Discoveries on Mexican streets

When we drove out of the city to Teotihuacan, we saw cable cars!

The Mexican colleague told us that they were simply a form of public transportation, because the valley was rather dangerous. By taking the cable cars, bandits couldn’t stop your car on the highway and rob you. :P 

There were also some buildings on a hillside, that reminded me of Gamcheon Culture Village.

There are plenty of squirrels on the streets of Mexico. One day I managed to snap a few (blurry) photos.

Try to spot the squirrel in this first photo.

You can just make out its head beside the tree!

Can't spot it? Well, after that it turned around, and we can see its tail where its head was earlier.

this one should be noticeable enough :P (now go back and find the head in the previous photo!)

then it ran up a small branch...

and goes further...

And that's all I managed to get. :P 

While on the road, I saw two services being offered that are not available in Malaysia. One is a shoe-shining service.

Another was a windshield-cleaning service.

The first time I saw someone running up to a car holding a bottle of white liquid, I thought some sort of vandalism was going to happen! And then suddenly they started washing. It was cars stopped at a traffic jam; seems like they have a lot of faith in their traffic jams, and that they would be able to finish cleaning before traffic started moving again.

Another time we saw someone doing a performance (juggling some batons, I think) in front of the cars at a traffic light. After that, they went to cars getting donations/tips. It seems that people will actually roll down their window offering tips! The Israeli colleague wanted to give a tip, but he was a little slow and the traffic started to move, so it was too late. 

Chocolate and coconut

Mexico is famous for chocolate/cacao, so I visited two chocolate shops. Both are located quite close to each other, around 10-15 minutes walk from my hotel.

One was a chocolate museum. I didn't visit the museum, but went into the shop. There were so many kinds of chocolate for sale...though most of them seemed to be just shaped differently.

a little special, because they are chocolate mice!

And this one is very special: chocolate with grasshoppers. When I first translated it in the shop using Google Lens, I thought that it was a translation error. So I snapped a photo to do more research later. Now that I've done my research, it seems that chocolate with grasshoppers is really a thing in Mexico...

The other chocolate shop I visited was La Rifa.

on the left is the counter, and on the right is a selection of chocolate bars with different flavours

the menu

We could order drinks with different levels of cacao. I ordered a small one with milk. I made a mistake and asked for semi-amargo (semi-bitter, 50% cacao) at first, and then said amargo (bitter, 70% cacao), but I think they didn't hear the update, and made (and charged) me a semi-amargo. I went for the basic kind, skipping the flavours of chilli, honey, or cardamom. If I had stayed longer, I might have gone back to try the honey flavour.

my hot chocolate (on the table are the chocolate bars that I bought to take home)

I bought a piece of chocolate with macadamia, which was among a few kinds of chocolate displayed at the counter...but it's not what I like; the filling is not chocolate (maybe almond paste) :P

Just to let you see the chocolate bits left in the cup after drinking. It's a pity they didn't give a spoon or stirrer, so I couldn't scoop those bits out to eat!

One day I saw a sort of coconut cream drink being sold, and tried it.

It was really thick and creamy. I liked it! Very filling though. And it has to be cold to taste good. I drank about half of it, and back at the hotel I put it into the fridge to chill it again.

back at the hotel

Where locals shop in Mexico

The high-end restaurant that we visited was in a shopping mall called Artz.

It was a semi-open air shopping mall; here are some photos, which I snapped while my companions were off to have a smoke.

roundabout at the entrance

I think this is looking back out in the opposite direction from the previous photo

there are more shops to the left of the overhead bridge

upstairs

I just went up one floor, and then went back down to rejoin my companions. Didn't explore the shops.

We also made a quick visit to a market to buy some vanilla (the Israeli colleague bakes, and vanilla is one of Mexico's specialties).

Medellin market

looking in through one of the entrances

cactus (the cooked version was in this post)

Our Mexican colleague showed us the three kinds of pork fat/skin items; every stall was selling them!

pork fat formed into a block

dried crispy skin (which I tried with room service at the hotel)

cuts that mix fat and meat; and seem to be cured/smoked/roasted, I don't know which

I wanted to try some of this, and the Mexican colleague recommended me another shop (called Carnes Ramos, which he took us to after this). I reheated it in the microwave in the hotel room, and it smelled and tasted heavenly...except unfortunately for the texture, because it seems that some parts became harder after microwaving (it is not the recommended method for reheating...they recommend grilling if I recall correctly).

all three items

Then there was this stall selling liquor...I mainly snapped the photo because of the Mexican decorations (see the axolotl and the day-of-the-dead drawings), and also the carton on the bottom-right. First time I'm seeing an alcoholic drink sold in a carton...

