who arrived from all over the world. More than 50 traditional Michoacán home cooks prepared their best dishes for competition and for sale to the public.

Traditional Michoacán cuisine is always the star of the event. This spicy and deeply flavored bowl of caldo de chile relleno (broth with a stuffed chile) was Mexico Cooks!' breakfast on Saturday morning. When I asked the cocinero for salsa to add to the soup, he pointed to my bowl. "See that yellow thing? That's a chile güero I cooked in the broth, you won't need more salsa! It's really spicy." You can see the chile güero floating in the bowl, at the bottom edge of the photo. And yes, it was just spicy enough.

Some of Michoacán's finest professional chefs have worked tirelessly for the benefit of not only the Encuentro, but also for the good of Michoacán's culinary traditions. Here, chef Lucero Soto Arriaga of Morelia's Restaurante LU receives recognition from Michoacán Governor Salvador Jara Guerrero, his wife Catherine Ettinger, and Lic. Carlos Joaquín, Subsecretario de SECTUR Federal.

Cynthia Martínez Becerril, the magnificently creative force in charge of Morelia's lovely Restaurante San Miguelito, receives well-deserved recognition for her twenty years of work in support of Michoacán's traditional cuisine. To her left in the photo are Roberto Monroy (Secretary of Tourism, State of Michoacán) and Sr. Ruiz.

Chef Joaquín Bonilla Calderón (second from right), of the renowned Colegio Culinario de Morelia, also received recognition for his untiring work training prospective chefs from the ground up, beginning with the basic tenets of Mexican cuisine in general and Michoacán cuisine in particular.

The theme of this Encuentro was El Ciclo de la Milpa (The Cycle of the Milpa). Ingredients from the milpa, such as corn, squash, beans, and chile, were featured in many of the dishes entered in February's competitions. These three tamales de la milpa, prepared by maestra cocinera Rosalba Morales Bartolo, were fresh and delicious. The tamal on the right, wrapped and steamed in red corn husks, also contains hueva de pescado (fish eggs).

At every edition of the Encuentro, the Colegio Culinario de Morelia offers cooking classes to the youngsters who attend. These delightful young chefs were hand-preparing fresh cheese!

Early Saturday morning at the Encuentro, before the crowds arrived. An hour later, every table was filled!

The Encuentro wouldn't be the Encuentro without the cocineras' wood-fired stoves, clay comales (griddles), and hand-patted fresh, hot corn tortillas. The evocative fragrances of woodsmoke and toasting tortillas waft into every corner of the event.

Mexico Cooks! has participated in the Encuentro over the course of many years. It is a source of great pride and honor to be closely associated with this unique and magnificent event. I've taken part in many ways; this February, I was asked to give an hour-long conference about the milpa as the ages-old bastion of sustainable agriculture in Mexico. Photo courtesy Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food.

The cocineras tradicionales compete in several categories at each Encuentro. This February one of the categories was for atoles–the thick, nourishing, sweet or savory hot drink that is traditional in Mexico. The sweet atole in the photo is made with Michoacan's zarzamoras (blackberries), water, sugar, and is thickened with corn masa (dough).

Capirotada, a traditional Lenten dish made with stale bolillo (crusty, dense white bread), jarabe de piloncillo (raw sugar syrup), raisins, cheese, and peanuts, is even more delicious when accompanied by atole. This beautiful capirotada was better than any I had eaten in prior years.

Benedicta Alejo Vargas won first prize in the category Best Salsas. Along with the governor and his wife, the director of DIF Michoacán, Sra. Mariana Sosa Olmeda, joins Sra. Alejo on the stage.

Sra. Paula Pascuala Campoverde de Anguiano of San Juan Nuevo Parangarícutiro receives recognition from the governor and his wife.

Toqueras con minguiche, a traditional dish prepared with a new twist, won first prize for Nidia Yunuén Velázquez from Apatzingán, in the category Best Dish of the New Generation. Cheese and cream–along with strips of roast chile poblano–bathe an unfilled corn tamal toasted on the comal. The flavors of the dish complemented each other to perfection–simply out of this world!

The Fourteenth Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Michoacán is scheduled for early October 2015. If you'd like to join me there, we'll know the exact dates very soon–and we'd love to have you with us!

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11 de April de 2015
Zirita Culinary Experiences: Morelia Cooking School with Heart
Many people–Mexico Cooks! included–are convinced that maestra Benedicta Alejo Várgas is the finest traditional cook in the state of Michoacán. Here, maestra Benedicta explains some of the finer points of Morelia's Mercado San Juan to a Zirita taller (workshop) group cooking class. For Zirita workshops, maestra Benedicta wears typical Purépecha dress: elegant knife-pleated skirt, hand-embroidered lace apron, and a beautiful lacy blouse. She has her rebozo (long rectangular shawl) folded on her head to keep her hands free and as protection from the sun.

A few colorful, traditional pots and ingredients in Taller Zirita's outdoor kitchen. The ingredients include (from left) round, juicy Mexican limones (Key limes), dark green chiles serranos, bright red jitomates (Roma tomatoes), and just-picked green-and-gold flor de calabaza (squash blossoms).

In mid-2012, Mexico Cooks! was honored to be part of the opening at Taller Zirita, Cynthia Martínez's incredibly beautiful cooking school in Morelia, Michoacán. At that time, we were pleased to show you photos of the exquisite environment of a Zirita cooking class. I'm excited to report that I have now been part of several Zirita culinary workshops, both offered with maestra Benedicta at the helm.

