Category: Visiting Chefs

Patron Saint of The Impossible: Saint Jude Thaddeus–San Judas Tadeo–in Mexico City

Mexico City's Templo San Hipólito, built starting in 1559 to commemorate the 1520 victory of the Mexica (later known as the Aztecs) over the Spanish invaders in a battle that became known as la Batalla de la Noche Triste (the Battle of the Sad Night), one of the worst defeats the Spanish suffered at the hands of the people they subsequently conquered. The church was finished late in the 17th century.

The church location has been a major influence in Mexico City since those early times. Prior to the building of the church, the first mental hospital in the Americas, founded by Bernardino Álvarez, stood on this corner. San Hipólito was the first patron saint of Mexico's capital city.

A prayer card image of St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of difficult or impossible causes. Your Catholic mother or grandmother–or maybe you yourself– probably have an image like this tucked into a Bible.

Not your grandmother's version of St. Jude. Photo courtesy Tattoomuch.com.

Today, Templo San Hipólito is the site of enormous devotion to Saint Jude Thaddeus, known in Spanish as San Judas Tadeo. The most venerated statue of the saint in Mexico is here, and Mexico is deeply devoted to him and to his image. San Judas's feast day is celebrated on October 28 each year, when as many as 100,000 faithful converge on the small church. The huge number of faithful who visit their beloved saint–starting with the first Mass celebrated at midnight–inevitably cause chaotic traffic jams at the corner where the church is located, one of the busiest junctions in Mexico City.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEsO7rDFoA&w=420&h=315]
The video will give you an idea of the devotion to St. Jude.

Devotion to San Judas in Mexico City is so great that his feast day is celebrated not only on October 28 each year, but also on the 28th of every month. In July of this year, Mexico Cooks! went to visit the saint on his day.

Merchandise sold by vendors around the perimeter of the church–merchandise like these rosaries–is often colored green, white, and gold, the traditional colors of San Judas's clothing.

My companion and I arrived at Templo San Hipólito relatively early, but people had been pouring into the church for each Mass of the day; on the 28th, Masses are said on the hour, all day. This view, from outside the church entrance, did not prepare us for the packed sanctuary.

Once we entered the sanctuary, we were unable to advance beyond the half-way point due to the enormous number of people already inside. At the top middle of this photo, you see a very large statue of the Virgin Mary. Below her is San Judas.

Unlike predominately female crowds at Masses in other churches or at prayer services devoted to other saints, the majority of this crowd is male. While women are certainly present, you can see in the photo that the people in front of us were almost all male.

Custom here is to wrap a figure of San Judas in scarves, scapulars, beads, and medals. When I asked this woman, seated on a bench along the inside of the church, if I might take a picture of her statue, she said yes, but bowed her head to show him, not herself. It's also customary to take small gifts, such as the candy this woman is holding, to share with others at the church.

St. Martín de Porres is also much-venerated in Mexico. This life-size statue of him, holding a real broom, is at one side of the San Hipólito interior. Notice that much of the broom straw has been broken off and taken by the faithful. Click on the
photo (and any photo) to enlarge it.

This young man gave me permission to photograph him and his statue.

Many parents dress their babies in the green, gold, and white colors of the saint. Usually they have made a vow to St. Jude to do this in thanks for a favor granted; oftentimes, the favor granted is the birth of a healthy child after complications of pregnancy.

The man who carried this elaborately wrapped statue during the entire Mass set it on a stone wall so that I could photograph it.

Vendors along the sidewalks sell every kind of St. Jude-related goods. People carry these candles into the church to be blessed, and then carry them home to light their personal altars dedicated to the saint.

We visited many of the booths selling figures of San Judas. The sizes range from about six inches high–like the ones at the left in the front row–to life size or larger. The seated figure just right of center represents Jesús Malverde, an 'informal' saint (one revered by the people but not a saint in the church). Jesús Malverde, a Sinaloa legend, is also known as the 'narco saint', the 'angel of the poor', or the 'generous bandit'. The green sign refers to the copitas (little goblets) filled with San Judas's seeds of abundance just above it. Each goblet with seeds costs 10 pesos. That's approximately 60 US cents, at today's exchange rate.

Feeling like your world is standing on its head? You might want to try a chat with St. Jude.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours

3 de October de 2015
Azul Histórico: Chiles en Nogada, the King of the Mexican Table
Azul Histórico, a star of the constellation of three restaurants that make up Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's Grupo Azul, has become one of Mexico Cooks!' favorite destinations for comida (Mexico's midday main meal). Nestled under a canopy of trees in the patio of a 17th century Mexican palace, the restaurant is among the most beautiful–and most delicious–in Mexico's capital city.

