On FoodMayhem we talk about every aspect of food. Usually those aspects involve looking at food, cooking food, thinking about food, and of course eating food. Sadly, and disgustingly, today I’m going to mention rarely discussed aspects of food, namely, post-processing. Ahem. The first part of my post is very journal like and kind of gross, so if you’re only interested in the food, skip down to the “Non-Gross Section”
If you’ve been following the blog, you shouldn’t be too surprised, since we’re in Mexico. It’s not my first time in Mexico, but on this trip, together with Jessica, I’ve learned a few things about traveling here. First of all, vacationing here is also a war. A war between our stomachs and Mexico.
Each day there is a battle between my ass and the toilet, or with less vulgarity, Mexican food and my stomach. In all fairness, I am lactose intolerant and there is dairy in every dish. Also, while I’m a chili head and love ’em all, my stomach doesn’t. So almost needless to say, there have been several of these bathroom battles, and so far, I’ve lost most. Even Jessica, who has a rock solid stomach, has faced battles in there. Our hotel bathroom is lovely, but it’s become one of the circles of hell.
Moving on…
Today, we saw another field of battle: the ferry to Cozumel. Our plan was to head over for a day of snorkeling in Chanka Naab, then to watch the sunset along the beach, and finally to have dinner at one of the highly recommended El Moro (Mexican) or Prima (Italian), depending on where we were. Well, it didn’t work out AT ALL. Why? Well, we hopped on the 11am ferry, a solid 2.5-3 hours after we ate a normal breakfast (Jessica had eggs, I had pancakes). The ferry kicked our butts.
It was 10 minutes in dock and 35 minutes on water of violent tossing and turning. Waves crashing in on us and the driver treating the ferry like his personal cigarette boat. Jessica hasn’t experience motion sickness since she was a kid, and I’ve never had it. Well, there’s a first time for everything. The two of us held each other tightly and concentrated all our might on not losing our stomachs. I had to yank a plastic bag out of my backpack, just in case. We managed to keep our cookies, but when we finally made landfall, we sat on the dock for about 10 minutes, before we felt ok to even walk. Then we sat on a random bench for half an hour, until we felt good enough to walk around.
Non-Gross Section
Cozumel kind of stinks, at least the main drag. It’s the same touristy garbage as most of the places we saw during our honeymoon, because there are cruise ships landing. Everywhere you turn there are hock shops and people begging you to rent a vehicle from them or to go in their boat. We decided we didn’t feel up to snorkeling, even though we walked to the edge of town, and walked back in to town.
We felt up to eating lunch, and since 90 minutes had passed, we found our way (via my broken Spanglish) to Prima. Sadly, it doesn’t open until dinner. But, guess what… we happened to be in Cozumel during Carnival!! Yay! No one told us, beforehand, and we were amazed. After asking 5 people and receiving three different answers, we discovered the parade started at 6pm and would be all along the main Avenue. We went into a main park, where kids were practicing their dance moves and discovered the only open tent, Asadero las Casuelas. I’m glad they were open, it was good!
As we took our plastic seats, we watched some mis en place taking place. Three people were just about done shreading an enormous block of queso blanco, and moving on to hand grating a block of oaxacan. At another table an older woman was shaving cabbage, dicing onions, and chopping peppers. She was a machine.
We each ordered dishes we had not only never eaten, but never heard of. Jessica got a plate of Gringas al Pastor and I got Guarache Bistec (more commonly known as Huarache).
Gringas al Pastor are a variant on Tacos al Pastor, except they used a flour tortilla and added cheese. The cheese used at Asadero was the most flavorful we’ve had so far. And overall these were gobbled up in no time.
The beef in the Guarache tasted exactly like the super tender veal served in Chinese restaurants. It was difficult to cut with the low quality tableware, but it melted in my mouth. It was served over a thick, corn tortilla (hence the name huarache, like a shoe) with lots of slaw, pickled onions, tomatoes, and freshly squeezed lime juice.
Both of our dishes came with the standard pork and red bean soup, which was average, not as good as the one at El Fogon.
I’m not sure if you’ll find Asadero when you’re in Cozumel, and if you do, I hope you didn’t find it via ferry. But if you do find it, and you’ve got an apetite, I recommend it. It’s a bit more expensive than some places, but the whole meal came to about US $9 and it was so worth it!
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I read the gross bit & the 2nd bit, Sorry to hear you travelled in an ash tray!! But hope you enjoy the reat of your stay:0)
Funny thing is, the other half has just flown off to Denmark…so guess what I'm having for supper?? Yep Chilli!! & then some pancakes…might see you in the loo!
Cozumel’s Revenge? LOL, but not so funny I guess. But that meal looked really good!
I almost lost my cookies on that ferry too, lol. On the way back I sat upstairs on the outside deck and found that to be better.
this is something i would expect and accept, as long as the food was sensational. hang in there!
Thanks for the support. We’re feeling better after some good sleep.
hope you guys are up and eating by now. Nothing like the runs to uin a holiday. This often happens in India too when Indian expats vacation in India and try out the street food. A friend of mine says that she and her husband come to India, eat their favourite street food, go down, eat again, go down – a sort of karmic circle. I guess living in India prepares our stomachs for most eventualities
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