The beach in front of our house.

Joe and I are in love with Tulum. We just got back from our second trip in a year and we decided to return again for Joe’s 40th in May. This time we went with both of our parents and our three kids (thanks to my mom and dad who spearheaded it). It’s a great family vacation if you’re not looking for Disneyland. Lots of sandcastles to build. If you go without the kids though, it’s completely romantic.

The sand in Tulum is so white and fine that it feels like cornstarch under your feet. It’s humid enough that your legs are always a little sticky and your hair that you never knew was curly suddenly is. But it’s not stifling—in January at least. (June’s another matter.) The water is that Caribbean blue that you can’t take enough pictures of and every day has a moment where the sun and the clouds meet to make a perfect photo opp. Everyone looks great in Tulum. Just ignore the mosquito bites.

Unlike Cancun, which is where you fly in, or even Playa Del Carmen, which has changed so much since I was there 20 years ago, Tulum is blessedly free of mega resorts and guys in guayabera shirts embroidered with limes and shots of tequila. Though the small beachside hotels are all yoga-ed and eco-ed out, the town, which is 10 minutes inland, is a typically chill Mexican beach town—aimless dogs, taco stands, empty buildings next to tourist shops, plenty of Oxxo’s, the Mexican answer to 7-11. There’s no grand church to anchor it all but it still has a town square full of families at night, mixed with the occasional hippy dancing and doing weird things with ribbons.

Europeans were everywhere this time around. Thus the bikini bottoms were very, very small. Tops were negligible, if in existence. On the last night, there was a full moon and the palm trees on the beach were crackling in the relentless wind. I saw a lone kite surfer hopping the dark, small, bathwater-warm waves when I went out to get a glimpse of the salsa band playing at Le Zebra next door to the house we were staying in. I love traditional couples’ dances. They’re so generally civil and old fashioned.

Sadly, Joe and I had to head back to San Francisco last week, the city where parking meters exist—though I get the sense that if parking enforcement was an issue in Tulum, the meter maids would have machine guns like the federales patrolling the roads do. Come to think of it I’m surprised the meter maids here haven’t tried it.

Here are a few of our recommendations for Tulum should you find yourself yearning for the perfect beach vacation. It really doesn’t get much better.

Casa de las Palmas where we stayed

STAY Clearly the beach is the place to be and along it is an endless supply of mellow little “eco-resorts” that almost all run off-the-grid. The first time we stayed here, we booked a balcony room at Hotel Mezzanine, which is particularly great because it’s situated at the end of the beach, the last hotel before you get to the Tulum ruins—the only Mayan ruins situated on a beach.

But if you’re a family, or just prefer to have a kitchen to cook in instead of being relegated to dining out which can be pricey and mediocre if you stick to beach-front dining—we really loved staying at Casa de las Palmas this time around. The beautiful three bedroom house, which is meticulously taken care of, is situated right next to Le Zebra Hotel and owned by Bob and Bonnie, a friendly and helpful couple who spend part of their year in Tulum and part of it back home in Canada. And I don’t mean to sound like the princess-and-the-pea that I am, but the beds are really comfortable, which is not a given in Mexico.

Joe and his dad getting fish for dinner.

COOK To eat well, you need to know where to shop. If you’re looking for a supermarket for the basics, skip the huge market called Chedrahui and go to the smaller San Francisco de Asis market which is on the right-hand side off of the main drag of Highway 307, right before you turn to head to the beach (click here for the map). We got all our staples there (don’t forget to pick up the Microdyn which you’ll need to clean your unpeeled veggies and fruits). A warning to even slight coffee snobs: Bring your own coffee, if you care for anything better than instant.

