Category Archives: Dining and Lodging

El Mural de los Poblanos, Puebla, Mexico Restaurant Continues to Please

Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 | 2 comments
“It was wonderful, close to perfect.” That’s what I told NY Times travel writer Freda Moon this morning when she asked how my meal was at El Mural de los Poblanos.
Hollie and I settled in after escaping a particularly violent thunderstorm, rain pellets pounding our umbrellas as we stepped carefully along the slippery paving stones from the Zocalo to the restaurant two blocks away.  It was impossible to hurry despite the weather.
First, Isaias welcomed and escorted us to a table, brought fresh baked rolls, butter, two glasses of Mexican Baja Tempranillo-Cabernet house wine (yummy), and an amuse de bouche of spicy, hearty red-broth with chicharrones.
Then, we got into the serious ordering:  fresh fish in casserole (cazuela) with garlic and butter.  Simple, succulent.  I think it was sea bass. Cooked to glossy perfection. We shared this and the ribeye steak (this is beef country), seasoned with just a bit of heat, grilled medium-rare (more on the rare side) to perfection, then topped with grilled, crunchy garlic slices.  The dish was accompanied by a skewer of roasted, grilled baby potatoes and baby onions. The sprout salad with walnuts and avocado was big enough to share and a great interlude to entree bites.
After dinner, we ordered the almond tart with a small scoop of housemade vanilla ice cream to share.  It was a perfect ending to the meal.  But, we brought our own Talavera de las Americas mezcal cups, so topped it all off by sharing a shot glass of El Cortijo Añejo — a smokey, aged mezcal that is one of my favorites.
Total cost of all this, including two entrees, salad, two glasses of wine each, dessert and mezcal was $1,195 pesos for two, not including tip (we left 15 percent).  Translated to the current exchange rate of 13.8 pesos to the dollar, we spent $43.00USD each.
Chef Lisette Galicia Solis is offering cooking classes Monday-Saturday with 2-day notice, 1,000 pesos per person, no minimum.
Service by Isaias and Enrique was attentive, not overbearing.
It’s still my favorite Puebla restaurant. We ate there twice during this trip. I would choose dining here before La Conjura or the restaurants at La Purificadora and Casa Reyna any day.
P.S.  I pay full price for every meal I eat, take no discounts or complimentary giveaways, FYI.

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Flea Market and Antiques Finds in Puebla, Mexico

Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2012 | 4 comments

Shopping in Puebla, Mexico during Saturday and Sunday Flea Market days is a treasure hunt.  Vendors begin to set up on the sidewalk around 11 a.m. each Saturday on Calle 6 Sur between Calle 7 Oriente and Calle 5 Oriente.  This is a pedestrian walkway lined with open-every-day, higher quality antique and folk art shops like Rene Nieto, where I found this great antique hand-painted angel figure that has a coin slot.  Could it be a bank or an offering vessel?

 

Most of the fleas are aged, rusted metal corroded for interest, old coins and out-of-circulation peso notes, a mish-mash of old and new jewelry, posters, pottery, books, and rusted tools.  A careful look can take an hour or more.  Enjoy.  Food vendors and musicians set up shop there, too.  And, you can even say a prayer at the outdoor altar.  Hollie bought old copper milagros for her mixed media art here.

              

The block between Calle 5 Oriente and Calle 3 Oriente is more upscale with antique and jewelry and clothing shops.  Flower pots spilling over with color adorn the street.

                    

Don’t miss the antique shops along both sides of 5 Oriente and 3 Oriente.  Many have unusual pieces of furniture, lamps, redware handpainted pottery and old Talavera tiles.

This exquisite old chest of drawers is 12,000 pesos.  That’s roughly $900 USD.  If you can buy it, then you would need to figure out how to ship it.  No small feat.

            

Old and new masks, table linens, embroidered blouses, shawls in various stages of use can all be found here, along with delicious fresh fried potato chip snacks drizzled with chile powder, limes, and salt.

 

When you plan your visit to Puebla, make sure you are here over the weekend!  You won’t be disappointed.  Hollie wasn’t and neither was I.

 Where to stay?  Hotel Real Santander, Calle 7 Oriente #13.  This is my home away from home in Puebla where they take really good care of us.  Ask for Carolina or Yolande if you want special service.  1,000 pesos per night double, 850 pesos per night single.   Two blocks from the Zocalo and from the Flea Market, one block from my favorite restaurant El Mural de los Poblanos.