We recently insisted that a dear friend visiting from Texas accompany us to experience the once-a-year delight of chiles en nogada (poblano chiles, stuffed with a special picadillo (meat, fruit, and vegetable hash) and then bathed with walnut sauce, as presented and served at Azul Histórico. In last week's article, we shared a terrific recipe for chiles en nogada with you. Today, we'll see the chiles, considered to be the king of Mexico's cuisine, honored at table in the restaurant.

Our friend, who serves sopa de tortilla (tortilla soup) in his own restaurant, wanted to try the version served at Azul Histórico.

Four of us shared a small order of mildly spicy, delicious salpicón de venado (venison, cooked, seasoned with onion, pepper, vinegar, oil, and salt, and shredded).

Once we finished our appetizers, two of our extremely competent wait staff laid the table with a long black linen tablecloth, plus colorful appliquéd individual placemats and extra candles, all in honor of the king of chiles. The plates, also in special use for chiles en nogada, are talavera pottery from Puebla, where chiles en nogada originated.

The serving platter of chiles. Each color ribbon indicates the type stuffing in each chile. The choices are:
- red ribbons from Atlixco, Puebla. The filling is composed of a complex picadillo with quite a lot of fruit.
- green ribbons from Coxcatlán, Puebla. The filling is shredded pork, with more spices and less fruit than the first.
- grey ribbons from Puebla de los Ángeles, Puebla. The filling is beef with fruits and spices, for those who prefer not to eat pork.
I chose the chile from Atlixco, Puebla. At the Azul restaurants and at most others, the chile is roasted, peeled, and seeded prior to stuffing, but is not coated with a stiffly beaten egg coating. The significance of the colors of the chile en nogada is the vision of the Mexican flag on your plate: green, white, and red. Were it coated and fried, the green would not be visible. The chile's red ribbon (and yellow flower) are removable. The blue and white sphere with the red ribbon are part of the table decor that honors the chile.

Once the chile is on your plate, the waiter serves the nogada (walnut sauce). At the Azul restaurants, the diner may choose savory or sweet nogada, or a combination of the two. I chose the combination. The waiter poured the thicker nogada salada (savory) onto the half of the chile near the tip; he then poured nogada dulce (sweet) onto the half closer to the stem. In the photo, you can easily see the dividing line between the two nogadas.

After the waiter bathes the chile with its walnut sauce(s), he garnishes it first with seasonal pomegranate seeds and then with a sprig of parsley. Voilà, presenting Su Majestad el Chile en Nogada!

You can see the rich filling inside the chile. Last week's Mexico Cooks! article gives you an excellent recipe to make your own chiles en nogada. If you try it, please let us know how delicious it was!

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19 de September de 2015
Máximo Bistrot, Mexico City: Food, Wine, and Service, LO MÁXIMO! (The *Best*)

Eduardo (Lalo) García, chief cook and innovator at Máximo Bistrot Local in Colonia Roma Norte, Mexico City. Unlike many of the Distrito Federal's successful restaurant owners/chefs, Lalo has no culinary school background. He's a self-made man with many reasons to be proud of himself, but he's completely without pretension. Just about any time you dine at Máximo Bistrot, Lalo himself is in the kitchen.

Máximo Bistrot opened its doors in 2012 and almost immediately became a sensational success. After nearly 20 years of work in other heavy-hitting restaurants (at Le Bernadin in Atlanta and New York City and at Pujol in Mexico City, among others), Lalo García and his wife, Gabriela López, had finally opened the doors to their own domain.

While diners are still pondering their food orders, each table receives a portion of extraordinarily delicious berenjena ahumada (smokey eggplant purée) and individual servings of hot, crusty bread. It's just enough to whet your appetite and make you crave most of what's on the daily menu.

Just a few months after Máximo Bistrot had become the restaurant that every diner in Mexico City was buzzing about, the restaurant was suddenly in the news for another reason: you can read here how Lady PROFECO raised the roof with her father, head of a Mexican agency similar to the Better Business Bureau. Máximo Bistrot reopened to further social and gastronomical acclaim a mere few days after the incident.

Mezcal with a little orange juice (the glass rimmed with sal de gusano (sea salt ground with chile de árbol and maguey worm) adds to the pleasure of reading the menu, which changes daily.

Neither Lalo García nor Gabriela López seeks the limelight. Instead, the limelight has sought them and deservedly so. The restaurant has a well-rounded menu featuring fresh, seasonal ingredients prepared in deliciously innovative dishes which both seduce and surprise the diner.