For produce, there are plenty of frutas y verduras stands, but the consensus seems to be that Pool’s is the best (I believe it’s about 1 block to the east at the obelisk on the side street).  That’s where most restaurants get their produce.. Get a watermelon. The watermelons are so much better in Mexico. Freshly made tortillas, still warm and wrapped in paper, can be found at pretty much any store. Just look for a cooler which usually has the name of the local tortilleria written on it. Or just go straight to the source: It appears that Tortilleria Lulu is one of the main ones in town, which is on a street that runs one block parallel from Highway 307 towards the beach (forgot to write down the exact location).

For fresh fish, Bob and Bonnie recommended Pat y Pat, a little, local pescaderia. Joe made fresh fish tacos on the first night topped with fried potatoes and grilled pineapple, which turns out to be a delicious combination. Though Pat y Pat used to be on 307 it’s moved a few blocks down and around the corner.

Freshly pressed sugar cane juice for sale in the town square.

EAT The deck at Hotel Mezzanine‘s Thai restaurant (part of the hotel I recommended) sits on a bluff overlooking a wide expanse of beach. Don’t be scared of the photo on their website. At happy hour (1 pm to 4 pm, I think), grab a seat for two-for-one cocktails. The blended passion fruit margarita is great. The Thai food is super solid here too. We always get the rare beef salad, though my parents love the green curry. Breakfast here is nice as well. Service is friendly and efficient. You’re in good hands if you have a server named Lucky.

Joe and his dad were dying to watch a football game and someone recommended El Pequeño Buenos Aires, an Argentinian restaurant, because it has a TV. Though they have another location on the beach, we like eating in town better in general. It’s just gives you more of a taste of being in Mexico—not simply a beach resort. Buenos Aires is located on a corner and is open-air, festive and a lot of fun. We all got arranchera steak with peppercorn sauce, veggies, a side of French fries and a bottle of red wine that arrived nicely chilled. It really couldn’t have been better. I recommend pouring the pepper sauce over the fries and the steak and eating it all at once. After your done, head over to the little town center, just a block away, where vendors are selling antojitos, freshly pressed cane juice, as well as jewelry and other homemade trinkets.

Perfect panuchos at El Rinón Chiapaneco

Joe and I came across El Rincón Chiapaneco on our last trip to Tulum and we made sure to come back—three times, actually—while we were visiting again. (Click here for a map.) It’s one of the many little open little Mexican restaurants but you know it’s good because it’s generally busy with locals. Get an order of the panuchos (a classic antojito from the Yucatan region)—fried tortillas stuffed with shredded chicken or turkey, black beans and topped with cabbage, pickled onions, avocado and a tomato—as well as a big glass of made-to-order hugo verde (juice made of fresh pineapple and chaya, a leafy green). The friendly owner Damian speaks perfect English.

NOT THE BEST EATING We’re going to go against every tourist book here to tell you that the fish tacos at Mateo’s—an incredibly popular restaurant across the street from the beach—are not indeed the best fish tacos on earth, as the restaurant and everyone else seems to claim. They’re by no means terrible, but we thought they were oddly sparse, topped with one slice of avocado, a sprinkle of cabbage, and a bit of paltry fried fish all on a stale tortilla that had only been vaguely resuscitated from a plancha to the point of being crispy but not in a good way. The weirdest part is that they’re served with a little ramekin of sweet and sour sauce—like the sticky stuff you get in an American-Chinese restaurant. I don’t mean to be a hater, but you can do better. However, the service was very friendly, efficient and warm, which means it’s a pleasant place to sit and wile away the time, which is what beach living is kind of about anyway.

Since it’s next door to the house we stayed in, we ended up at Le Zebra, starved and exhausted from our trip on the first night. Though the food was fine, the service took forever—and I mean to the brink of death—and I’m factoring in what’s known as Mexico time. But on the upside, Le Zebra has great, strong, thick coffee for the mornings when you realize in a panic that you’re out of the coffee you brought with you, as well as good, housemade coconut toast.

Mia, Moss and Silas at the house, getting ready for some coconut water for breakfast

Joe asked this nice woman for directions to Juanito's house.

