Mexico City Farewell

The San Angel Inn, set in a 17th century hacienda, is a welcome respite from the chaos of Mexico City. The inn is renowned for its margaritas and martinis brought to table in a beautiful silver vessel with a mini ice bucket to keep the contents cold while you enjoy the garden view.
The menu is old school: steak tartare, lobster thermidor and caesar salad made table-side.

Cups of cafe de olla.
Check out those floating islands.
Another old-school restaurant is Fonda El Refugio, a charming cozy place in the Zona Rosa, serving the traditional foods of Mexico.

They make some of the best margaritas here, too. Tongue tacos and a corn and roasted poblano soup were our first course, followed by pork pibil-style and manchamanteles, a coastal mole using pineapple and plantain along with chilies and spices.


After a leisurely lunch, cafe de olla - pot-brewed coffee with piloncillo (raw sugar) and cinnamon hits the spot.
Colourful candies are brought with the bill. 
Of all the cantinas in D.F. , Salon Espana is the most civilized - or at least it was when we were there. The specialty here is the tequila list - over 120 on offer. The smartly-dressed wait staff are well versed in tequilas, asking - "Do you want something fuerte or suave?"
And like all cantinas the food is free. Homecooking. Sturdy plates that go great with alcohol. A chillied pozole was first. A good match with a glass of Centinella blanca and a side sangrita casera. The next courses were a sopa seca (a simple plate of pasta), stewed pig's foot, followed by morcilla (blood sausage). Free. You just have to keep ordering drinks.

The Alameda park in the centro historico is a lovely place for a stroll. Christmas vendors were still set up, with the usual drinks and snacks along with games of chance and old carney stuff like this very cool handpainted sign announcing the smallest girl in the world.There was also a chance to have your fortune told - by a bird. I haven't seen this type of vendor in years and it was so reassuring that they are still around. First, the bird rings a bell to receive some bird seed. Birdie num-num.
And then it pulls your fortune from a box. It looks to be a very prosperous year.

Veracruz Highlights

Imagine an evening sipping cubas or margaritas and having the strange and wonderful unfold before your eyes. Ten years ago in the zocalo of Veracruz city, we were visited by opera singers, marimba bands, blind accordionists, jarocho trios, salsa conjuntos and various table-side vendors that included a nurse (in vintage white uniform) taking blood pressure readings, men selling "electro-shock" where you hold on to metal rods while the vendor turns up the juice, a woman selling vibrating hairbrushes, midget shoeshine-ers, candy sellers (candied lime peels stuffed with shredded coconut, a favorite), a woman twirling her broken arm for sympathy donations, push-up bra nocturnas selling a selection of nuts, and the specialists offering - "su nombre en un llave" (your name in a key). Add, if you will, another layer to this Fellini-esque vision, which included a clown tightrope act and a Mexico city chapter of the Hells Angels that rode through the crowd to their tables, while a danzon band set up in the background, a weekly ritual where locals practiced their dance steps al fresco.

Just another night in Veracruz, a city that boasts one of the most popular and hedonistic Mardi Gras this side of Brazil.

Ten years later we found ourselves once again sipping cocktails in the zocalo. While the scenario was sedate by comparison - a vendor dressed as Zorro offering electro-shock was the highlight - the only way to wake up from this hallucination is with very strong coffee.

Cafe La Parroquia is waiting.

Find a seat, and a glass of the caffeinated elixir is delivered to your table. Next comes the ritual: tap your spoon against the glass and a waiter with a pitcher of hot milk comes to your table.

Poured with flourish you have yourself a cafe con leche - bien cargado.


We were lucky to also be entertained by some Jarocho music with a dancer.
In Xalapa, the capitol city of Veracruz, and much more sedate in comparison, we essentially lived off street food. The park in the centro historico is filled with vendors day and night selling their freshly-made specialties. Two tortillas hold up a substantial tortita de papa (potato cake) topped with beans and salsa, providing great fuel...
before a visit to Xalapa's Anthropology Museum where you can view the amazing Olmec heads.

Strawberries were in season all over Mexico not just Xalapa, as well as perfectly ripe mameys, a deep orange fruit, similar in taste to a cross between strawberry and banana with a starchy note.