We chose several salads. This fresh green pyramid is composed of artichokes and arugula, with a roasted garlic vinaigrette.

Here, a salad of burrata, heirloom tomatoes, greens, and balsamic vinaigrette.

A very different salad: roast porcini mushrooms with thyme and caramelized onions.

My personal pick: a salad of roasted beets, avocado, and crème fraiche, with some scattered pepitas, freshly grated cheese, and lovely edible flowers. I could eat this fantastic salad every day without tiring of it.

Between the salads and our main dishes, we shared a plate of raviolis stuffed with requesón (a fresh cheese similar to ricotta) and served with nut butter.

We also shared this beautiful plate of atún toro (raw sushi-quality bluefin tuna) topped with a garlic vinaigrette, paper-thin radish slices, and individual slices of caramelized onion.

Four at table, we chose three different main dishes. Here, pierna de cordero (leg of lamb) with morel mushrooms and a squash purée.

Next: lechón confitado (suckling pig slow-braised in oil, the skin crisp and the flesh tender) with baked tomato sauce and mashed potato.

Two of us chose the flat iron steak with chanterelle mushrooms, puréed potatoes, and a veal reduction. Chanterelles grow wild in Oaxaca and Chiapas during Mexico's summer long rainy season.

With our meal, we drank this Montefiori Horizonte Cabernet Montepulciano, from Baja California. Full-bodied, smooth, and full-flavored, it combined perfectly with the various main dishes we chose.

How could we resist the ever-so-tempting dessert menu? We couldn't!

Two at our table chose the mil hojas (mille-feuille, or puff pastry–the literal meaning is thousand-layers) with fig conserve and a dollop of whipped cream.

Would you believe pineapple upside down cake? It's served with chopped fresh pineapple, chopped strawberries, a blackberry or two, a blueberry or two, and some edible fuschia flowers as the crowning touch. This dessert is absolutely rich and absolutely delicious. Our companion who ordered it said it was without question the best he had ever tasted.

My choice was a honey-vanilla panna cotta with a layer of sliced fresh strawberries and a scoop of delicately sweet cucumber ice cream, topped with finely diced fresh cucumber. The dessert was refreshing, multi-textured, and a perfect ending to the meal.

How many times in this report have I used the word 'perfect'? From the seating to the ever-attentive but non-obtrusive service; from the hot crusty bread (which re-appeared magically every time our bread plates emptied) and chilled water; from the first taste of eggplant to the last scrape of spoon on dessert plate, there was nothing that could have been improved. Every moment in the restaurant was professional, every portion of our meal was at its peak. The place was filled to capacity but never noisy; our table conversed easily. We kept a leisurely pace throughout our meal; no one rushed us to turn the table. It's clear that Máximo Bistrot will be one of Mexico Cooks!' first choices for special occasions.

Gabriela López and Eduardo García, spouses and partners in the most most delicious of restaurants: Máximo Bistrot Local. Photo courtesy Adriana Zehbrauskas, New York Times.

Máximo Bistrot Local
Calle Tonalá 133
Corner Calle Zacatecas
Colonia Roma Norte
Mexico City, Mexico
Tel: 55-5264-4291
Reservations a must; call at least two weeks prior to the date you want to go.
Closed Sunday and Monday
Open Tuesday – Saturday 1PM – 5PM and 7PM – 11PM

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

8 de August de 2015
A Pre-Hispanic Treat in a Modern Kitchen: Mexico Cooks! Makes Alegrías

Mexico Cooks!' homemade alegrías, freshly turned from the parchment-lined baking sheet onto the cutting board and ready to cut into pieces.

Lots of people are like Mexico Cooks! when it comes to cookbooks. We own hundreds of them, but actually cook from very few. For over a year, I've read and sighed with delight over the stories and recipes in Fany Gerson's My Sweet Mexico–and last week I finally prepared alegrías from her recipe. Fany calls them 'amaranth happiness candy'. Why? Happiness or joy are the English meanings of the Spanish word alegría.

A couple of weeks ago, friends at the superb web page Cocina al Natural invited Mexico Cooks!' household to a wonderful comida casera (main meal of the day at their home). For dessert, they proudly carried a big tray of alegrías to the table. "They're home made!" they proclaimed. "No way!" we remonstrated. Well, yes, güey, it was the absolute truth. The alegrías were beautiful, professional, delicious, and prepared from Fany Gerson's cookbook, which is actually in my kitchen library. We joyfully crunched these delicacies down.

