The salchicha woman

This is the last little vignette from Xalapa! This is a picture of the main building of our hotel. Can you see where the crowd has gathered? This is street food that will make David salivate any time you mention it. The lady sells longaniza sausages topped with spicy sauces which are incredibly popular. She calls David "joven" (young-un) ha ha ha.

The bars and cafes of Xalapa

I think we tried almost all of the bars and cafes in central Xalapa. This street was our favourite evening spot. It's called Callejon Gonzales and our favourite places were Santa Ana for drinks and Cubanias for food and music.

Grilled cactus

Breakfast at our hotel on our last morning in Xalapa - grilled cactus stuffed with cheese and refried beans. Yum.

Supper with Sergio and Lolis

Sergio and Lolis invited us for supper with the family tonight. We were treated to some lovely tostadas, some Arctic Monkeys and nice conversations. We are really going to miss our Xalapa friends.

The cakes!

The cakes in Mexico are good too!

Pasta soup and tortillas

My lunch at the hot springs resort yesterday - sopa de pasta con tortillas.

Squid cocktail

David's lunch at the hot springs resort yesterday - squid cocktail

Skiving off work

Since coming back from Yucatan, I can’t seem to focus on work. I was in the university this morning going through a few things when I realized that I had finished all the major projects that I had hoped to do while I was here. Why was I making work for myself? I’m supposed to be on holiday! David took no persuading to leave early. We sneaked out into the hot sunny day. First stop was the tamale stand we pass everyday. This little stand is really popular with students and tamales are one of my favourite foods. It’s run by a young guy on a bike with a steaming pot of freshly cooked tamales and rancheros, all neatly packed in leaves. I ordered one with “salsa roja” and David had one with mole (that yummy paste made with chilies and chocolate). They came in a “torta” (crispy bread bun) and were heavenly. Next stop, fresh juice stand located in the central reservation of the road we walk along to get to the university. Lovely freshly squeezed orange juice is one of the things I will miss.

Last day

Our last morning was spent at the beach. We also thought we’d be attending a Christening. We made friends with one of the waitresses at the hotel cocktail bar who is from Veracruz. She invited us to her nephew’s Christening, but then never showed up at the appointed time. I hope we didn’t get the times wrong. We heard “a las dos” (2pm), but I wonder if she had said “a las doce” at 12pm. We’ll never know, but anyway we had a nice afternoon at a beach bar and then an amazing dinner at a top notch Argentinean restaurant called “Sur”. I reckon it must be the best restaurant in town. Very authentic, fantastic food and very competent staff. http://www.todoplayadelcarmen.com/playa-del-carmen-sur-restaurant.html

Weird tacos

We went out with David and Manual tonight for “weird tacos.” We started with cocktails at their place (a beautiful old Japaneno house complete with original old tiles that they are renovating) and then went to this place called El Tigrin. A scruffy place, with plastic stools and strip lighting, but amazing food. You order 5 little tacos at a time and they come on plastic plates. I didn’t ask exactly what mine contained. “meat” was probably all I needed to know. David was a lot more adventurous and went for separate orders of brain, snout and tripe. He was a bit disappointed that there weren’t any eye or tongue ones left. I’ll leave you with that thought.

Pharmacy Wars

Sol beer which comes in a can with with salt and lime and spicy chili crisps.

There’s a bit of a pharmacy war going on. At "Farmacia Familiares" you can get dependable drugs and see a doctor. At "Farmacia Similares" the slogan, a direct dig at Farmacia Familiares, is “The same, but cheaper” It seems like a total rip off too, same font, similar character (someone outside dancing round in a kindly old man-doctor suit), similar name etc. My theory is that both pharmacy chains are owned by the same company as surely they couldn’t get away with such a blatant rip off. We stay away from both these chains, but visit the pharmacy regularly. No, fortunately, we haven’t been sick, they sell everything! As David posted as he status on Facebook one day, where else in the world but Mexico can you buy beer in a pharmacy? We love Farmacia Rex where you can get Branflakes, but we are card carrying members of Farmacia Ahorra where we often stop on the way home for supplies (see picture).

Colourful sweets from Veracruz

Made of coconut and condensed milk. So sweet, but soooooo good. Thanks Manuel!

Spread

We re-traced our steps back to the village where the ladies of the family had prepared a feast! An absolute table full of tasty treats: adobo spicy chicken, beans, tamales, tacos and chayotes. We talked about recipes as we sat around the family dining table. What a lovely experience! We arranged to meet again in 3 weeks time and do a hike to another village with Don Jesús. We’ll have to think of something nice to bring to the kind family. It’s difficult when you don’t have a kitchen.

