El Tacoqueto

Our buddies Carla and Gerry had been to Tulum before and we took a lot of their suggestions including where to stay and where to eat. Carla let me know that the food in Tulum Pueblo was a good bit cheaper and really good. When we were driving through town Ron spotted El Tacoqueto and after we ate their we realized that this was the place that Carla and Gerry had raved about - and rightfully so. Looking back on C&G's photos - we actually have embarrassingly similar photos of ourselves inside! Good find guys, very good find!

Ordering goes like this - walk up to the window to the kitchen and the women open the pots of what they made that day and you pick what you want. They don't speak any english (a very good sign to us - yay, not a tourist trap!) luckily, our knowledge of the spanish language pretty much includes only food items. We can read a menu with hardly any problems - but street signs? Not so much.

Generally if I hear the word "mole" I'm in! So we went for the chicken mole served with rice (note my spanish dictionary in the background!):

And the abondigas (meatballs) in a spicy tomato sauce served with black beans and rice:

Ron also ordered a melon Agua Fresca - fresh melon, water (bottled of course, stay FAR away from the tap water!) and sugar blended and strained into this massive glass:

This was probably one of our best meals and definitely one of the cheapest - I think we payed around $10 for everything! When we were waiting for our check a man who must have been one of the owners came over to talk to us - since our spanish was limited he was more like talking at us as we played the role of stupid americans. He asked where we were from, we told him and he jumped up to grab a magazine that they'd been featured in. A little magazine called Food & Wine! What a good place to stumble upon, huh? I'd agree with Food & Wine - it's definitely a "spectacular hole-in-the-wall".