According to Ricardo Muñoz Zurita, legendary Mexico City chef and author of the Diccionario Enciclopédico de Gastronomía Mexicana (Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mexican Gastronomy), among other books, alegrías are the oldest candy in Mexico. In pre-Hispanic times, before sugar cane had been introduced to New Spain (now Mexico), the amaranth candy was sweetened with maguey cactus syrup. In that long-ago era, this candy had a highly religious meaning. Shaped in the form of a cookie or cracker, it was utilized for communion in indigenous rituals and also was made into huge sculptures of pre-Christian gods. Because these god-figures appeared so horrible to the Spanish, they outlawed the use of this candy after the conquest. But in the 16th century, a Spanish monk had the idea to mix amaranth with bee honey. Rejoicing over the return of the right to eat this sweet treat, the ancient inhabitants of Mexico named it what they felt 'alegría'–joy.

The topping mixture for the alegrías–raisins and lightly toasted pecans, peanuts, and pepitas (pumpkin seeds), spread onto the parchment-paper lined baking sheet.

The following week, Betty Fussell, our wonderful friend from New York, invited us once again to visit her in Tepoztlán, just south of Mexico City. The light bulb went on: alegrías would make a great gift to take to Betty!

The recipe for alegrías is simplicity itself. Here's the recipe, taken straight from My Sweet Mexico.

Alegrías (Happiness Candy)

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1/2 cup chopped toasted peanuts
1/2 cup toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
1/2 cup dark raisins
8 ounces chopped Mexican piloncillo (coarse brown sugar) or standard dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
4 ounces puffed amaranth seeds

Equipment
Large bowl
Large spoon
15" X 10" X 1/2" baking sheet
Parchment paper
Medium sauce pan
Cutting board
Sharp knife

Preparation
Line the baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the pecans, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and raisins in a bowl and then spread them on the prepared pan.

Piloncillo, honey, and lemon juice in the pot.

Combine the piloncillo, honey, and lemon juice in a medium pot over medium heat and cook until the piloncillo has melted and the mixture has thickened slightly, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Squeezing the jugo de limón (lemon juice) into the mixture is simplicity itself using a Mexican lime squeezers. You can find one in metal or plastic at your local Latin market.

Remove the syrup from the heat and add the amaranth seeds, stirring quickly to mix everything well.

Mixing the cooked and thickened piloncillo, honey, and lemon juice mixture with the amaranth seeds.

The amaranth mixture, patted firmly into the parchment-lined baking sheet. Remember that the nuts and raisins are the topping–they're on the other side of the alegrías. Once this rectangle is completely cool, it will be firm and you will easily be able turn it over onto a cutting board.

Pour the amaranth mixture into the baking pan with the nuts, seeds, and raisins, and carefully press down with slightly dampened hands (so you don't burn yourself) to compact the mixture.

Allow to cool completely, 30 to 40 minutes at least, then invert onto a cutting board. Cut the mixture into the desired shapes with a sharp knife. If your mixture seems to be sticking to the knife, simply dip the knife into hot water, dry, and continue cutting.

Freshly made alegrías, ready to travel!

Mexico Cooks!' alegrías turned out overly crispy and difficult to cut, so instead of battling with the knife, I simply broke them into reasonable-size pieces and packed them in a tightly sealed container to travel the next day.

Were the alegrías a hit? They definitely were! Five of us ate almost all of them. We left all but a couple of the remaining pieces with our hosts, but we had to bring a little bit home. Minimal ingredients, minimal cooking, and maximal enjoyment: what more can you ask for from pre-conquest Mexico! Your family will love them and you can send a big thank you to Fany Gerson at My Sweet Mexico–and to Mexico Cooks!.

If you don't have your copy of the book yet, look over on the left-hand sidebar and just click on the book cover. That click will take you to My Sweet Mexico's Amazon.com page. Grab the book today and make your family a sweet Mexican treat as soon as it's in your kitchen.

And by all means visit our friends at Cocina al Natural. Their website and their videos are marvelous. In the very near future, Mexico Cooks! will be partnering with them to post some of the videos with English-language subtitles. We're all very excited about this new venture.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

1 de August de 2015
Ricardo Muñoz Zurita and Azul/Condesa: Consistently Excellent

One of the best places to eat in Mexico City's leafy, gentrified Colonia La Condesa is Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's Azul/Condesa at Nuevo León #68, almost at the corner of Calle Laredo–and walking distance from Mexico Cooks!' house. This eagerly awaited joint venture between Chef Muñoz and restauranteurs Gonzalo Serrano Orozco and Salomé Álvarez (formerly of Restaurante/Bar Ligaya) opened in late January 2011.  Mexico Cooks! photo.