Comida Corrida

We said goodbye to Sergio and went to have lunch at a place doing a “menu del dia” (or Comida Corrida as they call it here). We needed to go to the bank and only had 100 pesos on us, so when we passed a place advertising a 3 course lunch, we assumed we couldn’t afford it. Soup, tortillas, tortilla chips and spicy dips, a main course, rice pudding for dessert and a jug of “water” (more like homemade lemonade). I asked the waitress how much the set lunch was. 30 pesos. 30 pesitos! What a bargain. It turns out that this is around the standard price for a lunch like this so we now have our main meal at lunchtime.

Foodie update 17/2/10

We had baked trout in delicious spicy sauces today. On the side were hot, soft corn-based tortillas. There were also free crunchy tortilla chips, dried chili paste and avocado dip (plus the usual obligatory bowl of limes). This was washed down with a bottle of Sol laced with salt and lime. I am going to stop going on about how delicious the food is. If it makes this blog, you should assume that what we ate was “ricísimo” (lush).

Exploring D.F.

We were staying in the Centro Historico so were able to walk to the main square (Zocalo) easily. It’s so impressive! We did a lap of the square and walked past the palace and the cathedral and few streets around. We found a street café doing tacos that smelled delicious. We ordered 2 beers and a taco each. The tacos were SO DELICIOUS that we ordered 3 more. We demolished them and ordered 2 more. My god they were good. I have obviously never had real Mexican food before, it’s incredible. I wondered whether sitting in the street we would get hassled a lot, but we weren’t really. Just a couple of beggars and a guy with a big head of hair & moustache with a guitar doing requests (he even had a list of suggestions).

The next morning we woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Not quite over the jetlag yet then. We couldn’t pick up the wireless from our room so went down to the lobby with our iphones. It was cold and the lights were off (the night porter wouldn’t put them on). Never mind, only 2 hours to wait until breakfast and 4 hours to wait until anything was open.

This morning was reserved for culture and we started with a coffee in a design museum. Then we went to the palace. The murals painted by Diego Rivera were amazing. The one above the main stairs depicted various events in Mexican history. We even spotted a Frida Kahlo lookalike.

Battle carnage in San Francisco

We are starting to feel very sleep deprived. This afternoon we took a 2 and a half hour nap which I hope will help us to get over the jetlag. We woke about 7.30 and went for a walk. We got down to Maritime Plaza in front of the Ferry Building and were shocked by the carnage and battle in full flow. The Valentine’s Day massacre…. with pillows! The whole square was filled with people having pillow fights. There were feathers everywhere. The streets were so thick with feathers that it looked like snow. We certainly weren’t expecting that! http://www.pillowfight.info/

We wandered up California Street to a block of trendy bars. We went to “Perbacco”, sat on stools at a high table in the window. We ordered a glass of prosecco each and a series of appetizers. The food was phenomenal. We ended with dessert with matching a dessert wine. Another SF slap up. The Kasyers would approve. I think it’s probably just as well that we are leaving California tomorrow.

Catching up with old friends

We checked in, freshened up (it would be a mistake to sleep) and wandered down past the Embarcadero Centre to the Ferry Building for some Mexican food. Note to self, don’t order anything that is called a “platter” unless you haven’t eaten for a week. I had stupidly forgotten about the portion sizes and barely made a dent in my tamales and tacos. It was good though. I also had a coke which is really unusual for me as I find it too sweet, but it does help when you are struggling to keep awake. The large Assam tea at Peet’s helped too. I’d also forgotten how good the tea is at Peet’s Café. We called Amy and George who were driving up with their daughter Chloe from San Luis Obispo to spend the weekend with us in San Francisco. We arranged to meet them later at their hotel.

We caught up with the Kaysers in the lobby for a while and then walked with them through China town to North Beach (that isn’t a beach, but has lots of character and some nice cafés). We stopped at an old style café called “Café Trieste” and joined the diverse (OK, random) bunch of customers inside. Notable characters: the 90 year old toothless lady, the guy dressed as a priest who said he used to be a child psychologist who came over to Chloe and scared her to death (he also though Chloe was a boy), and the sixty-something Chinese lady in the Inuit hat and flashing way too much cleavage than was appropriate. Yep, there were all sorts. It was the best tea I had all weekend though (and will probably be the best tea I will have on my whole trip - it has seriously gone down hill since then).

We wandered slowly back through Chinatown which was nicely atmospheric at dust, lounged around at the Omni hotel chatting for a while and then headed out to Belden Lane just near the hotel where we’d heard that there was a row of good restaurants. We chose a Catalan tapas restaurant called B44. We have never had a bad meal in San Francisco, and this one was really excellent. It was great to sit outside on the terrace (under heat lamps) too. I really like how knowledgeable Californian restaurant staff are about the menu and wines. Our waiter really gave us some excellent recommendations.