Sunday, April 10, 2011

Food in Oaxaca

One of the most interesting things about travel to me is tasting the local cuisine.  On my recent trip to Mexico, I not only got to taste the cuisine, but I got to devour it.   For the foodies out there, these are the highlights from what I enjoyed:

 Enfrijoladas con pollo frito and Entomatadas with queso fresco, raw onions, and thinly cut red meat (tosajo).
El Tipico (an adorable breakfast place with a walled garden patio in back).


 Consome de pollo (soup, beautifully presented, with rice, chicken, avocado, chilis and tomato).  Crema de flor de calabaza (squash blossom soup with pumpkin seeds).
La Olla (a lovely place for dinner with several levels - the top terrace has a gorgeous view of the city)


 Taco de ejotes con huevo (green beans and egg) and taco de cazon (shark).
Itanoni - a wonderful place with such an array of fabulous choices of tacos, tamales, quesadillas, juices etc.  I'm definitely going back there!


 Tetelas espirituosa - beans, sour cream, cheese, salsa, and hierba santa.  SO GOOD.
Itanoni again.  Couldn't help it.
 Canelas (cheese wrapped in hierba santa).
La Biznaga.  The open air ambience was so lovely here, that I forgot to take pictures of some of the most wonderful food both times we went here!


 Chichilo with chicken, green beans, and nopal.  Seven different moles in the background.
Los Pacos.  A lovely, airy restaurant, that specializes in moles.  I bought some to take back home with me and can't wait to recreate this meal (without the grasshoppers).


 Carrot tinga tostada with lentil humus, sour cream, and Parmesan cheese.
La Jicara.  A pretty new, and delicious restaurant adjacent to a fabulous bookstore.


 Champurrado: a mixture of atole (a porridge-like drink made of masa) and frothed Oaxacan chocolate.
This was at a lovely little market in a church plaza.  Look at that froth!!


 Chille Rellenos.  The spicy kind.  Delicious.  Sweet.  Beautiful.  At this point in the trip, I had stopped writing everything down!  Casa Oaxaca.  I think.  A breezy, palatial restaurant with great service and a very interesting menu (try the shrimp cocktail).

Now, wasn't that colorful?  I think these pictures, more than any others, represent Oaxaca to me.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Monte here, that food looks super awesome! Even the last one, even though I probably would think it is too hot. Wish I could have tried some! Mmmmm!

Megora said...

Yum! I'm hungry just looking at these!

Some brush-up on words: It's "tasajo," so you can look it up if you ever need to. I think the hierba santa stuffed with cheese is actually called Candelas (canela means cinnamon, which seems like a weird choice of name to me). I'm going there for dinner on Sunday night, so I'll double check and report back. And Casa Oaxaca is just exactly right!

Unknown said...

Thanks! Let me know! I could hardly read half of my writing in that little notebook I was keeping!