In the Yucatán, there is no end to pretty Mexican villages straight out of your Hollywood imagination. There are low-slung rock walls enclosing thatched roofed houses with walls made simply of twiggy tree trunks. There are churches, the stucco faded by the sun. And old men wearing cowboy hats going by on bicycles, carting firewood on the back. And pickup trucks on the side of the road filled to the brim with nothing but watermelons for sale (and maybe a few paintings of Jesus and some plastic-wrapped pillows). On the not-so-Hollywood side of things, but equally essential to the Mexican vibe, every town, no matter how sleepy, has at least one speaker facing straight out to the street pumping out music at decibels so high that the sound is blown-out.

Then he asked this guy.

But if villages were to enter themsleves in a beauty competition, Tekit would win. This is the village that Juanito, one of our top line cooks and someone who has worked with Joe for five years, comes from. The guy who greets Joe every day with perfect English.

Yesterday we left Merida and headed towards Tekit, about an hour drive south on country roads. When we turned into the village, we couldn’t get over the bucolic scene of Juanito’s childhood. Gentle hills, nicely kempt, but typically modest homes, kids getting out of school in uniforms, the girls with white socks up to their knees. The village’s main industry is the making of guayabera shirts. In every other house we passed, you could see someone at a sewing machine and hear the sound of it chugging along.

We found it, a few unmarked "blocks" later.

When we arrived at Juanito’s house, which is comprised of four small rooms—half cement block, half thatched roof—his whole family was there. And by whole, I mean lots. A family where not one person speaks English. And I mean, not even “hello.” Needless to say, the day was a game of charades.

Juanito has never told Joe that he’s number 10 out of 12 kids. Well, we think tenth. It took his sister Paulina using both hands to count out the siblings to see where Juanito fits into the sequence.

Just some of the family, including Lydia, Juanito's mother, and to the right, Cuarto y Paulina

At the house, his brother met us with a grin beneath his mustache, still wearing a hat with a veil on it and toting a canister of smoke, returning home from a day’s work with bees. Honey is something else Tekit is known for. His mother Lydia was there too and invited us into the house, past a dog lying flat in the sun to the point of looking dead (another staple of Mexico imagery), her puppies running around being skinny and cute. Inside, prominently displayed above the doorway, was a picture of Juanito and his brother Luis (who used to work at Tacolicious; Juanito’s brother Carlos still does). More family members were lounging around; a nephew was watching soccer on a small TV. One wall had a mounted deer head and a display of the rifle that shot it. To the right of it was a picture of Justin Bieber. There were no beds to be seen. It took a second for me to register that the hammocks tucked away on the walls were the beds.

Juanito's brother back from working with honey bees.

Perrito. Aw.

Siesta time.

His mother took us all the way into the backyard, where, amongst a bunch of very happy, free-range chickens, a couple goats (used both milk and barbacoa, she said with a smile), four squawking, hissing geese safely locked in a pen (why are geese such assholes?) her cocina was located—an open, thatched roofed, dirt-floored space with nothing but a comal, heated by a wood-fire, in the corner (though I did spot a refrigerator). Two of Juanito’s sisters sat around the fire, on preschool-sized chairs, making the tortillas for the day by hand. No press. Just patting out the masa with their hands, setting them on the flat, hot comal and letting them puff up for a second before they deflated and were thrown into a bucket lined with a dishtowel. As a food writer, this is the stuff that you only get to read about via someone like Rick Bayless. This is the stuff Carlos Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food movement, wets his pants over. But they weren’t doing it for us or for Carlos. They do this every day to feed their family.

Lydia giving us the house tour.

Goats, geese, chickens and more live in their backyard.family.

Bebe making tortillas for the family, something they do every morning.

His mother offered to make me something eat. She cracked an egg inside the tortilla and cooked it on the comal, handed me a huge plastic thing of salt and watched me eat her gordita with a smile, saying that Juanito grew up eating two of these every morning. Back in the car on the way to Tulum, Joe gave me grief about this moment because I was smiling so hard, having what he called my “Saveur magazine moment.” So shoot me.

