El Mercado

This is my second meal in Mexico City (D.F.) and it made me really excited for what's to come. I am staying with my buddy Emilio in a neighborhood called Tlalpan towards the southern end of the city. In the center of Tlalpan is a mercado (market) where one can go to buy groceries, prepared foods, and duplicates of keys (all of which we bought) among many other things. The plan was initially to buy some groceries here and then go home and cook. But this idea was short lived.

You see, when I walked into this market,which I would compare to a really clean flea market in southern Texas, I saw and smelled all the "goodness" that I'd hoped to find on my trip to central Mexico. There was no way I was going to pass up a chance at having food from this magical world. I told Emilio we had to stop at a stand and order some tacos or something. He was game. We looked at the menu and Emilio decided, very casually, on "una quesadilla de huitlacoche (corn fungus quesadilla)." Huitlacoche! This is the food I'd written about, heard about, dreamed about, and it was right here in front of me. Emilio had order this delicacy as if I had been ordering a freaking cheeseburger at Jimmy's in Chicago. I quickly, but politely asked the lady to double up that order up.

When I got the quesadilla, it was all I had hoped for. The quesadilla was a brown, (it's yellow, but not like the yellow I'm used to) freshly made corn tortilla with white cheese and huitlacoche. Huitlacoche is the fungus that grows on corn kernels after they've been exposed to too much moisture from the rain. It was considered an Aztec delicacy when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century and was later looked on as peasant food after the Aztec empire was defeated. It was not until the late 19th and early 20th century that the Mexican elite began to embrace this corn fungus as an acceptable ingredient to be served in nice restaurants. However, the introduction of huitlacoche into society had to be done carefully. Some of the early sightings of the ingredient in nice restaurants was when it was presented as the filling for crepes.

Needless to say, this quesadilla was absolutely delicious. The huitlacoche had the consistency of cooked spinach, but with a more pungent flavor. The corn kernels added a pleasant texture all of which made the fresh tortilla and melted cheese a nice extra.

I also ordered a gordita de tinga that consisted of pork meat, onions, and chipotle on thick floury dough. It was delicious and it was made even better with the green salsa. I thought it was sweet of the lady to give me very little of the salsa, because I guess she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it because I was from Texas. It was all very delicious, and only a small taste of what I will be exploring this next month.

Other thoughts:

- We were originally going to go to the grocery store, but Emilio thought this would be more up my alley. I'm interested to see what the grocery stores look like, and how they compare to the mercados.

- They have huitlacoche in the U.S. but from what I have seen, it is mostly in nicer Mexican restaurants. Maybe there are some areas of Texas that sell it at stands, but none that I've seen.

- Here is a picture of this stand that I intend to go back to and try some types of food I haven’t seen like fried grasshoppers.

Bipolar

I arrived in Mexico City yesterday (Wednesday July 7) and reaped the consequences of my eventful week in Austin. I was half jet lagged, half still inebriated from the inordinate amount of consumption that took place in New Orleans and Austin. But I came to Mexico City to study food and eat, and gosh darn it, I wasn’t going to miss any opportunity that was put in front of me.

So my buddy Emilio picked me up from the airport, gave me a minute to relax in the house I would be staying in, and then introduced me to my first tacos in D.F. (Mexico City). We went to Bipolar, a trendy hipster bar in the Coyocan* neighborhood. I walked into a restaurant that was painted dark red and had wooden benches on both sides where there were some trendy young adults** eating and hanging out. The walls were adorned with kitsch lucha libre (wrestling, Hogan style) decorations like actions figures and old posters.

The lucha libre theme continued on the T.V. where a movie starring El Santo*** was being shown. I don’t plan to write about service too much, because I don’t want to be that guy, but service here was great. Our server was friendly, but unobtrusive, and kept our bench/table extremely clean without making a big deal of it. But back to the food.

Tacos al pastor was my inaugural dinner in D.F. and it was pretty good. The corn tortillas were the first things I noticed. They were a darker brown than any of the ones I’d had (white, blue, red, yellow) in Texas, save for a few places that make them in house (Manuels in Austin). The al pastor meat was like a lot I’ve had in my day, a little over sauced, but in the end still extremely tasty.

