Celebrate with fantastic street food...YAY!!!!!1

One of the things I most missed about Mexico when living anywhere else it's the FABULOUS street food (this is also missing in Merida which surprised me a lot!) but the closer you get to the center of Mexico (and Mexico City specially...) it gets better and better.....

Most people, and I hear about this all the time, don't venture out like we do but then we are "old hands" when it comes to eating at food stalls, markets, street vendor carts, sidewalk baskets and any old thing that smells and looks good. And if you think I'm brave, you should see the stuff Ricardo eats (insects and other exotics....) and the first thing we do when we get to a new place is to scope out the street eats which let us know what kind of town we're in.....

A good start and to keep our hands busy (you know what they say about "idle hands"....) let's start a fresh fruit cup to bring along. Jicama, orange, watermelon and mango with lime juice and chile on top eaten with a wooden toothpick. Quite nice.....

So we begin our voyage of discovery into Puebla's street offerings, starting of course with the ubiquitous tacos.... hard shell or soft, corn or flour tortilla, fillings galore...mmmmm

The North of Mexico favors flour tortillas while the center and south is corn all the way and each region has their own claim to fame as far as fillings are concerned, but let me tell you what I'm finding as I make my way through some of the busiest streets in downtown Puebla where the people eat.....

Tacos de Carne Asada (charbroiled beef), Tripa (beef tripe, a personal favorite), Carnitas (deep fried pork meat), Suadero (steamed shredded beef), tacos orientales and tacos arabes (meat on a spit served on tender pita bread), tacos al pastor (marinated pork steaks on a spit with pineapple), Chicken, Poblano Chile Strips, Stuffed Chipotle Peppers to name a few..... The smell of charcoal fires coming off the carts mingled with the searing meat and the aroma of tortillas on the comal.... what can I tell you? it's intoxicating!

We continue walking downtown thinking if we stop now for tacos we'll miss out on many other things and like good "foodies" we press on only to be rewarded by the very familiar aroma of churros from another cart with an old man who's busy turning the long churro spiral so it cooks on the other side. He's got a big pan full of sugar with cinnamon ready to receive the steaming churros once they come out of the boiling oil (saw filled churros the other day at the mall too....) and this reminds me of afternoon walks in Puerto Vallarta on our way to the ocean for a refreshing dusk swim, but we press on searching for even better bounty! Maybe on our way back we can have some sweets....

We walk along the sidewalk looking at the stores and people go by noticing that there is so much more to see and discover and that many more walks will have to be made so we can find out where everything is that we might need, but today it's food and a block or so down the street we come to a small family run restaurant that serves quesadillas, memelas (bean stuffed tortillas topped with your choice, string cheese and choice of sauce) and the biggest "Tacos Placeros" you've ever seen (they come with 3 meat steaks, onions, lettuce, tomato, cheese, jalapenos, sauce and more cheese!)

These are THE best quesadillas and the chicharron with green sauce one's are my favorites, hands down. They are large with rustic masa tortillas and lots of cheese, squash blossoms, epazote and green sauce...OMG, fantastic! Maybe I'll just have one and go on...... At night they open and have great pozole, tostadas and the best chalupas you've ever had, nice and spicy, hot and mouth watering.... maybe some chalupas would be better, too much for me! Chalupas hot off the grill......

Tostadas, just like quesadillas and memelas can have a wide variety of fillings, and here, they get wild mushrooms and prepare them with your choice of sauce. There is NO doubt this food is gourmet food all the way, fresh first quality ingredients, prepared for you, with no preservatives, additives, colorants or anything else you don't want in your food, what more could you ask for I ask? Heaven, sheer heaven......

But there are more temptations ahead so we forge on and are rewarded with a stand offering sopes (topped with shredded beef or chicken, beans with red chile, nopales (cactus leaf), wild mushrooms, squash blossoms, carnitas, or cheese). These tender masa boats, just fried while we decide what filling you might want are smeared with some refried beans, then your filling is put on only to be covered up with lettuce, guacamole, tomato, onion, crema Mexicana and radish slices, Cotija cheese finishes off the entire thing. These are medium sized here but you can also have mini sopes (like appetizers) or ginormous one filling up the entire plate!

This lady also has taquitos for sale, rolled tacos fried until golden, filled with meat or chicken and topped with the lettuce, veggie and cream like the sopes before. You can get these in a paper cone to take along and eat as you amble around.

We're still walking as our tastebuds undergo a true beating just with the aromas we get to sample as we make our way down the block. Crossing the street we come to a little old lady sitting on a plastic box in front of her white corn offerings. Corn on the cobb or loose kernels and you can have the whole corn on a stick, slathered in cream and covered with Cotija cheese or you can have her cut the kernels off the corn, put them in a cup and squeeze some lime, chile and salt on top. Either way these goodies are also a reminder of walks past and make for a tasty tidbit and a perfect "tentenpie", which literally translated means "hold you upright" or popularly known as "a little something to tie you over" until your regular meal arrives. Diet? What diet?

While we are still debating this or that, we finally decided to have some Chalupas as an appetizer while we reach a final decision except that this only makes us hungrier since these tasty morsels only served to stimulate our appetites and not as a little something to tie us over..... so on we walk and finally exhaustion makes the decision for us, which our stomachs gladly accept. We will dine on Puebla's favorite snack, although I shouldn't call it a snack since judging by the sheer size of these "Cemitas", an entire meal in itself is encased in a very tasty sesame seed topped roll.... once again the fillings are only limited by your imagination or stomach since they have the "super cemota" one weighing in at 3/4 of a Kilo of meat (1 kilo is 2.25 lbs so you think on this) and choose from a whole list of possible flavors like: breaded pork steak, whole pickeld pork foot, chicken, stuffed peppers, red chile steak, ham, head cheese, etc. Loaded up and topped with the required veggies which makes this a towering structure which your mouth can't handle but being good people, we will make the sacrifice and give it a real good try...... We stopped at Cemitas El Carmen close by and accompanied our cemitas with fresh fruit "aguas", a side of fried potatoes topped with chile and lemon and if we don't burst after eating these we could always have some desserts or traditional Puebla candies or sweets. OMG, I can hardly breathe....

Rolling out of the food establishment we swear to never eat like this again (but we always say this when we compare ourselved to the old Romans)... yet, we've left much undiscovered and waiting for more trips of discovery, Oh my!

We're still waiting to be able to cook at home (not having the stationary tank installed as yet) and I DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THIS OR I'LL GO CRAZY!!!!! so I can try some of these local favorites on my own and be able to share the recipes.....

Will post more soon so keep watching for more Puebla adventures......