July 9, 2016 Brunch – Huevos Mexicanos with Refritos, Dinner – Jacinto 1930
Our Posada has a kitchen that serves Breakfast from 8:00 to 12:00. There are two cooks and a waitress for about ten to fifteen guests, whose job seems to accommodate the guests’ every food request. This formula seems the opposite to the pre-packaged food approach in the U.S. that relies on unskilled cooks to heat and plate the food. Reins our waitress asked us if there were any special foods we would like. We mentioned Huitlacoche, and yogurt and Rina suggested other fruits, such as mango and papaya and Squash Blossoms. We are staying for a week. The gastronomic adventure is just beginning.
Reina offered us four meat choices, bacon, ham, sausage, and chorizo and as many or more egg choices. Mexican Cuisine uses many eggs. The choices included Migas; in which the the tortillas are cooked in a chile sauce to which eggs, usually cooked over easy are added, chilequiles; in which the tortillas are fried and the added to the eggs; omelets; Huevos Mexicanos, which is Sautéed chile, tomato and onion scrambled with eggs, and many other creative dishes employing eggs
Corn smut is a plant disease caused by the pathogenic fungus Ustilago maydis that causes smut on maize and teosinte. The fungus forms galls on all above-ground parts of corn species, and is known in Mexico as the delicacy huitlacoche;[1] it is eaten, usually as a filling, in quesadillas and other tortilla-based foods, and soups.
After breakfast, we walked up the hill to the house where Cynthia and Ricardo are staying with five of their friends. In our first block the map took us through the artisan and food market. We loved seeing the fresh fruits, cheeses, and vegetables. As we left the market we ran into Jennifer, who used to be our neighbor in Albuquerque, and two of her children, who were on their way to the hot springs and are staying in San Miguel for a month. We exchanged telephone numbers and she suggested doing lunch. We then made an arduous fifteen minute hike uphill to the house on Garza St. We met Rags and Hollie, Jamie and Mike and Patty. The house is lovely, four or five floors that ascend the hillside with a beautiful roof garden/patio cared for by a full time gardener and an observation deck/patio above the roof garden. There appears to be a full time cook also, who was making breakfast when we arrived. We waited on the roof garden under a shaded parasol, while breakfast was served. Although there were spectacular views of the entire valley from the upper patio, I had feelings of vertigo, with no strong liquor to dispel them, so I sought the shade of the parasol until glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice were brought to us and we were invited to join the crew at the dining room table. We discussed plans for the day and Mike showed us the list of suggested restaurants left by the house’s owners.
After a bit of getting to know each other, a plan emerged to go to the Jardin Botanica (Botanical Garden). Because the maximum number of passengers allowed in a cab is four and because Mike did not wish to go it was decided that Cynthia and Ricardo would walk back down the hill to the Posada with us to fetch our car and we would drive to the gardens. We walked back down through the market, past the lady sitting beside a huge pile of pumpkin blossoms, through the artesian shops to the Posada and drove to the Jardin, which was a couple of miles out of town. We discovered that the Jardin was part of a larger regional park in a valley with a spring that had been dammed to create a lake and a wetlands. The name of the Jardin is Charco del Ingenio, which means the enclosure of the water ill, because there is a high stone wall on the city side of the Jardin, a Clos in French, and there was a ruin of an old watermill (Ingenio in Spanish) built on the property in the Colonial period (before 1810) plus some old pipes and aqueducts that carried water to San Miguel. The vegetation in the Jardin was semi-arid, mostly cacti and acacia thorn trees, although there was a large conservatory with lots of succulents. One of the main purposes of the Jardin was to protect endangered species of native cacti, mainly a species of barrel cactus. There was also an area of agave. Here is a photo of an impressive flowering agave or yucca.
Agave is a genus of monocots native to the hot and arid regions of Mexico and the southern United States. Some agaves are also native to tropical areas of South America. The plants are perennial, but each rosette flowers once and then dies. Wikipedia
After walking the gardens for over an hour we met up with the Garza house crew and drank drinks and talked in a sitting area near the Reception and cafeteria. They left and we strolled to the Conservatory and the drove Cynthia and Ricardo back to Garza St. And returned to the Posada for a nap.