The gordita with an egg. Simple and delicious.

Just like Noe’s story, this isn’t made up, and it gets even better. Paulina and Lydia walked us up to Juanito’s house, which is still under construction but mostly done. You heard me. Juanito, in his early twenties, has saved enough money by working in the US to have a house built for himself. With a modern kitchen that he will cook from (and will make Carlos Petrini weep with despair over the loss of the traditional comal), using the skills he’s acquired in the States where Mexican men cook. In Mexico itself, the day-to-day cooking is a woman’s job. My guess is that Juanito had never stepped foot in a cocina until he arrived to work for Joe as a dishwasher five years ago.

Juanito's house-to-be.

It doesn’t stop there, Juanito, from San Francisco, also has opened an  internet cafe in Tekit (he sent us to Tekit to deliver an old laptop for it), as well as a small ranch—a ranch—land which his family works. It took going on this trip for us to realize that basically, Juanito, the guy that cooks at our restaurant, is a baller. And anyone who fears Mexicans moving to the United States to take over, or to do whatever horrible things Glen Beck preaches immigrants are doing to our country, I’m here to tell you, from first-hand experience, that Juanito—and Noe, for that matter—have only come to the US to make more than the $10 a day that they would make in Mexico. Their goal is to go home. And after seeing Tekit, I don’t blame Juanito.

You might have heard, we are opening a new Tacolicious. And while I’m beaming with excitement now, at  the time I wrote these notes, I was steeped in deep lease negotiations and stressed and nervous and frustrated and overwhelmed at the same time. Fortunately, Mexico is close and a great excuse to do a little R&D.

My buddy Tyler Gourley is a really great photographer. My buddy Isaac is a really great builder and eater and drinker. We didn’t build much on this trip but we did eat and drink a lot. And Tyler took some really great photos. I hope you enjoy.

Despite all the border drama talk, we drove across the border at Tecate—which, for future reference, should be noted is about 45 minute drive from the San Diego airport—and crossed without delay. In a matter of seconds, the roads became charmingly uneven, stray dogs began to pop from out of the woodwork and life in general seemed to move at a much slower pace.

Our first order of business was was finding a cool place to have a drink.

The place we stopped was pretty cool. Very Mexico. Lot’s of people standing around. Some guy tried to sell us his puppy. The usual. The woman that owned the cafe (I called her La Diabla) took great pleasure watching Isaac and I get our asses totally kicked by the heat given from the Chilpetines en escebeche—an immature pepper that is pickled and served as an accompaniment to the delicious Preperada, a drink made with clamato, pureed chiles, lime juice, salt, black pepper and of course Tecate. Find this on the Tacolicious menu immediately.

From La Diabla’s patio restaurant we walked across the street to a open air stand with a 40 seats, each table adorned by bowls of pickled jalapenos, clay pots of salsa roja de la casa, whole radishes and salt.

I really loved the cutting board, basically a large, 12-inchish slice of Eucalyptus. I wanted to buy one for Telmo but for some reason I thought our local health department would frown upon it.

From Tecate, we were highway bound, through the Valle de Guadalupe, Baja’s very beautiful yet sleepy wine growing region, en route to coastal points south.

It feels like I’ve been to Ensenada a hundred times, though it’s probably more like 20. It’s not a very cool place to be. I mean it’s fun if you want to get wasted with a bunch of sunburned Americans, or if you’re looking for some by-perscription-only (but not in Mexico) drugs. To my mind, it’s kind of the border—it’s the place where America really ends and Mexico really begins.

On this particular trip, we three geniuses ended up there the same week as the Baja 500. Picture lots and lots of dune buggies, elevated trucks, mullets and spare fuel tanks. And imagine it very loud. Between the cars and the techno music that the sponsor, Rockstar energy drinks, was blasting so loud on the street, we couldn’t even converse.

In any case, we were there for the night and decided to make the most of it. Whenever I drive through Ensenada, I always make a stop at El Charro, a really average restaurant in the tourist district that’s been there since 1956. The margaritas are pretty terrible, the chips are from a box and the service is painfully slow (though very nice). But it’s tradition. When I was a kid, way back in the 70′s, my parents brought the family here on our way south. It’s hard to miss because there’s always an old woman making tortillas in the front window as well as an even older rotisserie, packed full of baby chickens slowly rotating. Order half a roasted chicken with fries served with fresh tortillas and salsa, it’s quite delicious.

Because the light was really bad in the restaruant, our pictires didn’t turn out too well. Fortunately for my sister though, I took some time this afternoon and went through some old family photos and did find these pictures of my sibling and I enjoying Mexico in 1977.

My sister Erin going au natural in Baja, circa 1977.

Me in Baja, circa 1977. (I enjoyed drinking then too.)

So, from Ensenada, we made our way down the coast with no real destination in mind—our main goal was to get away from it all.

After passing through Santa Tomas, including a stop at El Palomar Restaurant and Motel for huevos con chorizo, tecate and tequila, we decided to get off the paved roads and head to the coast. After an hour and a half of dirt road driving, we happened upon a small fishing village of Erindria. We were lucky to arrive on a very big day: The main road was being paved and seemingly the entire village was in the street to watch the big to-do.

Once we got to the coast, we were directed to a little white warehouse that looked like an abandoned building. There, we met a very nice young man who showed us his bucket of of recently caught and iced fish. After a few minutes of deliberation we decided on the 4 pound ling cod that was so fresh that even the flesh was blue.

The very nice kid cleaned our fish and we were directed to go see Lupita, the owner of a small “restaurant” located within the small village. We dropped off the fish with the young woman and told her we would return around in a few hours for dinner. She reminded us to also bring beer if we wanted to drink because she didn’t have any.

Tyler liked the fish. And he didn’t forget the beer.

One last stop before the border…

When I was a kid, my uncle mark and his Hawaiian friend Sandy took me on many trips to the sleepy fishing village of Puerto Nuevo (an hour and 45 minute drive from where they lived in Laguna Beach). i loved eating lobster with smashed beans and rice on flour tortillas and salsa seaside. I also loved that my uncle didn’t tell his sister—my mother—that he let me drink plenty of tequila and margaritas.

My memories of Puerto Nuevo are different than the way it is today. We made a stop there on the way home and were greeted by gaggles of restaurant and shop callers, all speaking English, all saying they had the best and the cheapest at a special price for us, their friends. The sleepy fishing village is gone. Today it’s bustling and touristy and full of gringos and bars and restaurants and shops that serve them. It might as well have been Fisherman’s Wharf.

Thankfully though, we found a restaurant with an ocean view that wasn’t too crowded. We did get to eat the lobster, and all the modern “developments” aside, I was able to recapture that childhood food memory, which are often some of the best.

The funny thing about life? When you’re young and fearless and adventurous, you have all the time in the world to do whatever you like (which usually means spending endless days getting wasted as quickly as possible—or maybe that was just me.). You grow up and you have a business to run and kids to drive to school and a wife to do chores for (I mean, spend quality time with). You still adventure, but you have to do it with efficiency.

Which is why our trip was three nights in total. And considering Baja is so close, is was actually just enough. Thanks for reading.

courtesy of bencollsuss via flickr

On SF Gate’s Inside Scoop today, the honorable Paolo Lucchesi sat down with the venerable Rick Bayless to talk shop. After he got done waxing on about his good eating in SF (none of it Mexican), he got down to business. A man with a sharp mind, Bayless always has some interesting things to say.

“Mexican food in California has been so incredibly limited to the taqueria style. It’s like if you went to France and say American food is just hot dogs—it’s good but it’s not the whole story. Everyone is so focused on taquerias. It’s a very, very small amount of cuisine in Mexico.”

