Cravings. RICE CRAVINGS.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Mexico in the United States is what exactly Mexican food is. Oftentimes all we see are places like Taco Time that attempt to convince us that Mexicans eat hard tacos and cheesey chimichongas. Well, not so much. The food in Mexico is delicious and extremely diverse with so many differemt flavours! The other day, I went to a restuarant down the street from my house that specializes in Mexican food. Nico’s. It was kind of fancy, but I finally got to try a Mexican specialty that I’ve wanted to for a while. Chile en Nogada.  It’s a very typical Mexican dish, and is very popular in September. Why September you ask? September 15th is when Mexico celebrates it’s day of Independence and is considered to be one of the biggest parties of the year. The various ingredients in Chile en Nogada come together to have white, red and green: the colours of the Mexican flag! It is a green poblano chile that is stuffed with dried fruit, meat,  aromatics and different spices. It’s topped with a walnut based white cream sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. So I tried it. I died. I DIED IT WAS SO GOOD.  SO LOCO GOOD.  The state of Puebla is especially proud of Chile en Nogada and say they invented it.  It was not simple; but rather a complex palate of flavours. Not just plain salty, but elements of sweet and salty with the cream walnut sauce, the ppomegranate and the dried fruit. There was a little bit of heat with the poblano pepper. Heaven people. HEAVEN. I am hoping to go back to the restaurant soon to it it again.The food in Mexico is so varied, so fresh, so colourful, so wonderful. I love it!

Basically my relationship with food here. We are in the honeymoon stage.

And of course, the rice in Mexico is delicious. You can have it red, green, or plain, depending on what sort of sauce you cook it with. However, this post is not a complete love song to Mexican food (although I sort of wish it was now…). As much as I love love love Mexican food, I eat it every single day. Back home, I would have a lot of the Japanese food my mom cooks (because I’m cool and I live at home, age 23 waddup), but I’d also eat a lot of Indian food, Vietnamese food, Italian etc. etc. So here, it’s been wonderfully challenging to get used to eating corn and beans and salsa nearly every day. It’s still pretty varied in the way it is cooked, just corn/meat/beans/peppers/salsa make up the base food for a lot of food here. For example I have chicken in mole sauce for lunch tomorrow. Mole is a really special sauce with a different recipe from every Mexican abuela out there. The one I have for lunch is one that my host mom got from the market and added stuff to. It has four different types of peppers, an ingredient I couldn’t understand, as well as a bit of chocolate. Cool right? And tonight I had churros for dessert with postale as my main dish. Postale is also a very typical Mexican dish, it’s a unique soup like thing with big chunks of meat and corn! ANYWAYS back to my point. So I love the food here I do, but I definitely crave my mom’s cooking, and lot’s of different kinds of food.

So when the opportunity arose to visit a Japanese-owned restaurant in the city, I wasn’t going to say no! After quite the adventure of getting there after school one day with a japanese and korean friend from school, we arrived at the restaurant. When we got there, there were two separate tables of Japanese business men, and a Japanese/Mexican family. So we settled in and feasted! So very satisfying. I had fried pork cutlet curry (カツカレー）while the other two had ramen. And while the meal turned out to be quite expensive—around $18 CDN for my meal of rice and tea)—it was totally worth it. I felt so happy after! It was challenging to get there on the bus, but I would definitely try to go again soon!~