| rev:text
| - I'm actually not a big fan of Mexican food.
Correction: I'm actually not a fan of Mexican fast-food. Tacos, burritos, Carlos and Pepes, 3 Amigos, that sort of stuff.
But authentic, regional hard-to-find Mexican dishes? Bring it on.
Years ago I read an article in Air Canada's magazine "enRoute" while on a flight about a woman who was in search of "Chiles en Nogada" (Chillies in Walnut Sauce), a dish invented by Mexican nuns and involves soaking shelled walnuts in milk overnight in order to make them that much easier to peel, using those peeled walnuts and crushing them in order to make a heavenly sweet sauce (any skin left on the nuts and the sauce will come out sour) which is then poured over a roasted green poblano chile, which has been stuffed with "picadillo", a complicated mix of braised meat, candied barrel cactus and the shaggy Mexican cinnamon called canela. The whole thing is then sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.
The nuns made this dish to commemorate Mexico's day of independence, since the colours of the dish represent the colours of Mexico's flag (white sauce, green chile, red pomegranate) and it is usually served in the first two weeks of September in very few Mexican restaurants. It is a very rare dish to find outside of Mexico. You will never find this dish at Three Amigos or Carlos and Pepes because it is very complicated and involves painstaking work to prepare.
El Sabor De Mexico is in my hood and while I have walked by countless times since it opened 8 months ago, I yet had a reason to go in. Well, I walked by and I saw a special poster in their window, that they were serving chiles en nogada from Sept. 11- Sept 16 in celebration of Mexican independence. I knew I had to try it.
Reader, it was wonderful.
I now understand why this dish is one of the Holy Grails of Mexican cuisine, all the flavours have to work together and not one should overpower the others. I could tell immediately the walnut sauce was authentic, I could see and taste the sweet ground walnut in a snow-white creamy sauce, the candied cactus and the nuts in the meat stuffing, the combination looks deceptively simple yet is astounding in taste.
I then followed up with the coconut flan for dessert which came with a doll-like jug of an alcoholic-based sauce to pour over the flan. It was rich, creamy, decadent, not too sweet and hit the spot.
The servings weren't large at all, but this was another clue that everything was authentic. I find "real", authentic food is usually quite rich and fills you up because of the quality of the ingredients and I was quite full after the chiles en nogada and the flan.
Prices are higher than usual but this is authentic Mexican, not Taco Bell.
The people here are really nice and friendly and now that I know how great the food here is, I'm not going to wait another 8 months before coming back.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)