“I’m looking for a chef to have the guts to rise above and do a fine dining restaurant that really showcases the real food of Mexico. [ed's note: yes!] And it seems people are clamoring for that. Granted you need the background and have to travel in Mexico—you don’t learn it in culinary school. But I still think there’s someone in San Francisco that can do that.”

“I think Mexican food in LA tends to be quite bland. There are places that are doing the real thing, but it’s mostly sticking to the taqueria model. There’s a little bit lighter, fresher quality to what I’ve tasted in San Francisco, but there seems to be a sameness to what you get in LA. It tends to be gringo-ized to me. Not all, but most.” [Interestingly, Bayless just opened a place in LA called Red O. Read what Grubstreet had to report.]

“There’s a bit of investment in our country in keeping our image of Mexico and Mexican food as low, cheap and not worthy of our attention. I’ve been on the other side of that my whole life, because I first went to Mexico as a kid and found it to be the most enriching culture and wanted to bring it back through food.” [yes, yes, yes!]

“In the United States—and in a lot of cases, California, because of its large immigrant population—there’s become a stereotype of what Mexican cuisine should be, and it’s hard to break out of it.”

“I have a Mexican soul but not a Mexican grandmother, so I don’t have to be slavish about adhering to one particular family recipe. I think that if we’re going to break out, we have to see the country in a different way than the way we’ve stereotyped it as poor, downtrodden and nothing but a beach getaway for us to play in. That’s a hard thing to get over.”

“People forget that Mexico City is a sophisticated, world-class city. There’s a chef in Oaxaca that’s doing molecular gastronomy things — he’s incredibly well-traveled and well-educated. We just have to be able to open our eyes to what’s really there, and wipe out the Cancun and Mazatlan images from our minds.”

Nice interview Lucchesi.

Mike Barrows, our general manager, recently got back from a trip to the Tequila region of Mexico. It was there that he learned something I’ve always found to be true: Everything tastes better when you learn to love the people that make it.

Mike came to us initially as our bar manager—probably the healthiest bar manager you’re ever going to meet. While many bar professionals tend toward late nights and cigarette breaks, Mike is the type of guy who religiously runs five miles every morning—no matter where he is. I’m pretty sure he’s the only person that has run (for exercise) through the streets of Guadalajara in the pouring rain (“People thought I was crazy,” he said), as well as through the gorgeous hilly town of Atotonilco, where the small family-owned 7 Leguas distillery is located.

Before he went on this trip, Mike also hadn’t eaten meat for 11 years.

But before you judge, know that his one moment of pork weakness came out of respect. Respect for the 7 Leguas family who not only gave him the tour of their small, well-cared-for distillery, and let him try his hand in the agave fields (see above) but then brought him into their hacienda for lunch and then to dinner at their ranch house which is located in the middle of agave fields, looking to the mountains. The agave glowed in the full-moon light. “We were with them for eight hours, talking and hanging out,” Mike, who was there with his girlfriend Michaela, told me.

“The owner Juan Fernando didn’t say much at first. But when he got a little buzz on, he started speaking in English and he was really funny—a great guy. You can tell his family comes first. They’re just really cool people.” Throughout the dinner, they sipped tequila (Mike is now a huge fan of the blanco), and ate things like shrimp ceviche. “They love the name Tacolicious. If the cooks placed any food on the table,” Mike said, “They’d say like, Tortillalicious! and all laugh.”

But when it came to the last course, the cooks served pork. Mike hesitated only a moment. And then dug in. The verdict? “It was amazing!” he said. ”I fell in love with that family. How could I say no?”

For those of you who can’t make it to Atotonilco to get a taste of 7 Leguas straight from the distillery, for the month of August, Tacolicious is offering up the next best thing: A $14 of 7 Leguas: the blanco, reposado and añejo. The difference is astounding. Come in and ask for Mike. He’ll be happy to share his experience with you. (It’ll make it taste better, I promise.)

