The Sweetie's Best Meals in Mexico!

This post is written by Steve… aka the sweetie! Below are his greatest hits of meals we happily and ravenously consumed in Mexico last month. I can’t promise but hope this will be a regular sweetie feature as we continue our #GapYear adventures.

Oaxaca

We caught an early morning flight from CDMX to the Oaxaca Pacific coast. After picking up our rental car in Puerto Escondido, we headed straight to La Morena; according to one guide, “the name is a tribute to the mother of the family who runs the restaurant and to all the women of coast, and on certain days you can find only women working there”. This was true when we showed up and inaugurated our beach vacation with perfect fish tacos, shrimp tacos, and the first of many micheladas:

Later that week, we spent a day on the beach at Agua Blanca, an undeveloped stretch of beach down the coast from Puerto Escondido, and capped off a lazy day with an even lazier meal at one of a strip of beachfront seafood shacks. We chose Restaurante Dona Mary, mostly because its shade canopy came from a dense grove of trees rather than the tarps the other shacks utilized (and it was the most crowded option, full of Mexican families eating and drinking beer -- a good sign!). We were rewarded with a perfectly grilled whole fish coated in garlic and peppers:

Guadalajara

After a week on the beach, we headed to Guadalajara, where we loved our 10-course tasting menu at Alcalde, which included a mole of crickets and gusanos (worms). I ate Kemi’s portion…

Also a highlight in Guadalajara: Xokol, a restaurant dedicated to recovering pre-columbian foods, especially those based on maiz:

Michoacan

We toured all through the beautiful state of Michoacan… and when our guide told us that the village of Quiroga was known as the birthplace of carnitas, we insisted on a detour! Every restaurant and roadside stand specialized in carnitas; confronted with this embarrassment of riches, of course we headed for El Rey de las Carnitas. One orders their carnitas by the kilogram, and we stuffed ourselves on the juiciest chunks of pork I’ve ever enjoyed!

Mexico City

Everyone has their favorite CDMX restaurants, and we’ve been to many over the years. This trip, two meals stood out. Maximo Bistrot, where the mole of beef tongue was probably the densest and richest dish of our whole trip:  

And finally, what I thought was our best meal in Mexico was at Masala y Maiz, a mash-up of South Asian, East African, and Mexican, all served with attitude and politics (among the statements on the menu: “La supremacia blanca es terrorismo”, and “Fuck Narendra Modi, su partido fascista, y sus policias anti-musulmanas”). My favorite dish: a soft-shell crab in a chilpachole, a spicy tomato based broth: