Food Adventure: Oaxaca
This is a special food adventure because I (Caroline, speaking) got to travel all the way to Oaxaca, Mexico to go adventuring. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but, we, numnum girls, LOVE mexican food. Moving to New York from California was hard on our burrito/taco lovin’ mouths because it was so hard to come by, thankfully times have changed.
Oaxaca is known for their chocolates, coffee, and MOLÉ. Oaxaca is an amazing place for food, everything was super tasty and crazy cheap. We had street food most of the time but it ended up being way better than fancy restaurant meals.
Our first meal was at the local, organic market which sets up every Sunday at the ferrocarrîl museo, an old railroad yard. Dining al fresco, underneath the trees with fresh corn, squash, squash blossoms underneath the trees was the perfect welcome. All the tortillas were being freshly made in front of us, blue corn tortillas were soft and slightly crisp. There’s also a vendor from Italy, whose wife is from Korea (after having met in India, then moving to Oaxaca) so they had some pastries, pizzas, a couple of korean items, and a wonderful chai.
A trip to Mexico is never complete without Mexican corn, slathered in mayo, cheese, and cayenne pepper. These Elote Carts are everywhere and for about $1 a corn, its hard to say no. The corn was different than the corn here in the US, or ones that I’m used to having. They seemed to be heartier and the kernels much larger, regardless, they were delicious.
This drink is a traditional Oaxacan beverage, made from maize flour and fermented cacao beans. These ingredients are ground into a paste then hand mixed with water when a pasty foam rises to the top its ready to be drunk. Strangely, its really refreshing and not heavy as you may think or it may seem. It has a slight nutty, sweet flavor to it.
Everyday for lunch, we went to same place in the neighborhood (during the day we were working on a print at a printshop). Surprisingly it never got old and the lady who ran the place, cooked a different meal every day. She was super sweet and laughed at us every time we took pictures of our food. We had everything from Green Enchiladas, to Molé, to Chicken Milanesa and every meal came with agua fresca. It seemed a shame to only pay $2.50 for this meal, but that’s all she charged. Its definitely a place we’d go back to.
One night, we stopped at La Gran Torta, in the City Center. I had been wanting Molé, so I chose the molé enchiladas with a thinly sliced steak. Now, I know molé is not for everyone and anytime anyone tells me that they don’t like molé I tell them they haven’t had good molé. People think that its too bitter or chocolate-y, but authentic, good molé is a well balance of chocolate, spice, and earthiness. This one was everything I wanted and more, mmmmmmm. We also got a shrimp pozole, which til this day, I can’t get out of my head. It had a nice kick to it and a couple squeezes of lime made this stew DElicious.
We walked around the City Center quite a bit, most of the other neighborhoods have their fair share of street vendors, most of whom serve out of their homes. In the Zócalo, the heart of Oaxaca, many vendors were out selling tchotchkes and a variety of street food. The elections are coming up and so there’s a large gathering of teachers protesting and camping out. We stopped at this taco stand and got ourselves 50 cent tacos, chorizo, pork, and steak. See those 4 tacos? We had about 4 more…
We decided that we wanted to try a fine dining experience in Oaxaca and through our foodie research we found Casa Oaxaca. At first we wanted to try a bunch of suggestions by Alice Waters, but just never got around to it. So we ended up here. It was a really beautiful, romantic setting. Right on the rooftop overlooking the Cathedral. It kinda didn’t feel like we were in Oaxaca anymore, but some resort town.
The food was simple and clean. They mixed up a salsa right before us in a mortar and pestle, all served with samplings of pickled carrots and onions, guacamole, and salsa verde. We ordered the ceviche stuffed into a Agua chile as an appetizer. I ordered the black molé with turkey. This molé was a bit earthier than I’d like, and I realized that my favorite kind of molé is coloradito, it has the nice balance of chocolate sweet, spice, and earth. This was a nice, quiet dining experience, it was truly beautiful to dine with the sun going down. There aren’t any complaints about the food, it was good, but in my opinion, food was way better on the streets.
(next up, a cooking class in Oaxaca-highly recommended!)
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Thank you, thank you for bringing me back to one of my favorite places in the world. My husband and I journeyed there last year and we are already planning another trip back! Did you make it out to the coast? Freshly grilled fish and prawns and micheladas to wash it all down. Viva la Oaxaca!
Comment by Sweet Ronit — July 19, 2010 #
unfortunately no, we never made it out to the coast. such limited time and so much to do! next time though!
Comment by Caroline & Lisa — July 19, 2010 #