 

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Oaxaca Portrait Photography Workshop: Added Blessings

Posted on Sunday, April 8, 2012 | 2 comments

This is Day Six of our program! Between Good Friday and Easter Sunday was Saturday, a day of rest and reflection for the pueblo of Teotitlan del Valle.  There was only one five o’clock mass and no processions.  That meant we could leisurely edit the hundreds of photographs we had taken in the days before and get ready for an afternoon portrait photo shoot with Carina Santiago Bautista and her daughters Diana (below left) and Alicia.  Diana is in medical school and Alicia is almost fifteen.

This is Semana Santa vacation week and the daughters were in the kitchen helping their mom with food preparations for the Restaurante Tierra Antigua that Cari operates from the front of the family home and rug gallery on Av. Benito Juarez #70.  It is a busy weekend.  Our scheduled photo shoot was postponed so that Cari could prepare lunches for a steady stream of visitors who came to Teotitlan de Valle for the day.

 

We sat down ourselves, ordered a pitcher of agua de sandia (puree of watermelon, water, sugar to taste, a tad of lime juice) and some quesadillas stuffed with quesillo cheese, a smear of black bean paste and flor de calabasa.  We then started to wander the gallery to scout suitable locations for the portraits.  This way we could experiment with the camera settings to make sure we were taking advantage of the natural lighting that flooded the spaces because of the high ceilings.  Matt suggests starting first with the light meter on sunlight, the ISO at 400, and to look for layering opportunities in the composition.

I meandered into the kitchen to see what was going on.  Then, to practice, I took a shot of Cari’s niece, Jessica Santiago Bautista (below), a photographer and poet, who was assisting us for the day.

Matt Nager, our instructor, started to wander as we waited for the hungry customers to be sated.  Next door, he found another perfect photo opportunity and a great diversion. The man, below, works for a weaving family as a dyer of wool for hand-woven rugs.

           

Now, it was late afternoon and between hungry customers we were able to get Cari and her daughters back together to pose.  We knew that it was important for them to serve their restaurant clients first.  There are very few ways that women can earn income independently from their husbands.  This is one acceptable way that  is supported by the community.

 

Now, they could take their aprons off, take a breather, and become our beautiful models for the afternoon!  After that, we sat down to order a great lunch (by this time it was five o’clock in the afternoon, so it was really bordering on dinner).  My favorite at this restaurant is garbanzo bean soup.  Cari toasts her own garbanzo beans and takes them to the molina (community grinding center) where they crush the dry beans.  This is then reconstituted into soup seasoned with yerba santa.  Yummy.

Upcoming photo workshops in Oaxaca:  Summer 2012 Market Towns and Artisan Villages, then October 2012 Day of the Dead Photography Expedition.

 

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Posted in Dining and Lodging, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Photography, Teotitlan del Valle, Travel & Tourism, Workshops and Retreats

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King of Mezcals: El Cortijo’s Pechuga de Pollo

Posted on Sunday, March 18, 2012 | 2 comments

You be the judge!  Is Pechuga de Pollo (breast of the chicken) distilled by El Cortijo in Santiago Matatlan, Oaxaca, the best of the best?  At 1,500 pesos (that’s $118 USD at today’s 12.65 exchange rate) for a 750 ml bottle in fine Mexican restaurants and far more in the U.S.A. (so I’m told by my in-the-know brother-in-law), this organic mezcal is a knock-your-socks-off fruity drink with a hint of poultry earthiness.  It packs a wallop at 38% alcohol content. This is a sipping drink, not a slug it back, down-it-in-one-gulp followed by a beer chaser beverage.

How do I know?  During our last evening in Puebla this week, before my return to Oaxaca and her return to Santa Cruz, California, Barbara and I went back to El Mural de los Poblanos where we love what Chef Lizett Galicia Solis does with seasonal and indigenous food (click on her name and see the makings of Pipian Verde).

After a satisfying and healthy sunflower sprouts salad mixed with walnuts, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, peeled green apples, garnished with avocado and dressed with a lime-olive oil vinaigrette;

after Mole de Olla, a beef shank stew simmered with carrots, onions, zucchini, green beans (vegetables so fresh and crunchy that they tasted just picked), epazote, and other mysterious local herbs;

after the Regalo de Quetzal, a crusty Mexican chocolate cake oozing creamy goodness accompanied by an intensely vanilla homemade ice cream that we shared, we took a deep sigh and finished off our one glass each of an Argentine malbec — a good, basic wine.  (The three-course meal with wine came to 450 pesos [$36USD] per person including tip.)