We awoke at 5:00 and dressed and went out to shop and explore. We went to the copper goods shop on Relox St. The owner of the copper shop spoke perfect English and when Suzette asked where to find vanilla, suggested we would find any specialty food item we wanted at Bonanza on Mesones St. We walked up Relox to Mesones and soon found Bonanza, which is the best specialty food store I have ever seen. We bought Pure Nexican vanilla, sugar coated peanuts, sea salt from the Yucatan and Sea of Cortes, granola, dried fruit, and tropical trail mix for our next road trip.
We then walked up Relox further but were stopped short before we reached the Plaza Principal at a new restaurant named Jacinto 1930 that looked wonderful with high ceilings and an open kitchen. I decided on the spot to try it, relying on my visceral foods instinct. We spoke to an Englishman. Who we think was the restaurant’s Mixologist, named Evan, who recommended the roof bar at Mama Mia’s Restaurant for a drink and the sunset. We made a reservation and left our groceries and walked up to the Plaza that was full of activity and people. San Miguel apparently celebrates lots of festivals and tonight was no exception.
We found Mama Mia’s and we're lucky enough to find a corner table near the street with a view to the west. Suzette ordered a mojitos and I ordered a rum fruit punch, which has lots of diced fruits, such as Apple, honey dew, watermelon, Cantaloupe, and pineapple. I asked for a spoon and enjoyed the fruit in its soda, grenadine and rum bath. We snapped photos of the sunset, paid our bill (180 pesos or about $10.00) and returned to Jacinto 1930 for dinner around 8:30.
Sunset from Mama Mia's roof bar
We were seated in the center of the restaurant. We immediately saw several dishes we wanted to try. Suzette wanted the tongue. We both agreed to split that and an appetizer of Burrata de San Miguel con Chilequiles con chile Pasilla. Burrata is a type of local cheese, not unlike fresh Mozzarella from which much of the whey has been rung out so it has a slightly stiffer texture. The cheese was layered between fried tortillas spread with a paste made from smoked beans. There were also cojita cheese sprinkled on the dish and a creamy sauce made with what appeared to be some form of soft cheese or Crema. The dish was garnished with fresh leaves of cilantro. This dish was the most creative dish I have eaten in Mexico in the last twenty years.
We tried a couple of roses and found one to be particularly clean tasting and fruity, named Convertible. We ordered a bottle for 480 pesos (approximately $28.00) that we drank with the entire dinner.
We were also served a vase of grilled tortillas with three small bowls, filled respectively with a salsa verde of tomatillo and chili habanero, a red salsa that was mild and delicious probably made with a mild chile and tomatoes, and some pickled red onions with black pepper, anise seed and perhaps coriander. When we finished dousing the tortillas with the sauces and onions, we put them on the Burrata, which enlivened that dish.
We lingered over the Burrata, so as soon as we finished it our waitress brought us the language in a bowl with two small steamed string beans ,and chayote and boiled baby potatoes sliced in half with several slices of melt inyourmouth delicious grilled tongue served with two sauces (I am partial to two sauce dishes). One of the sauces the tongue was served with a rich, thick sauce made from the chi chili chile, which we told was indigenous to Oaxaca, which was the home of the chef. A side order of thin slices of grilled nopal cactus with a thin layer of grilled panels cheese that was sauced with a tomatillo/garbanzo bean sauce flavored with Hoja Santa and garnished with finely minced fresh red onions.
Every dish was intricate, elegant arrangements of fabulously fresh ingredients cooked to perfection, a wonderful restaurant. We probably could have ordered any other three dishes and have been just as impressed.
The bathrooms are through a specialty food shop named Le Macaron that has beautiful macarons, chocolates, coffees, local herbs, virgin olive oils and other high end comestibles.
This was a dinner to remember. Five stars.
At 10:30 we finished and walked home.
Bon Appetit
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