Just as Mexico Cooks! was in the process of renting an apartment in La Condesa, our good friend Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita announced that his newest baby, Restaurante Azul/Condesa, was about to open right here in the neighborhood. After having made–and several times–the lengthy but worthwhile trek to the far-southern Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM campus) site of Chef Muñoz's first restaurant, Azul y Oro, the news that his menus would be available within walking distance of us produced an ecstasy of anticipatory drool.

The ambience in all of Azul/Condesa's dining spaces–downstairs, upstairs, and in the garden–is conducive to enjoying a relaxing drink, a fine meal from the fixed or festival menus, and a changing gallery of art. Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

Start with a straight-up tequila, limones, and a chaser of terrific, flavorful, and picante house-made sangrita. Another option, served in typical jícaras (carved half-gourds), is a mezcal from Azul/Condesa's excellent tasting list.  Mexico Cooks!' particular favorite is Oaxaca's mezcal Amores.  Mexico Cooks! photo.

Several years ago, Gonzalo Serrano and Salomé Álvarez approached Ricardo Muñoz with the idea of opening a new restaurant in the Ligaya building. After fourteen highly successful years at Ligaya, the Serrano/Álvarez partnership wanted to offer something new to its public. Gonzalo Serrano said, "We believed that it was time to offer a discerning clientele a taste of Mexico that goes beyond the Vitamina T choices that are most common in this neighborhood." (Vitamina T refers to a steady diet of tacos, tortas, tamales, and other standard fonda (small restaurant) or street food fare that starts with the letter 't'). The three restauranteurs hit it off immediately and Restaurante Azul/Condesa was in the works.

Before opening, the new partners collaborated in making changes to the interior spaces as well as the menu. The kitchen underwent a complete renovation, as did the restaurant furnishings. Tables, chairs, linen, and dishware were re-designed for the new venture. Upstairs, a new cantera (stone) floor was installed. Everything was planned for the comfort and enjoyment of the client, as well as for a different style but equally professional use of the kitchen. Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

From Azul/Condesa's fixed menu, a salad of arrugula, pear, roquefort cheese, and cashew nut dressed with balsamic vinegar. Each dish on the menus is a work of art as well as an incredible explosion of flavor on your palate. Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

The Azul/Condesa menu concept divides between fixed and festival menus. Some menu offerings stay the same, ranging from salads to desserts. The festival menus change each month. The initial festival was Alma Jarocha (the soul of Veracruz), featuring dishes from that eastern coastal state. The main courses of the festival menu featured predominately seafood specialties such as Veracruz-style octopus, a fish in green pipián (in this case, a thick pumpkin-seed based sauce), and Boca del Río-style shrimp in a sauce of white wine and smoky chile chipotle en adobo. In addition, the Veracruz dessert menu showcased vanilla, mamey, guanábana, and other products from the state.

Buñuelos rellenos de pato rostizado (roast duck stuffed into wee packets and deep-fried, similar to fried wontons) are served with Oaxacan black mole, thin slices of steamed calabacita (zucchini), and fresh blackberries. This dish is on the menu as a main course for one person, but it also makes a marvelous appetizer for a table of three or four diners.  Mexico Cooks! photo.

During the month of March, we were in love with the menu called Festival de Moles y Pipianes. The menu was set up in two parts: one side offered a selection of twelve moles and pipianes–just the sauces–and the other side offered a selection of eleven different meats, birds, and fish. The possibilities were endless: for example, almendrado huasteco, an almond mole from Veracruz, combined equally well with imported pheasant as with breast of turkey medallions or New Zealand lamb ribs.  Chichilo negro, a Oaxacan black mole flavored with avocado leaves, made the kitchen's perfectly cooked medium-rare filete de res (filet of beef) a spectacular choice.

A vegetarian appetizer from the fixed menu: tamalitos de acelgas, bañadas en caldillo de jitomate (little swiss chard tamales, bathed with a thin tomato sauce), from the state of Tabasco. Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

Traditional Yucatecan cochinita pibil (pit-roasted pork), cooked in a banana leaf and garnished with pickled red onions. Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

During the month of April, the festival menu was called MMMM…Mango!, to celebrate the onset of that fruit's season in Mexico. Everything from salads to desserts included mango: diced into guacamole, garnishing your steak or shrimp, fresh-frozen into ice cream, or served as a simple bowl of the king of fruits, mango made your perfect choice of dinner even better.