And no prizes for guessing why I snapped this next photo...

There are some huge dried shrimp. :O

The Mexican colleague said that they are used for making soups. Ah...that makes sense. All that concentrated flavour...

And to end off this post, here's a bank (opposite my hotel) that has an interesting architectural decoration, à-la Gaudí (look him up if you don't know what I mean). 

 

Mexican food part 3: The mixed taco

After visiting the Teotihuacan pyramids, we had lunch at a nearby restaurant. This time there was no English menu, so we had to rely on Google Lens.

Our Mexican colleague recommended jabalí (wild boar) when he saw it on the menu, so we all ordered that.

I think this is the jabalí taco...

...and this is the jabalí gordita

Both are served with nopales, aka cactus (the singular form is nopal).

The gordita is like a thicker tortilla that is split open and the filling placed inside. I tried this one, but I think I might have liked the tacos better; the wrap is thinner. :P

I can't remember what drink I ordered...I just remember that it was a very hot day, so I wanted a cold refreshing drink.

the sauces and limes

this should be sopes tierrita

A sope is a base with slight edges, topped with some ingredients. I'll let you read about it yourself...the Mexican colleague actually explained it to us there, but I had forgotten it and only recalled it by searching online now. :P

Our Mexican colleague also ordered a number of quesadillas to share: The four flavours here were cheese, mushroom, huitlacoche, and (I think) squash blossoms. (I can't remember the order in the photo, but it may be this, based on the photos I found online. :P )

Huitlacoche (a sort of fungus also called corn smut, as you can read about here) tasted a bit like mushrooms, and if I remember correctly, I didn't like it that much, but I liked the squash blossoms. I remember not trying the cheese quesadilla because the others also had cheese in them, and my stomach does not have unlimited space... (we tore up the quesadillas to share)

All in all, a nice meal with good grilled meats and new flavours. 

On Sunday, I saw these banana fritters and decided to try them. 

They actually put cream, strawberry jam, and chocolate chips on the whole thing, but I asked them to put the topping on only one side, because I was afraid I wouldn't like the cream.

The bananas were rather on the hard side; I think they are those big bananas (or plantains). The ones with crisp edges were better (or maybe that's just my personal preference), and the topping sauce went better with it than I expected. 

Another day we went into a small eatery for lunch. At this one, I didn't take a photo of the menu, and I also do not know the name of the shop, which is a pity because I really liked these first two dishes.

The first one is grilled cheese. And it is really crispy cheese! 

We break it into pieces to eat (like roti tisu), with the sauces provided on the table. It was rather salty to be eaten on its own.

FIVE sauces here. In unassuming bowls, since this is not a high-class eatery. And with the ever-present lime.

One of the Mexicans (not the one who drove us around every day) ordered this. When I asked what it was, he told me to take one ("one" means folding up one of the tortillas to get one taco), together with some onion (see the charred onion on the top-right edge of the plate?). I did...and it was the yummiest thing in that meal.

They told me it was a mix of meat, pork rinds, and something else (also a meat ingredient). It was basically very fragrant with the scent of pork rinds, which is why I really liked it. As for its name, they said a name in Spanish, and told me it basically means "mixed". Translating online, "mixed" is mezclado in Spanish, but I can't find any tacos online with this name...so maybe it's the house specialty.

Then this was what I selected; I ordered it for the beef, and turns out it comes with ham, capsicum, and even baked beans at the bottom. (note: we shared all the dishes)

Then this was pastor tacos. ("pastor" like the meat I mentioned in part 1)

I tried the meat, but it was just normal, nothing to shout about.

Then this dish is chilaquiles, which I had heard of and was almost going to try but didn't, because I felt I wouldn't like it. It is tortilla pieces bathed in sauce, with other ingredients added on.

see the red box at the back? That contains tortillas (I have no idea whether it is provided, or they ordered it)

And I was right...I didn't like the soaked tortillas. The meat tasted good enough (so did the other meat dish above, that I selected), but soaked tortillas are just like soggy bread, which I don't like.

Mexican food part 2: A bad order and a classy meal

In the previous post about Mexico, I wrote about the food I had in the hotel. This post will be about the other foods I tried.

First meal outside the hotel was enchiladas in mole sauce. From Wikipedia, an enchilada is a Mexican dish consisting of a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a savory sauce. In this case, I selected a dish that came with mole sauce because I had read that it was among the must-try foods in Mexico.

Frankly, I got a shock when I saw that the dish was so…flooded.

The filling inside the enchilada was chicken.

you can hardly see it...