Printed recipes given to each workshop attendee; you can see the pages tucked into the bowls of ingredients for a few of the dishes that are part of the day's workshop.

Our list of recipes for each of the days I participated at Zirita included this menu:
- chiles rellenos de uchepos (Poblano chiles stuffed with sweet corn tamales)
- corundas (traditional dried corn tamales with swiss chard and carrots)
- chorizo de Huetamo con salsa de mango (Huetamo-style spicy sausage with mango sauce)
- col de árbol dos maneras (wild cabbage prepared two ways)
- mole de queso de Benedicta (Benedicta's cheese mole)
- paquesos (sweets for dessert made of ground wheat and piloncillo [Mexican brown sugar cones])
Our workshop group, divided in two parts, prepared all of these traditional Michoacán delicacies and then enjoyed platefuls of everything we had prepared as our marvelous comida (main meal of the day).

Maestra Benedicta showed our group how to knead the masa (corn dough) we used to prepare corundas. The masa is kneaded with grated, aged Cotija cheese, salt, shredded fresh acelgas (Swiss chard), and finely diced fresh carrots. She said, "Watch and listen. The masa will speak to you when it's ready to use." She was right: when she had kneaded the masa enough, it began to squeak as it pulled away from the bottom of the batea (wooden bowl). We carefully cleaned both sides of long corn leaves (right side of photo), used to wrap the corundas.  Maestra Benedicta told us that there were two different sides to a corn plant's leaf: one side is smooth, the other is fuzzy. The balls of masa that are transformed by steam into corundas are placed on the smooth side.

Maestra Benedicta wraps a ball of masa into the corn leaf. Each corunda can have three, five, or seven picos (points) which are formed by the way the corn leaf is wrapped. It's rare to see a corunda with seven picos, but maestra Benedicta has the necessary wrapping skill.

The corundas are stacked in their clay pot to steam. The lid will be a clay bowl that fits snugly into the pot opening.  Maestra Benedicta does not use a vaporera (steamer pot). Instead, she places a bundle of very small pine branches at the bottom of this clay pot, then a cushioning layer of the leftover ribs ripped lengthwise from the center of each of the corn leaves, then the water for steaming, then the corundas. Nothing goes to waste in her kitchen: everything has a use.

Fluffy, hot-out-of-the-pot and freshly unwrapped corundas con acelgas y zanahorias, served with a molcajete-made sauce. The molcajete is a three-legged volcanic stone mortar which is used with its own volcanic stone tejolote (pestle).

While the corundas steamed in their clay pot, we learned to make chorizo de Huetamo con salsa de mango. We ate this dish spooned onto crisp corn tostadas for a simple, spicy, and delicious appetizer.

One group of students prepared col de árbol two different ways, cooked in water with tomatoes and chiles (in this photo the potful has just been put on the fire) and as a raw salad with vinegar and crumbled cheese. Both preparations were magnificent.

Elvira, one of maestra Benedicta's daughters, minds the cooking fire; her own daughter Imelda is at her side. Many traditional Purépecha cooks continue to cook outdoors over a fragrant wood fire. Special long stones form the parangua (sacred cooking area); smaller stones form the fogón (support for the pot).

A Purépecha girl is never too young to learn ancient techniques: maestra Benedicta's two-year-old granddaughter Imelda has her own miniature metate y mano (grinding stone and rolling pin made of volcanic rock) and is learning to grind corn for masa by watching and imitating her grandmother and her mother.  Maestra Benedicta learned these same techniques from her grandmother. The Purépecha kitchen has always been taught by oral tradition, recipes and techniques passing from grandmother to daughters and from a mother to her own daughters.

Our class was made up of 17 professional journalists from all over the world. They were visiting Morelia for the Feria Internacional de Turismo Cultural.

Professor Masaya Arakawa was visiting from Takarazuka City, Hyogo, Japan, to learn more about Michoacán cuisine.

A chile relleno con uchepo–a roasted and peeled chile poblano, stuffed with diced leftover and toasted uchepos (sweet corn tamales) mixed with toasted almonds, raisins, and crema de mesa (Mexican table cream). To drink?  Mezcal, artisan-made in Michoacán!

Maestra Benedicta's award-winning mole de queso, ready to serve. This mole is made with Cotija cheese and has a sharp, pleasant taste.

Paquesos for dessert: marble-size balls made of ground toasted wheat berries, piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar cones), canela (Mexican cinnamon), and a little water. We made the balls and then rolled them in a little reserved ground wheat.

Maestra Benedicta toasts chile negro on the comal (in this case, a large clay griddle).

Saveur Magazine's Issue 149 is devoted entirely to Mexico's enormous array of food and drink. On page 80 of that issue, the editors write about Zirita Culinary Experiences: "Restaurateur Cynthia Martínez has created a shrine to the cuisine of small-town Michoacán. In outdoor kitchens over woodburning stoves, visitors learn to grind corn on a metate, press tortillas, and cook them on a comal, guided by practiced home cooks."  One of a mere handful of Saveur-recommended cooking schools in Mexico, Zirita will give you a taste of everything you love about Mexico's cooking: its heart, its soul, and its deep, ancient flavors. Reserve your spot now for an upcoming class. There's nothing remotely like it anywhere else!

Read more about Zirita on TripAdvisor. And for information about scheduling an English-language class at Zirita Culinary Experiences, contact Mexico Cooks! (patalarga@gmail.com). We'll make sure the details are sent to you.

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28 de March de 2015