Sautéed shrimp covered with mango salsa–delicioso!  Mexico Cooks! photo.

Have you bought your plane tickets yet? Just wait! Desserts are as marvelous as everything else on the menu at Azul/Condesa. Your choices range from the simplest bowl of ice cream to the outrageously delicious–well, I truly don't know what I prefer. You look:

Espuma de guanábana is a light-as-a-breath refreshing soursop (I know, a terrible English name for a fabulous fruit) mousse served with your choice of salsas: the red fruits that you see in the photo, black zapote, or chocolate. Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

Tamalito de chocolate (little chocolate tamal), accompanied with a custard sauce, chocolate sauce, AND a mixed-berry sauce, then topped with slivered almonds and whipped cream. Oh man… Photo courtesy Azul/Condesa.

Last, pastel de tres leches (three milks cake), served with a generous pour of rompope (Mexico's eggnog–this devilishly good liqueur has its origins in a convent) and presented with fresh fruit and a variety of sauces. Photo courtesy Mexico Cooks!' dear friend from Guadalajara, Tim Welch.

We've tried to capture a photo of the dessert that Mexico Cooks! prefers, but somebody has always snitched a forkful before we can take the picture.  Triángulo de café pluma is a multi-layered coffee-flavored cake, filled with coffee butter cream and covered with dark chocolate and is well worth snitching.

Beautiful in concept and extraordinary in execution, Azul/Condesa fills a niche in this Mexico City neighborhood that has been vacant until now. The fixed menu is marvelous, the festival menus are filled with regional and seasonal treats that you will love. Prices? Moderate.

Go. When you're visiting Mexico City, just go.

Azul/Condesa
Nuevo León #68
Colonia La Condesa
Mexico, D.F.
Telephone 5286-6380 or 5286-6268 for reservations
Monday through Saturday from 1:30PM until 1:30AM, Sundays 1:30PM until 6:30PM.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

25 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
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
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
YUCATÁN: Recipes from a Culinary Expedition, by David Sterling
The book: its 560 gorgeous pages cover everything Yucatecan from achiote to zapote. A 10-year-long labor of love, YUCATÁN is the finest cookbook, love story, history book, and–did I say love story?–of a glorious regional cuisine and its place of origin that I have seen in the last five years. Look over there on the left-hand sidebar of this page. See where the books are listed? Just click on the YUCATÁN cover and buy it, you know you want it. Photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

Maybe you've read about David Sterling's YUCATÁN somewhere else, either in a print source (the New York Times) or on the Internet (Serious Eats). Maybe you've looked longingly at its page on Amazon.com. Maybe a friend of yours, a Mexican food buff, already has one. If you have seen the book, you are already craving sopa de lima (not lime soup–it's rich, deeply chicken-y chicken broth flavored with juice of the lima, a citrus fruit much different from the lime and particular to Mexico), or papadzules (tortillas stuffed with boiled eggs, rolled, and served in a tomato/squash seed sauce), or helado de crema morisca (Moorish style ice cream). Maybe you don't have a copy yet–but Mexico Cooks! does, and Mexico Cooks! is in love with it. Sterling has created a masterwork, a monumental volume that by its simple heft lets you know it's the boss–even before you open the cover. And then–ahhhh. Fabulous.

Chef David Sterling, an Oklahoma native, has deep roots in both French cuisine and Tex-Mex cooking. A culinary school trained chef, for the last eleven years he has studied, taught, and cooked in Mérida, Yucatán, México. He first traveled in Mexico more than 40 years ago, and today is arguably the single foreigner in the world who is most knowledgeable about Yucatán regional cuisine. Photo courtesy David Sterling.

The book, titled simply YUCATÁN, is as simple throughout as its title. Simple, yes, but it's not an easy book: to start with, it weighs a ton and isn't easy to read in bed (but maybe that's just me, reading cookbooks in bed). You may need substitutes for some of the regional ingredients (but chef Sterling tells you clearly what to use). Some recipes are complex (but so, so worth the trouble!). You'll be thrilled to know that YUCATÁN is incredibly well organized, with a terrific index to both recipes and ingredients. The bibliography is extensive and meticulous. Sources for ingredients include not only the street addresses of stores, but also Internet links for ease of online shopping. Kitchen techniques are clearly explained and include ample illustrations. And last but certainly not least, the book is accurate, beautiful, and a loving compendium of David Sterling's passionate relationship with his adopted people, his state, and their cuisine. The generous soul of Yucatán breathes in Sterling and dwells in his glorious book.