I want to point out that I absolutely love tacos al pastor. It’s kind of my “go-to dish,” with which to compare different establishments. Al pastor, is sort of a style that many believe was brought over by the Lebenese (for some info on this check out Que vivan los tamales by Jeffrey Pilcher sorry forgot page number). The Lebanese that immigrated to Mexico (1920sish) brought their style of cooking meat on a trompo (spit) which became the way to cook tacos al pastor. What I’ve read on this subject is hazy about the history, but no doubt this food was introduced from an outside source. Despite being a foreign food, many chilangos (residents of Mexico City) consider al pastor the food of the city dish.****

A little about the style al pastor, the meat is typically pork, and a piece of pineapple is put at the top of the spit where the juice can run down the meat and cause a reaction (I guess from the citrus) that makes the meat tender.*****

I did not bring my camera to this meal, and while the food was just o.k. I would have liked to get a picture of the bar. It’s the kind of place that hipsters in east Austin would drool over. I can just see that kid in a flannel shirt, tight jeans and some 80s sunglasses, telling his friends about how they should bike over to this cool bar called Bipolar. I kid, I kid, I love the hipsters. Next up the Mercado.

* Coyocan is the neighborhood where Frida Kahlo lived.

** Emilio was trying to explain to me the type of peeps that go to Coyocan. He said they were a little “hippie,” but his definition of hippie was obviously different than mine, because I expected to see dreds and tie-dye shirts. This was not the case. I thought they looked pretty trendy, but he assured me I would see the trendy kids in La Condesa.

*** El Santo is apparently equivalent to Hulk Hogan in the U.S. but way more popular. I’m currently learning about him, but apart from wrestling, El Santo had a lot of movies where he fought everything from battles against Zombies in the movie Santo contra los zombies to bouts with Frankenstein’s daughter in Santo contra la hija de Frankenstein.

**** I should just note that this is part hearsay from other friends from Mexico City, Emilio and this author David Lida. Maybe some would disagree with this.

**** This is similar the old Fajita style where ranchers would use lime to make the skirt steak more tender.

Breakfast in New Orleans

Once upon a time in another life I came to New Orleans for my first time. I fell in love with the city more quickly than I fall for baristas at Coffee shops. I loved all the typical clichés: food, music and drinks.

After one night of experiencing all three of these characteristics in excess, I came home to my New Orleans family Jonathon and Michelle. At that moment Jonathon decided we needed to eat a good meal at three am!

What proceeded was a drunken conversation while Mr. J cooked tapatia that he topped with artichokes in a meuniere sauce. This was the best meal I'd had in a long time and I think about it every time I come to New Orleans. So for my latest trip to the Big Easy, Jonathon decided he would make it again. This time he added gulf shrimp, corn and asparagus. Heaven on a plate. Thanks J.

Kuma's Corner

Kuma's Corner is located on the corner of N. Francisco and W. Belmont Ave. in the Avondale neighborhood. I’ve only been in the city for about 7 months and this joint gave me my first good burger experience in Chicago. That's not to say that there aren't good burgers in this city. It's just that this is the first good one I've tasted.

How did I come to this conclusion? Well my burger criterion is pretty simple.

The meat has to be a hand made patty. No frozen pre-made patties will do. Kuma's patty was most definitely hand formed. The meat was well-seasoned and held together well.

Second the bun to meat ratio has to be balanced. Enough bun to hold the meat, but not too much that you get full on the bread alone. The bun was perfect, big but fluffy so that the bun squished down making it light enough to not overpower the meat.

After that, the rest is the difference between a good burger and a great burger. I think Kuma’s definitely is in my top 10 burgers of all time, but it doesn’t top the list. It falls somewhere in the Karl Malone/Isiah Thomas spot, good but not MJ.

Only one complaint for me, which will probably be a positive for anyone else. I thought the burger was a little too much food. Both Anthony and I couldn't do anything for the next couple of hours. But, I guess more is better than less. Maybe we'll skip the app next time.

Other thoughts:

-The options at Kuma's were creative. The second picture has the two burgers we ordered. My burger was the YOB and Anthony's was the Our Famous Kuma Burger. The descriptions speak for themselves.

-The place itself was a clean version of that really trendy biker bar that all the Hip kids are going to these days, where the service is usually bad unless you know the bartender. Kuma's had the same cool feel however with great service. There was a long wait, but I was cool with it, because we were able to drink beer and watch the place do its thing. Lots of energy.

-We had the oysters as an appetizer because we wanted something light. Well they were light, but the Allagash White Belgian-style Ale, Garlic, Butter, Chiles that they were marinated in was so good that we ended using the bread to sop up the deliciousness that was the marinade.

- We had a couple of the Lagunitas Pils pints and they went really well with the burger. Until next time.