We had a fabulous first day in Oaxaca. We started with a terrible breakfast at the hotel, Casa de Tia Tepe. At 8:30 we started walking. We first went to tourist information and asked our 100 questions. Then we walked to the walking street, Alcala, and then to the textile museum. The Textile Museum is one of the most beautifully designed architectural buildings I have seen in Mexico. The handmade steel hand rails are particularly lovely. After the museum we walked back to the zocalo and crossed to 20 de Noviembre St. and walked to the market. There are three markets, the dry goods and food markets are across the street from each other. The artisan market is two blocks farther. As we walked out of the food market an overwhelming smell of chocolate filled the air and by the time we reached the end of the block of the food market we saw why. We were confronted on three sides of the street with chocolate vendors.
I was thirty and a little tired from walking so we went into the Mayordomo shop. Besides making mole’ and selling mole, Mayordomo has a restaurant. So we sat at a table. I ordered a cup of chocolate for 20 pesos ($1.25) and Suzette ordered a chocomio with vanilla and mezcal, which turned out to be a chocolate milk shake for 25 pesos ($1.50). I saw they were serving dishes of food filled with thick red mole and I ordered one with chicken. It turned out to be a tlayuda, which is a large Crepe covered with mole, caramelized onions, a pile of chicken with a drizzle of Crema for 50 pesos ($3.00). Suzette helped me but we could barely finish the dish of food. The rich chocolate mole balanced with chiles and spices, such as cinnamon was a fabulous meal. I would go to Mayordomo every day, if I could.
We then walked to the Artisan Market where Suzette found a lovely white dress that she could wear as a pool cover up. I saw lovely hand woven cotton tea towels for 20 pesos each and bought two. We then walked to the Rufino Tamayo Museum. We were impressed by its extensive collection of Pre-Colombian art. The best I have ever seen. The Museum is named for Tamayo, not because it houses his collection of art, which is in Mexico City, but because he sponsored the restoration of the building that now houses his and his friends’ collections of pre-conquest art. Next to the NationalMuseum of Anthropology in Mexico City, this is the best and most extensive collection of historicMexican art I have ever seen. Everything you can imagine. Dozens of Colima dogs in all different shapes and sizes. A Beautifully carved sky bluish green carved jade pendant in the shape of a jaguar headed god. Pots in the shapes of iguanas, coiled rattlesnakes, cacti, and squashes. Stelli from many of the classical sites, such as Campeche, Mont Alban, and Teotiuacan.
After visiting the five large galleries we had to sit for a moment and we noticed a group of lovely small carved wooden figures for sale in a side board that seemed to take the place of a gift shop. We bought what appeared to be a male and female anthropomorphized bunnies for 170 pesos. It was a bit after 2:00 so we took a taxi back to the hotel. I rested while Suzette went swimming in the hotel’s lovely heated swimming pool.
At 5:00 we left the hotel for the evening. We started by walking to Distelado up Alcala street. When we arrived we found that it had a Happy Hour with reductions of about 33% on several drinks and food items. We ordered an Aguachile of Mariscos and two chilecano coctels recommended by the waiter. The chilecano cocktail was rum, mezcal, and ginger beer, sprinkled with dried grated ginger root. I enjoyed the drink. Then came the Aguachile, which turned out to be chunks of grill octopus and pieces of Dorado ceviche (I think dorado is the dolphin fish, not a porpoise) plus small cubes of cucumber and fresh pineapple with slices of radish and mint drizzled with a hot Chile oil. A very delicious appetizer that allowed us to try two menu items, the grilled octopus and the fish ceviche.
At 6:00 we walked down the hill toward the Zocalo. As we neared the Zocalo we were confronted by a parade that filled the street with those oversized puppets and a student band followed by students from the school that sponsored the parade. We made it to the Zocalo a little after 6:30. The 40 to 50 piece band and dancers had begun without us but we soon stepped into the makeshift dance floor which was just a portion of the plaza surrounded by folding chairs. We walked to Tr3s 3istro and made a reservation for thirty minutes later. Tr3s 3istro is the exact restaurant that Harold, Suzette and I visited twenty years ago upon my first visit to Oaxaca. We loved sitting on the portal covered veranda overlooking all the activity on the plaza then and the feeling of nostalgia surged up inside me this evening as we sat and watched the dancers and listened to the music of the special Wednesday evening publicly sponsored dance. This is pure Mexico. A street festival created to advertise a school festival and a government sponsored dance with a live orchestra in the Zocalo.