Since 1925, La Fama has been producing artisanal liquores, toritos and cremas. Located at 153 Alfaro in Xalapa's Zona Centro, the shelves showcase an exotic array of flavours: nanche, zapote domingo, hierba del burro, zacate amargo, cacahuate, jobo, rompope, mora and so on.

The elixirs are all made on-site with fruit and other natural ingredients picked fresh and in season, mixed with nothing but aguardiente and honey and left to ferment in oak barrels.

We tasted a lot of the liquers, enjoyed a brief tour of the barrel room and were shown some tejocotes steeping away. I left with a bottle of torito de cafe, a Baileys-esque concoction, perfect for bedtime.

As the saying goes: "You can't leave Xalapa without trying a torito".

Further north in Papantla, the birthplace of the vanilla bean, growers sell their wares in the zocalo.

Vanilla beans sell in bags of 12 for the equivalent of $5.00! The vendors also make crafts out of the bean including earrings, rosaries and braided scorpions.
On the grounds of the church is an area with a very high pole. Here, as an act of worship, the Totonacs - men only, young and old - dressed in finely-beaded regalia, climb the pole, hurl themselves off and spin to the ground, upside down. Say hello to the voladores.
The exquisite ruins of El Tajin are a mandatory visit.

Evenings, we returned to the zocalo of Papantla to enjoy Ricos Esquites from a fabulous woman with grandmotherly appeal who joyously served us each night. Esquites are stewed corn kernels. Served in a cup, you have a choice of toppings to enhance their stewy goodness: ground pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, chilie - hot or chile chamoy "that colours only" - lime juice, salt and cheese.

I also dig the elotes asados, cob corn roasted on coals.
Served on a skewer with mayo, cheese, lime juice and salt. Exquisite.

Colourful plastic pails and tubs showed off the morning's market provisions, ingredients intriguing and new to me: green chilie criollo, red chilie piquin...

wild foraged mushrooms...
and very beautiful indigenous pumpkin seeds.

Mole in Xico

After reading the chapter on Veracruz in Diana Kennedy's book My Mexico we went in search of the recommended mole de Xico, a sweet mole redolent with nuts, fruit and chocolate.

Xico (pronounced hee-co) is a 30 minute bus ride from Xalapa and we made sure we arrived a little early for comida time - around 2 pm - for a guaranteed seat at Restaurant Acamalin.

The town of Xico is also known for Verde, a sweet liquer made from a myriad of ingredients including lemon verbena, fennel and lime peel. Yes, it's sweet and clocks in at 12 percent alcohol. It makes a lovely aperitif.

For appetizers, a plate of gorditas de frijol are brought to the table. The lightly crisped masa is filled with a velvety bean paste flavoured with ground avocado leaves lending the beans an anisey flavour that is so moreish. The sauces to accompany them were a herbal and jalapeno dressing shot with garlic and the classic salsa de chile seco that we've seen at every table throughout our travels in Veracruz. (The recipes for the salsa using chipotle moras, and the gorditas with bean paste can be found in My Mexico).

Another specialty is the sopa de xonequi - an indigenous plant of the area - served with beans and chocoyones - masa dumplings flavoured with epazote. The leaf of the xonequi is akin to swiss chard, spinach or collard greens and would be easy to reproduce at home.

Next came a dish of chile rellenos using the chipotle and the jalapeno stuffed with shredded pork, plump raisins and cinnamon. The two chilies were then battered and deep fried. Damn they were good. And I loved the contrasting flavours of the chilies - the jalapeno with a bright fiery note, the chipotle with its smokey sweet heat.
The mole de xico came next and presented earthy, nutty and fruity characteristics. No soloists here, just a very balanced orchestra of ingredients that can range up to 20. The restaurant's version includes hazelnuts, almonds, pine nuts, sesame and pumpkin seeds, peanuts and three types of chilies: the mulato, pasilla and ancho. Whew!

Restaurant Acamalin is located at #40 V. Carranza in Xico, Veracruz.

If you go, check out the writing of Mick Vann for up-to-date dining and accommodation recommendations in Veracruz. 

Buen provecho!