El Moro's churros con chocolate (photo by Tyler Gourley)

Everyone knows that a properly-made churro is a thing of beauty: The way I see it, it’s all about ratio. It has to be mostly crispy on the outside (the ribbed, stick shape is the perfect vehicle for this), a little bit creamy on the inside, overall a tad chewy, hot (but not tongue-burning) and dusted with just enough crunchy sugar and cinnamon to hit the mark somewhere between pleasurably sweet and wincingly so.

I’m also very aware of how bad a cold churro can be: A leaden, chewy guilt-trip. If you’re going to indulge, it better be good.

I’m excited to report that Telmo has been working hard on our churros recipe. In fact, just a couple weeks ago we invested in a new fryer, specifically to be used only to make churros. (Put it this way: Churros fried in the same oil that we use for our fish=gross).

Churros are made with what is essentially a pate à choux—the same dough used to make everything from eclairs to crullers to beignets—and pressed directly into hot oil through a pastry bag with a star tip. Telmo’s most recent inspiration has been the churros from the famous Churrería El Moro in Mexico City where they make some pretty great specimens. I think they’re made even greater by the fact that the servers, who are by no means particularly young, wear old-school, maid-like outfits, complete with white aprons, which would be weird at Tacolicious but really add to the whole flavor when you’re at a 75-year-old restaurant in DF.

Tacolicious's churros con chocolate (photo by me)

Our churros hit the right marks: They’re chewy, crispy, creamy, just the right amount sugary. Truth be told, I prefer them with cafe con leche, but we’re serving them traditionally with a rich, thick hot chocolate that turns them from just delicious into decadent. Come and get them while they’re hot.

As Joe puts it about his latest trip there: “As you walk up to the mercado, all the storefronts are open and everyone’s hanging out front and it’s a combination of blaring techo music and mariachi music coming from every which way. It’s really upbeat music but for the most part all the people are standing still. There are trucks driving by with speakers, and kids and women walking with speakers—anything that can move has a speaker—and they’re blaring out their daily specials.”

“There was a minute where I was walking across the street and I got run over by a blind guy and it made me think, What an impossible place to be blind. There’s so much noise pollution. Close your eyes and you can’t hear anything but noise. It brings your stress level up so much. And then, all of the sudden, at 12:15—right when a soccer game between Holland and Mexico began—with the exception of that familiar buzz of the announcer’s voice, there was total silence. It was crazy. It was so, so crazy.”

Joe was down there with his good friend and excellent photographer Tyler Gourley. His images of the market might not show the noise but they definitely show the color.

Ant eggs, anyone? Photo by Tyler Gourley (my very good friend)

This post is written by Joe. (And posted by me.)

When it comes to Mexico, our chef Telmo is a great traveling companion. While I say stupid things like “foamo” when asking for frothed milk for my coffee (it made sense to me), he speaks impeccable Spanish and never gets stumped when ordering from a menu. Well, almost never.

So last week—on my second research trip down to Mexico this month—Telmo and I were in Mexico City for a few nights. Like almost every country outside of the U.S., innards are par for the course at street food stands and more. Personally, I could care less about the offal craze that has been blazing through the restaurant industry these past few years. I don’t have a taste for tripe and was turned off by glands at the young age of 12 (remember that day trip to from Amsterdam to Paris, Mom?). A well made lengua taco is great and I’ve destroyed many a beef cheek, but that’s about as crazy as I get when it comes to unusual foods. At least by American standards.

Andrew Zimmerman would think I’m a pussy.

So one evening, Telmo and I had the pleasure of dining at Fonda El Refugio in Zona Rosa, in Mexico City a restaurant reccomended to me by Rick Bayless that I’d always wanted to try but never had the chance. At a glance, the menu was pretty standard: Tacos, check. Tostadas, yep. All of the cuts of meat typical of a nice Mexican restaurant. And then, Telmo spotted something. He flagged our waiter with excitement and asked “Que son escamoles?” The waiter replied “Huevos de Hormiga.”

Telmo smiled and blurted out “HELL YES, ANT EGGS!”