Click on this map of Mexico to enlarge it for a better view. At the far right of the map, the state colored yellow is Yucatán. It's easy to see that the state's location, at the tip-end of Mexico's cornucopia shape, is far from the central states. For example, the distance by road between centrally located Morelia, Michoacán and Mérida, Yucatán, is almost exactly 1000 miles. As in all regions of Mexico, seasonally available foods–many very different from those found in most of the country–shape and affect the regional cuisine.

Chaya (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius, sometimes known in English as tree spinach), originated and continues to be cultivated in Yucatán. More nutritious than spinach, chaya is used in a number of preparations, ranging from various types of tamales to a refreshing agua fresca (fresh juice drink).

Let's talk for a minute about the sweetly floral, barely acidic citrus used to make sopa de lima: the lima. What the lima is not is pictured above:&#0
160;the limón criollo–the native Mexican lime. If you absolutely cannot find limas in Mexican markets where you live, you can substitute limón criollo in your sopa de lima. It will be good, but not superb.

This, on the other hand, is the lima (Citrus limetta). The first notable difference is the color: it's nearly yellow. Second, the shape and size are more like a tangerine. Third, click on the photo to enlarge it. Look closely at the lima at the top center of the picture; you will notice what appears to be a nipple at the blossom end of the fruit. That nipple is the giveaway; Mexico Cooks! does not know another citrus other than the lima that has this design feature. If you live almost anywhere in central and southern Mexico, limas are seasonally available in many markets. In addition to being the classic ingredient for this soup, the lima is also eaten out of hand or prepared as an agua fresca.

Sopa de lima (classic Yucatecan chicken soup with Citrus limetta zest and juice), as prepared at David Sterling's internationally acclaimed cooking school, Los Dos, in Mérida, Yucatán. Photo courtesy Los Dos Cooking School.

Let's try this simple–and simply marvelous–soup at home. The links below are live and will take you to two other recipes that are included in this preparation.

Los Dos Cooking School's Recipe for Sopa de Lima
- 10 cups (2.5 liters) chicken consommé (preferably homemade or if absolutely necessary, substitute canned)
- 1/2 cup (120ml) lima juice
- One recipe Tsi'ik (with chicken; substitute lima or lime juice for the sour orange juice)
- One recipe Totopos
- Slices of lima
STEP 1 CHILL THE CONSOMMÉ. Allow it to rest in the refrigerator overnight. If any fat rises to the top, skim off, or pass through cheesecloth to remove. If any remaining particulate matter settles to the bottom, carefully pour the clear portion at the top into another pot and discard the residue.

STEP 2 ADD LIMA JUICE to the consommé and refrigerate 1 hour. Meanwhile, chill soup bowls. Just before serving, fill individual flan cups or other small molds with the tsi'ik. Invert into the center of a chilled bowl. Add soup to about 3/4 of the way to the top of the mound of salad; top salad with fried tortilla strips and slices of lima.

If I have failed to convince you that you and your kitchen need this book, the bowl of wildly delicious soup in front of you, the first spoonful of its deep flavors, and your craving for more when you've finished will convince you. Mark my words, the culinary masterpiece that is YUCATÁN will win major cookbook prizes during the course of the year. Be sure you have your copy.

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9 de August de 2014
Pinche Gringo BBQ: The Silver Twinkie in Mexico City

In this mural around the corner from the restaurant, the silver Twinkie, icon of the Pinche Gringo BBQ joint, floats above Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), offering a bilingual welcome to everyone in the Distrito Federal who wants Texas-style barbecue. You might be amazed to see how many people line up every day for a pile of smokey pork meat and a couple of sides or a mile-high beef brisket sandwich. In just seven months, this BBQ heaven has had to expand twice to accommodate the crowds. G'wan, line up. We did. Photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

Pinche Gringo BBQ menu. Click on any photo to enlarge the image. Photo courtesy Pinche Gringo.

Mexico Cooks!, a person of a certain age, usually manages a fair degree of decorum when in public. "Pinche" is not a very nice word in Mexico, especially when attached to gringo, a word I certainly know but refuse to use either in writing or speaking. It surprises me no end when foreigners who hail from north of the Mexican border identify themselves with the derogatory term gringos, but Dan Defossey, the pinche gringo himself and founder of the feast, brings it off with grace.

