A Life Worth Eating

Mar 31

Mar 31 El Lago de los Cisnes

After a long day on a fluorescent boat at Xochimilco, the vestigial canal system just south of Mexico City, we stopped by the famous "El Lago de los Cisnes" in Chapultepec for tacos. Tired and sunburned, we wanted something quick and satisfying. Mexico City, as it turns out, has the perfect solution: tacos al pastor. The restaurant seemed to combine the flavor of street food without the street; it was a comfortable sit-down place. Despite the pork rotisserie and roaring fire pit by the door, the ambience inside was quiet and tranquil full of tables able to accomodate large groups of people. Our waiter served as the mediator between the chaos and the calm.

Mar 30

Mar 30 El Charco de las Ranas

Adam Goldberg

Mexico

Finding the best tacos al pastor in Mexico City is akin to finding the best baguette in Paris. There are so many places of exceptional quality; the differences come down to stylistic nuances in flavor and preparation. The best taco al pastor in Mexico City is the closest taquería nearby above a minimum quality threshold that's open late-night. Fortunately, the city is full of such restaurants. One of them is El Charco de las Ranas, or "frog's puddle." It's a sit-down restaurant as opposed to a street-side taco stand. The authenticity police might get angry that real tacos are to be consumed sitting down, but rest assured this is the real deal. There's a full kitchen in the back with a fire-roasted rotating pork spit by the door. The smell of roasting pork permeates the entire restaurant.

Mar 30

Mar 30 Cenaduría Sinaloense La Espiguita

Adam Goldberg

San José del Cabo

If there were one rule to remember while eating in San José, it's this: if a restaurant says "Sinaloa," it probably has really good food. As the nearest land mass across the Mar de Cortez, Sinaloa is the neighboring state to Baja California Sur. This explains why a large portion of San José's residents are Sinaloan: they moved west during Baja California Sur's massive development thirty years ago. With them they brought the tastes of Sinaloan cuisine.

Cenaduría Sinaloense la Espiguita is the restaurant of Sinaloa native chef Sandra Luz Zepeda. It's a local place visited by residents who live in the adjacent Colonia Chamizal. Here, a tabletop stereo plays Sinaloan banda while Señora Zepeda takes orders and returns to the kitchen to prepare them. The outdoor restaurant serves a variety of antojitos, meats, and soups including red pozole. But what the restaurant lacks in fancy decor it makes up for in flavor. I find myself visiting "La Espiguita" pretty often.

Mar 22

Mar 22 Taquería Liliana

Adam Goldberg

San José del Cabo

I always thought a taco implied a hardshell. At least in the US, I grew up with the crispy yellow pre-folded U-shaped shells that were stuffed to the brim with ground beef, iceberg lettuce, flavorless tomatoes, and buried in orange cheddar cheese. Only after visiting Mexico (a lot), I learned, or at least I thought I did, that truly authentic tacos consist of double-layered soft corn tortillas -- each no bigger than 6-inches in diameter -- dotted with a sprinkle of meat. Turns out this was wrong, too. The contrast of authentic tacos being smaller in size with a soft shell versus the oversized crispy-shell impostors is overly simplistic. The texture, size, shape, and filling of authentic tacos varies tremendously. Some of Mexico's most delicious tacos are in fact hard-shelled, native to regions like Los Mochis and Baja California Sur.

Feb 7

Feb 7 Barbacoa Vicky

Adam Goldberg

San José del Cabo

A few miles inland off a recently-paved road lies a concrete white utilitarian building stamped with the logos of Pepsi and Pacifico. The sturdy building is adorned with exposed electric and telephone lines. Despite being wrapped in ten layers of paint, the true age of the restaurant is revealed through hints of peels and flakes. The hot sun of San José -- a place where the sun shines 364 days of the year -- beats down incessantly on the fading pained script logo: "Restaurant Vicky." While the surrounding buildings have been occupied and abandoned over the last thirty years through Baja California Sur's development, like a church, Barbacoa Vicky has held strong. It offers a unique delicacy: the best slow-roasted lamb tacos in town. Barbacoa at Vicky's comes from sheep, slow-roasted underground in hot embers for eight hours. The resulting meat, ordered here by the kilogram, develops a soft and stringy texture intertwined in pockets of juicy fat. The meat is typically rife with moisture and arriving early in the day ensures the juiciest cuts. The fresh corn tortillas -- speckled with coarse grains of yellow corn -- absorb the excess fat, much like spreading butter on cornbread. Wrapped with a splash of lime, a dash of cilantro, and a small dollop of guacamole and the barbacoa taco is ready to go.

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