Despite my true feelings about this, I surely wasn’t going to let him out-foodie me—not in public anyway. I could put down ant larva probably with less grimacing than tripe. A few minutes later, our waiter set down a plate of what looked like mini Rice Krispies that had been sauteed with onions, chile and epazote. The dish was neatly flanked by  the most beautiful bright green dice of nopales mixed with queso fresco. It was all served with a side of warm tortillas and a spicy tomatillo-serrano salsa—essentially the fixings for ant-egg tacos.

Maybe it was the perfectly-made margarita that kept me from identifying any flavor in the eggs. That, or possibly that I was in awe of the bright, perfect little nopales salad along side. I didn’t get anything from the dish but the flavor of epazote, onions and chile. Meanwhile, Telmo was raving. He described them as having a nutty, sesame-seed oil, caviar flavor.

Taking another bite, all I could think was, ‘They do?’

I want to give Telmo credit for being a super-taster—some sort of culinary genius.  (After all, this is a blog about our restaurant.) But between you and me, when it comes to chefs, I think the thrill of the uncharted ingredient often heightens the experience. But then I saw this really interesting YouTube video below about escamoles—which are a prehispanic delicacy harvested from the roots of the agave plant—and found out that they’re an aphrodisiac. Now I understand why Telmo got so hot and bothered.

We’re gearing up to put some Mexico City-inspired specials on the menu. I know I’m letting down half of San Francisco when I say this, but we are not going to be putting ant egg tacos on the menu. However, that nopales salad? You’ll be seeing that soon.

Donnie Masterton and Joe at The Restaurant

The last time I was in San Miguel de Allende, I was going through a divorce. It was my first Christmas without my boys and my parents had thought that it would be good for me to get away from it all, so they bought me an airline ticket to Mexico. My brother, who was single at the time too, came along and it was a family vacation like the days before I had a husband and children—a surreal scenario. The only crystal clear thing at that point in my life was that I was never, ever, you couldn’t pay-me-to-do-it, get married again.

Um, yeah. Sheepish smile.

Hello Joe Hargrave.

Who four 1/2 years later, I was now with, hand in hand, revisiting the same San Miguel markets and art galleries that I’d been to with my parents. To top off the bizarre life intersection, we spent a lot of the time hanging out with Joe’s old friend Donnie Masterton, who had been the opening chef for Azie restaurant, which was located next to Lulu, during its dot-com hey day in 1989. Joe worked there as the general manager. At that time, Azie was the shit. Pardon my Spanish.

Also, at that point in time, I was working at San Francisco magazine as a food editor. I didn’t know Joe. Joe didn’t know me. But I had dined at Azie (when most likely Joe was there), and what I knew of Donnie was that his food was exquisitely ahead of its time. Not to mention, he was the first guy to have a DJ at a restaurant and he even proceeded the masses with a knife tattoo on his forearm. Azie was cooler than San Francisco in some ways. Donnie, as Joe has always said, was a trailblazer.

And now, Donnie is in San Miguel, brought there by 9/11 and chef burnout, reinvigorated by a new, mellower lifestyle that allows him to spend time with his two young girls and still run a restaurant. He recently opened his own place called The Restaurant at Sollano 16, serving food that is not by any means Mexican but would be impressive in any sophisticated city, anywhere in the world.

Joe and I dined there on our last night, which was perfect, because honestly, at that point, I couldn’t look another taco in the face. Donnie’s cooking has softened around the edges, just like all us old folks. He sources locally and organically when he can, which is a challenge down there.

My first thought, sitting in the restaurant’s lovely outdoor courtyard and biting into a simple but artful pickled beet salad with local goat cheese, was that  his subtly eclectic cooking—although not as edgy as 10 years ago—has a finesse that would impress even the jaded folks of San Francisco. Donnie has the touch, no doubt. And a pretty enviable life, considering how gorgeous and chill San Miguel is.

Sometimes things just work out.