Dan is a native New Yorker, transplanted to Austin, Texas and thence to Mexico City. He's a righteous smoked barbecue fiend. When he arrived in Mexico's capital, he had plenty of barbecue eating experience but no restaurant-running experience. It was the barbecue-eating experience he missed during his first four years in Mexico. Until his Pinche Gringo BBQ joint hit the scene in Colonia Narvarte, having a taste of 'cue meant an 11-hour drive to the Texas border.

Dan retrofitted the silver Twinkie, otherwise known as an Airstream travel trailer, for use as a cafeteria-style restaurant counter. Line up, study the wall-mounted menu while you wait, grab a tray and tell the genial (and bilingual) staff inside the trailer what you want to eat. A plated meat order (using the term loosely, since the Pinche Gringo piles your meat not on a plate but on a big sheet of paper on your tray) comes with two sides; you can order sides separately if you choose a sandwich. My order? "Carne de cerdo deshebrado (de-seh-BRAH-doh, Texas-style pulled pork), macaroni and cheese, and barbecue beans, please." My wife had ordered the pork ribs, with sides of potato salad and cole slaw; the plan was to share everything.

The line forms at the rear. The day Mexico Cooks! and a couple of boon companions went to eat BBQ, we purposely went quite early (1:00PM) to avoid a long wait. Mexico eats its main meal of the day at around three o'clock and we wanted to beat the rush. It turned out to be a strangely slow day; when there's a crowd, the line can snake all the way to the front door, down a step, and around the corner to the end of the building. Note the picnic table: at this very rustic restaurant, all seating is this type.

Pinche Gringo accepts cash payments and all credit cards. You can also pay via the PG iPad at the cashier–using PayPal Check-In, which takes the cost of your meal directly out of your PayPal account. It's a neat new wrinkle in payment processing. From the top down, the sign translates to, "Really damn practical, really damn easy, really damn fast!"

Time to cut to the chase: these are the pork ribs, a half-rack of smoked ribs, thickly drizzled with PG sauce and accommpanied by potato salad, cole slaw, a sesame-seeded roll, and Texas sweet tea. The flavor of the ribs was soft and smokey, but our companions, who also ordered ribs, said they weren't as fall-off-the-bone tender as he has eaten them the other four times he's been to Pinche Gringo. "Why did I pick the ribs? I love the pulled pork best," he regretted.

My other companion's potato salad tasted just like Mom used to make: rich with mayonnaise, slightly mustard-y, and just the right combo of tang and potato. The texture was strange to me, almost like mashed potato with lumps. I prefer my potato salad chunky, with the potatoes at a melt-in-the-mouth tenderness. The cole slaw, made with purple cabbage and carrots, was perfect.

The big pile-on-the-tray of pulled pork, sauced and with a side of mac'n'cheese and another of barbecue style beans. The fork-tender, slightly fatty pulled pork was the hands-down winner of the meal. I was loathe to share this pile with a companion in exchange for some of her ribs, but a deal is a deal.

The Texas-style beans were just right, sweet and smoky. The mac'n'cheese was slightly spicy, very cheesy, and creamy in the mouth. Score!

Smoked, tender beef brisket, chopped, stacked up six inches high and oozing out of the confines of its bun, served with onion and dill pickles and of course the standard PG sauce. A generous customer let me take this picture of his meal–but I noticed that he didn't offer me a taste. Some people just want it all for themselves!

Luis Urrutia Alonzo, one of the PGBB staff, let me sneak behind the scenes to photograph the four-door wood-fired gargantuan smoker. At the bottom left corner you can see the little burner. Gauges indicate that the heat is kept at a slow, even temperature. The meat is cooked for a while to seal in the juices, then wrapped in aluminum foil and smoked for ten hours–overnight. Dan Defossey brought the smoker from Texas, along with the elderly Airstream trailer. Sometime when you're at Pinche Gringo, ask him to tell you the tale of the trip.

Two of the several drink options: barrels of free-refill lemonade and Texas sweet tea. In addition, there's a good range of soft drinks and several kinds of beer.

Pie for dessert! The pies change every month. The pies for July, in this case: on the left, raspberry and cheese. On the right, real down-home apple pie. Which to choose! We all had the apple; it was as good as any I've ever had–really good.

So long for now, Pinche Gringo! We'll see you again soon to try more of your smokey Texas menu. You're a welcome addition to the Mexico City restaurant scene. Even though you don't offer tortillas or micheladas or Mexican salsas, everybody loves your style.

Pinche Gringo BBQ
Cumbres de Maltrata 360
Colonia Narvarte
Del. Benito Juárez 03020
Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
Tel. 55 6389 1129
Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 1PM – 7PM
Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 7PM
Monday and Tuesday: Closed

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2 de August de 2014