The sauce over the enchiladas was too overpowering, I scraped most of it off. I had difficulty swallowing the dish because I didn’t like the taste of the sauce. But at one edge of the plate, there is actually something else. You can see that there is a separate patch by itself at the top of the first photo, with tortilla chips stuck into it.

That is frijoles refritos (Mexican refried beans). I didn’t know it at the time, and was trying to figure out which sauce was mole. :P (and I can’t remember how I figured out what it was) Anyway, the refried beans were quite nice, they basically tasted like mashed beans. Like mashed potato, I can’t take much of it, but I do like the taste.

Then let’s go to the high-end restaurant that I mentioned in the previous post. Here is the English menu:

To give you a sense of how classy it is, usually a dish in a normal restaurant costs 200+ or 300+ Mexican pesos.

three kinds of sauces on the table, with a dish of limes

If I remember correctly, the small dish in the middle was coarse salt.

There was some amazing bread served in a bread basket, but I didn't take a photo of it. It was shaped into small buns, and had a yellow/orange tinge to it. I took one only because I was already hungry (it was a late lunch, and we were waiting for the boss to arrive), but it was so good that I took another one. The bread was neither fluffy (like I usually like my breads), nor was the outside crispy...but there was a slight crisp to the skin, the inside was chewy, and the taste was so fragrant. ♥

The first dish that arrived was escamoles. The Israeli colleague asked what it was (it was an appetizer), and the Mexican told us that it was ant larvae. We were both intrigued, and decided that we would try it.

The escamoles came with a side of guacamole, and a bag of tortillas. I didn't even notice the bag at first... Anyway, this was the first time I tasted guacamole...and I loved it! ♥ 

Note that there are two chunks of cheese (almost white in colour) sticking out of the guacamole. The cheese was pretty good too. In the earlier dish with refried beans, there was some cheese like that sprinkled on top of the beans as well. The cheese had only a mild taste, and was rather creamy, so I liked it.

The escamoles were not that good...they were basically edible, not what I would call bad, but not anything I would call good either. 

inside the bag

the bag (I think only classy restaurants use bags; in another restaurant the tacos were placed in a plastic container with a lid)

It seems that tortillas are refillable, but I don’t know whether it’s a free refill. The Mexicans eat tortillas like we eat rice. As explained to us by our Mexican colleague, they might order a taco dish, and use tortillas to split the taco filling to make two tacos instead of one. Or they might order a dish and eat it with tortillas (making tacos with it).

We also ordered beef tongue tacos, because the Mexican said that it was very good, and I like pork tongue. I think there were five tacos on the plate, but the service in this restaurant is such that the waiters place a taco on our plate, and only after that is the dish placed on the table. (psst...so I didn't get to choose which taco I wanted :P )

Anyway, even though the taste was good enough, the dish was only warm and not hot, and the tongue was too tender for my liking. I like it more chewy. So this was an average dish for me.

Then they ordered this dish which was something that you make tacos with (like I said above). I can't remember what it is...maybe pibil pork? (pulled pork) On the right beside it is refried beans (the same thing I had in the other restaurant).

Then there were these shrimp tacos which were directly placed on my plate as well. (the waiters also clear away dirty plates and replace them with new ones) This was really yummy.

And...there was more food. Here I was already full...having taken a second beef tongue taco earlier (I didn't expect there would be so much more food).

that mound at the back is the refried beans (looks awful, huh :P )

this is pulled pork (the same dish as above, so it is pulled pork if I didn't make a mistake above :P ) on a crispy tortilla

I liked the crispy tortilla, actually, but I was too full to eat much more. I also hardly touched the tortilla from the shrimp taco. I made sure I finished the avocado though. :D

The Mexican colleague asked for a dish of habanero. He told us that it was the spiciest pepper there. 

served with onion...and I think they squeezed some lime onto it

I tried a tiny piece and it was really spicy…though I think some chilli padi may be spicier. I couldn’t try much more because this was at the end of the meal and I was too full to take it with other food (which the Mexicans were doing).

The Israeli, on the other hand, was also already full, but took a bunch of it and ate it on its own. And didn’t feel it was too spicy. Hats off! Even the Mexicans were impressed.

After that I made a trip to the washroom, and when I came back there was dessert on the table. I didn’t even know they were ordering dessert… 

Anyway, being too full, I just tried a tiny bit of each…not too special, and basically everything was too sweet. I think the Mexicans really like sweet stuff. Everyone was already full so we basically had almost this much remaining on the table as we left. I guess it was just a gesture from the boss that he had to treat us at least some dessert.