We walked around the Zocalo to make sure we had chosen the correct restaurant. We went into the cathedral and there was a mass in progress just as there had been twenty years ago and another side chapel filled with the faithful praying silently. There was a liquor store near the restaurant under the portal where we stopped and bought a bottle of good Mexican rum, Antillilados?, and a large coke. When we returned to the restaurant we took a table that provided a view of the plaza and the dancers and orchestra. The menu at Tr3s 3istro was extensive with a wide range of dishes made with fresh oysters. But we were intent on tasting mole dishes and they were among the least expensive items on the menu at 150 pesos each. The other items ranged upward to 225 pesos each, but we were happy to eat the more pedestrian indigenous cuisine so we were not tempted by offerings of Oysters Rockefeller or a bouillabaisse style dish.
Suzette ordered pork leg with Colorado mole, which turned out to be a lot like what we had eaten at Mayordomo, a red mole. I selected a dish of green mole with pork shank. When I received my dish I discovered that the shank had been butchered by cutting it across the bone like an osso Bucco cut that exposed the marrow and cut the tendons apart. The shank pieces and green mole had been stewed until their flavors blended. The green mole was actually spicier than the Colorado mole but the spiciness was very pleasant when blended with the ramekin shaped pile of rice and the meat that I removed from the bone. Tr3s 3istro is a fine dining restaurant of the old style. Linen table clothes, waiters in uniforms, tables far apart. It has its own bakery and pastry kitchen. We were initially served a bowl of homemade potato chips along with a bowl of red and a bowl of green salsa. Then a small ramekin of butter whipped with puréed parsley and garlic was placed on the table and our waiter, who spoke English, brought a large basket of freshly baked baguettes and bread. There was cranberry bread, onion bread and sourdough and whole wheat baguette slices. The gelatinous butter smeared easily on the bread to make a delicious accompaniment to the meal.
After a bit our dishes arrived. Both were meat submerged in a sauce. Mine was green and Suzette’s was dark brown with a rim of red around the edge where the mole met the plate. Suzette thought the slices of pork meat were over cooked and tough. I tasted a piece of her meat and agreed with her, but as she said, “When you cut up the meat and mix it with the sauce, it tastes okay.” That seems to be a secret of Oaxacan cuisine because I noticed the same thing with my dish. The green mole sauce was a little salty but it had penetrated all the parts of the pork shank including the marrow and the
tendons where the meat and tendon met, creating delicious combinations of meat and gelatinous tendon and opportunities to mine the marrow and scoop it into the sauce to enhance its flavor. These were two aspects of the dish I found very appealing. After the meal our waiter told us my dish was called Puerco Cordillo and that one of the common aspects of the meal was the sucking of the marrow out of the bone. So we are discovering Oaxaca cuisine as we exploring its moles. Suzette said Chef Walt at the Greenhouse Bistro liked my stew type of dish. So I think Puerco Cordillo may find its way onto the May menu. The green color if the mole comes from the use of tomatillos to make the sauce. I found the sauce to have a very pleasant flavor and a pleasantly thick texture that firmed when mixed with the rice and meat.
Soon after the music ended at 8:00 we decided we were finished after eating about 1/3 of our dinners. We decided to take our dinners home with the tortillas and potato chips. The restaurant packaged everything up for us and handed us a shopping bag with handles filled with the leftovers neatly packed in plastic containers.
After dinner we were served a lovely heart shaped white and dark chocolate. A lovely way for the restaurant to say thank you to us and to end the meal. We walked out a lot happier than when we entered. It felt good to be back in our favorite restaurant from twenty years ago, having enjoyed a superb meal and service with those little extras that make a dining experience special, such as fresh bread with flavored butter and a delicious after dinner chocolate and excellent service. The ten block walk to our hotel around 8:30 went more easily than I thought it would.
Bon Appetit
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