Wednesday, July 13, 2016

July 12, 2016 Breakfast Chilequiles with eggs over easy and red and green chile with bacon, yogurt and fruit, coffee, tea, and Orange juice and toasted bolillos and strawberry preserves. Lunch salads at Milpa. Dinner Trattoria Antigua Romano

July 12, 2016 Breakfast  Chilequiles with eggs over easy and red and green chile with bacon, yogurt and fruit, coffee, tea, and Orange juice and toasted bolillos and strawberry preserves. Lunch  salads at Milpa. Dinner  Trattoria Antigua Romano 

We had another great breakfast today cooked by Reina, instead of the regular cook.  We decided upon chilequiles garnished with chile and topped with melted mozzarella cheese and two fried eggs over easy. Suzette chose red chile and I chose green chile. Reina also served us fresh fruit on mango yogurt, a plate of crisp fried bacon, toasted slices of bolillos, tea and coffee, and Orange juice.

The chilequiles were lovely, fried tortillas that are then cooked in chile sauce and topped with fried eggs served with refried beans and two slices of cucumber.  Migas is a little different.  Migas cooks the fried tortilla chips with the eggs.  A side dish of four slices of crisp bacon we're also served with toasted slices of bolillos and strawberry preserves.  

After breakfast we walked to Actinver and then walked the neighborhood looking for antique shops.  Around 2:00 we returned to Jacinto 1930 which has several shops, including a marshmallow shop where we tasted many different flavors and settled on lavender.  

We then walked to the food court and ordered salads at Milagro.  I ordered a cactus nopal with purslane, Oaxaca string cheese, halved tiny grape tomatoes, and chicharrones garnished with a slice of avocado and dressed with an olive oil and vinegar dressing.  

Suzette had an interesting salad also of fresh Aji tuna, iceberg lettuce, cucumber slices, finely diced celery, red onion, and cucumber with a dash of sea salt and pepper.

The salads were mixed in bowls and assembled, so my salad was filled with finely ground fresh black pepper that I could not eat.  I had to ask the waiter to re- make my salad without any black pepper, which the chef gladly did.  This was the closest salad I had ever seen to super food; nutritionally rich food.  There was no lettuce, only Nogales that had been cured in salt to leech out any excess liquid, so they were not slimy or wet and purslane, which is a highly nutritious food.  Suzette’s comment was, “We can make this salad at home as soon as the purslane sprouts.”  My response was, “And we should.”  

I tried to find a glass of wine to drink and after trying the wines of two different vineyards that had shops in the mall, ended up with glasses of French Moussex sparkling rose from Burgundy that was a wine made by Taittanger, which also had a shop in the food court.  While I was waiting for the redo on my salad Suzette drank her first glass of rosé sparkling wine, so she had another as I was finishing eating my salad.

After lunch, we walked to where we had been told there was an antique store and found none, perhaps because it was still before 4:00 and still the siesta period during which many stores close.  We had two other locations recommended, so we went to them.    On the way to the second location we found a good liquor store and I bought a bottle of Spanish Verdejo white wine for 117 pesos.  After the liquor store we walked back toward the Posada on ? Macias St. and finally found an open antiques store.  Suzette shopped but found nothing.  

We made our way back to the Posada, stopping at the homemade products store on Loreta St. where I bought a bottle of lovely rom pope for 130 pesos.  We rested for an hour until 5:30.  Suzette had made contact with the Garza group and we said we would meet them for dinner at 6:00 at Trattoria Antigua Romana.  We started walking to the restaurant until we had crossed the river and ended up a hill at a small church, where we realized the GPS guide had gone haywire again.  We walked down the hill and took a taxi to the restaurant and met the crew.  They had already ordered, so we ordered. I ordered a seafood soup identified on the menu as bouillabaisse.  Suzette and several others ordered a daily special of shrimp with linguini in a white wine sauce.  

Soon large plates filled with fresh salad arrive and Patty was kind enough to share some of hers with me and Suzette.

Others ordered clams and linguini and Ricardo ordered shrimp and vegetables.  Mike ordered a lovely dish with two pork chops smothered in sautéed mushrooms.  

When my dish came it was a pasta bowl filled with fish, seafood and a red tomato based soup that had a generous amount of chili in it.  I recognized immediately that it was not a bouillabaisse, because it did not have a clear fish stock base or even a  Mexican fish caldo base.  I recognized that what the restaurant had done was to use its spicy marinara sauce to make a fish soup by adding vegetables and seafood and water.  I tried, but could not eat it because it was too picante.  I sent the soup back and the owner was generous enough to not charge us for the soup.  

I told him it was not bouillabaisse and he said, it was Mexican fish soup and I told him it did not have a fish caldo. Check and mate.  This was what the restaurant we went to in Las Vegas did.  It is a short cut method of making a spicy cioppino without having to make a fish stock, so it fails to take the first necessary step in making a  bouillabaisse.

I ate a few bites of Suzette’s shrimp and linguini and it was an adequate but not exciting dish.  

After dinner Ricardo and Cynthia wanted to go hear Jazz at the Instituto de Allende, so we joined them, while the others went back to the Garza St. House.  We walked the short two blocks to the Instituto and found a note that said the club was closed tonight but will be open Wednesday evening.  

We looked at the murals and took pictures in a frame with cut out head holes of a man carrying a woman in fancy dress.  Then we walked across the street to a liquor store where   Cynthia bought capers for Patty to make a salad with and I bought a liter bottle of Castillo Anejo rum, which is my favorite Mexican rum, for 65 pesos, which is a very good price.

We said goodnight to Cynthia and Ricardo and caught a No. 7 bus at the bus stop across from the Trattoria that took us back to the bus terminus at the end of Loreto St., leaving us a short walk home.  

When we arrive at the Posada the night watchman was kind enough to fill an ice bucket with ice and found an ice tongs for the ice.  We made one of my favorite Rompope drinks of Rompope and rum over ice.  It tastes a lot like a cold egg nog.  Suzette had two and I had three glasses of it as we watched PBS News Hour and then a documentary on the inside workings of the White House.  

The night watchman who served us the ice tonight told us they had obtained Machaca (dried beef) for breakfast and Suzette and I decided to drive to Guanajuato tomorrow.

Bon Appetit


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