Across the restaurant, the Captain Enrique Garcia was setting up for a four-flight mezcal tasting.  When we asked him about what was on the tasting menu, he brought over two shot glasses filled with Pechuga de Pollo and gave us a sample.

Zowie!  I think I flew back to our lovely little Hotel Real Santander, which was around the block.  Barbara wanted to buy a bottle on the spot to take home to George and then thought better of it.

El Cortijo web site indicates the retail price for a bottle is 650 pesos.  Of course, that’s in Mexico.  If you can find it in your wine/liquor store, give your own mezcal tasting.  They only distill 300 bottles a year. (Another great reason to visit Oaxaca!)  Fortunately, Santiago Matatlan is 15 minutes from where I live so I had to buy two mezcal shot glasses at the last Talavera workshop I visited, just in case.

 

 

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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Dining and Lodging, Food & Recipes, Oaxaca Mexico art and culture, Travel & Tourism

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We Are in Tlaxcala Now: Archeology, Volcanoes, Great Food

Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 | 1 comment

Who could ask for more?  We are in Tlaxcala (Tuh-las-cah-lah), the first city Cortes came to after landing in Veracruz.  The oldest churches in the New World are here.  The compact zocalo is ringed with 16th century buildings decorated with frilly stucco and carved stone. The town of 73,000, tucked into a hillside, is one hour from Puebla and about three hours from Mexico City.   It is elegant, prosperous and refined with excellent restaurants and pedestrian ambience.

  

After eating a noteworthy late breakfast/early lunch of conejo con huitlacoche (rabbit and corn fungus) and enchiladas de Tlaxcalteco con flor de calabasas (squash blossoms) at Fonda de Exconvento on Plaza Xicotencatl, we decided on the spot to visit the archeological sites of Cacaxtla (Cah-cas-tlah) and Xochitecatl (So-chee-teh-cachl).  The manager at Fonda de Exconvento was extremely helpful.  After I asked her what we should pay a taxi to drive us to the ruins, she made a call, got us a secure driver and negotiated a price of 350 pesos for the afternoon (four hours).  We were thrilled!  Muy facile.  Thank you for visiting our country, she said.

Cacaxtla and sister site, Xochitecatl, were inhabited by the Olmec-Xicalancas, who wielded political and economic control over the central, southern, and western parts of the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley.  They occupied a strategic position on the trade route between the Central Highlands of Mexico and the Gulf Coast.  Cacaxtla reached its zenith between 650 and 900 AD following the decline of Teotihuacan, at the same time that other cities, such as El Tajin in Veracruz and Xochicalco in Morelos, consolidated their power.

The mural paintings here are distinctive for blending Teotithuacan and Maya elements into its own unique style.  The murals, many in pristine condition and painted with natural pigments, were discovered in the 1970’s.  They depict a battle, a bird man, a jaguar man, and sea and land creatures.   The site is less than an hour from Tlaxcala and incredible.

 

Templo de Venus: These figures, above, are female (left) and male (right) figures wearing skirts with the Venus symbol.  The presence of Venus on the garments allude to some astronomical phenomenon or calendrical date associated with the planet, which at that time was related to warfare and sacrifice.

Go during mid-week, as we did, to enjoy the solitude, the power of the wind, and the stunning views of Mexico’s volcanoes: Popocatepetl, La Malinche, Iztaccíhuatl, and Pico de Orizaba.

 

Xochitecatl is distinguished by four pyramids and when you reach the top of the plateau where they are located, you are treated with a panoramic, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the valley.  This is the lesser of the two sites in terms of archeological restoration.  There are about a dozen Olmec carved figures on display in an outside garden.

Great Dining Experience:  Vinos y Piedra on the Zocalo.  Try the Cafecita, a filet mignon topped with a carmelized coffee sauce.  This is cowboy country with large haciendas and cattle ranches.  The beef here is tender and juicy!

Travel Tip: Go to the Tourism Office first to get a map.  They are very helpful there and speak English. Bullfight season is November through the first weekend in March.  We just missed it!

Our route to Tlaxcala:  In Cuetzalan, we bought a one-way bus ticket (116 pesos each) to Huamantla on the Texcoco bus line (first class with TV and toilet).  This was a 3-1/2 hour trip.  In Huamantla, we walked two blocks towing our rolling luggage and backpacks to a collectivo bus stop, where, within minutes, a commuter van picked us up for the 45-minute trip to Tlaxcala (about 25 pesos each).  It dropped us off at the central market, where we walked around a corner and hopped a taxi (30 pesos) to our Hotel Mision San Francisco on the zocalo.

 

 

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