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".

Mexican Honeymoon

Wedding planning is exhausting! The day after the wedding we had an early brunch with our out-of-town guests then went home to "pack". Packing turned into hours of napping, all the wedding craziness finally caught up with us - this might have been my best nap ever.

Anyway - the next day we were up bright and early for a flight to Cancun followed by an hour and a half drive to Tulum, Mexico. We stayed at Hotel Nueva Vida de Rimero - the hotel consists of 20 cabanas, ours was just steps of the beach. Check out this view:

Not awful, right? Our first day there we did as close to nothing as possible - more napping and a low key dinner across the street at the hotel's restaurant.

Continental breakfast was included with the room. I'm not talking make your own waffles and boxes of cereal, this was sliced fresh fruit (pineapple, watermelon, banana, the good stuff!), yummy toasted bread with jam, strong coffee, and fresh squeezed orange juice. You could have it delivered to your cabana for a next-to-nothing charge or dine at the restaurant. But...for our first morning in Tulum we wanted something a bit more hearty and we definitely wanted it delivered! We went with Chilaquiles and Huevos Rancheros (two of my favorite foods!). Yum.

This is a great way to start a vacation!

Fish Tacos

Soft tacos are one of my favorite summer dishes. They're along the line of the grilled protein, grilled vegetable and bean summer routine I've talked about before - in this case you just throw the grilled protein in a corn tortilla and add some fixin's and you're done.

I think fish tacos are my favorite, they're a perfect light meal. We normally use whatever white fish is least expensive that day - preferably something firm. This time we used cod, but halibut is also delicious. We dressed the tacos with slaw, a spicy sauce, and some pico de gallo.

I made the slaw with red and green cabbage, lime juice, a touch of oil, honey, salt and pepper - I over limed which is why I added the honey but it was good with it. The spicy sauce was just equal parts mayo and sour cream (in this case both low fat because that's what we had in the fridge!) a bit of the adobo from a can of chipotles, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. Ron made a pico with chopped tomatoes, a jalapeno, red onion, garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper.

The fish was just seasoned with s&p and baked - there was a lot going on in these tacos and we didn't want to over do it! I know a lot of fish tacos come with fried fish - I'll like to get these when I go out but at home it's so much easier to just grill or bake the fish.

I made "refried" beans - not really refried because it was just a drained can of pintos, a chopped plum tomato, chipotle, cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper and parsley all mixed together and smashed with a fork. If the beans start to dry out just add some stock until they're the consistency that you like. I make this all the time and LOVE it - it's not refried in lard but still has the refried texture. Refried bean connoisseurs might scoff at these but I think they're delicious! We also grilled some red peppers and zucchini's with olive oil, s&p.

This sort of turned into a feast - I was half way through my second taco and had to give up. And I'm positive it had nothing to do with the fact that I'm still getting home from work and immediately making a B line for this.

*I forgot to mention that this dinner would be awesome with a Michelada - have you tried them? I haven't yet but they're on my "To Make" list. Check out this recipe and picture over at Food Woolf.

**Update: Last night Ron made Micheladas and I think they are gross - I really wanted to like them but I couldn't take a sip without making a I-want-to-spit-this-out face. Bummer.