Adventures in Oaxacan Food

Our plan for the first week in Oaxaca is to stay in the bed and breakfast that is a part of the Oaxaca Learning Center. The bed and breakfast operation, as well as a small second floor apartment, is the main funding for the Learning Center. The website will do it more justice, but the basic idea for the center is to provide free tutoring for local middle and high school students. Tutoring seems to be mostly for math, physics, chemistry, and English. It is in part run by Gary, but mostly by students who have moved through the ranks at the center or the bed and breakfast. They offer classes, smaller group tutoring, a women's group and psychological services. We hope to help out some once we move out; at least continue with some intercambios (language exchanges - that help us with Spanish perhaps more than it helps students with English). Everyone we have met has been incredibly welcoming and have answered lots of questions, showed us around, and recommended restaurants.

Our best meals have come at the recommendation of Jorge, an awesome guy living at the center while he works as a teacher and returns to school for a masters. Our first night we had Tlayudas at a spot close by. When we turned the corner and entered the restaurant we were enveloped in the smoke of the meat cooking on the street. It seems the restaurant specialized in Tlayudas so there was no menu to peruse. The Tlayuda is a massive corn tortilla folded in half and filled with black beans, cheese (queso fresco), sauteed onions and peppers. The meat of your choice is cooked and placed on top of the tortilla (which really is massive, like the size of a small pizza folded in half, so big that Erica couldn't quite finish hers.) Erica ordered chorizo, mostly because she recognized it when the waiter listed off choices. Rory, got a type of marinated beef that tasted better than the chorizo and Jorge and Adrian ordered sesino, a spicy cut of pork. We washed it down with a hibiscus drink that was delicious.

Today for lunch we enjoyed another spot close to the center - Tierre del Sol. We each ordered with a vague sense of what we would be getting on the plate. Rory started with some vegetables that we mostly recognized. There was one new one that appeared to be more of a honey dew melon in looks and texture, but that turned out to be a local vegetable named chayote. Erica had some yummy rice flavored with a bit of chile and perhaps cilantro. Our meals looked similar but tasted very different. Erica had a marinated piece of meat (arrachera) with amazing chunky guacamole and tasty black beans and queso fresco. Rory's meat had more of a grilled taste and came with a salad and a whole cooked pepper (not sure what type). And, of course, it all came with fresh corn tortillas, made right before our eyes. For refreshment we had what Erica believes to be horchata, a sweet, cinamonny, rice-y drink. YUM!

Another adventure awaits us tonight. Pozole! With Jorge, no less, so it is bound to be delicious yet again....

And, while we have loved the adventures at restaurants we are both eager to have a kitchen of our own! We are close to securing a place, we think. More details when it is final.