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3468 words
- The journey set out to explore Mexican cuisine beyond its internationally familiar dishes. Joshua traveled through Oaxaca, Los Mochis in Sinaloa, and Mexico City to investigate regional cooking, traditional techniques, street food, and fine dining, arguing that tacos al pastor, burritos, and quesadillas represent only a small part of Mexico’s culinary diversity.
- Oaxaca was presented as one of the historical foundations of Mexican cuisine. The journey began there because of its indigenous food traditions, distinctive ingredients, corn-based cooking, and celebrated mole sauces.
- An Oaxacan market offered a communal, build-your-own barbecue experience. Customers bought different meats, vegetables, chilies, and accompaniments from individual vendors before grilling them on shared charcoal grills. Joshua rated the experience 10/10, emphasizing the food, freshness, and social atmosphere.
- The market's meat selection included beef, suadero, and chorizo. Fresh tortillas were placed beneath the grilled meat to absorb its juices, allowing diners to assemble their own combinations with guacamole, avocado, lime, onions, and salsa.
- A piece of beef fat served as a natural grilling brush. Instead of pouring oil onto the grill, the cooks brushed the cooking surface with rendered fat, distributing flavor while reducing flare-ups.
- Oaxaca's chile de agua stood out for flavor rather than overwhelming heat. Gaby described it as a regional specialty associated with Oaxaca. Joshua considered it among the most flavorful peppers he had tasted, despite its relatively moderate heat.
- Gaby identified the communal grills as an important part of Oaxacan food culture. Different vendors contributed ingredients, and customers cooked alongside one another, making the experience both a meal and a social gathering.
- Oaxaca's seven traditional moles were sampled at Los Pacos. Gaby explained that choosing a single best mole was difficult because the varieties serve different purposes and individual preferences differ. Joshua enjoyed all seven without selecting an overall winner.
- La Teca introduced the cooking traditions of Oaxaca's Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Gaby brought Joshua to Deyanira Aquino, known as La Teca, explaining that the term Teca refers to women born in the Isthmus region.
- Deyanira Aquino continued recipes inherited from her mother and grandmother. She used ingredients brought from her home region and prepared dishes representing a distinct tradition within Oaxacan cuisine.
- La Teca served Joshua what he called the best chile relleno he had eaten in Mexico. The fried stuffed pepper contained tender, relatively lean meat, toasted nuts, and olives, creating a combination of savory, sweet, briny, fresh, and fatty flavors.
- La Teca's garnacha demonstrated the importance of regional corn techniques. Gaby emphasized that both the quality of the corn and the skill used to prepare it were fundamental to Oaxacan cooking, rather than incidental details.
- An unexpected mole at La Teca surpassed the restaurant's planned dishes. Deyanira brought out a very dark mole that had not been included in the original tasting. Joshua compared the experience to a Michelin-starred bite and described the sauce as transformative.
- Alfonsina represented Oaxaca's more formal but sustainability-focused cooking. The Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant emphasized producing food as sustainably as possible, including pressing fresh sugarcane on-site instead of relying on granulated sugar.
- Alfonsina served a four-course meal inspired by the chef's mother's cooking. After learning that the restaurant drew on her home recipes, Joshua jokingly asked whether she cooked even better. The chef directed him to his mother's house to find out.
- Tía Elvia operated a breakfast-only restaurant from her home. Her short menu and extremely simple kitchen contrasted with formal restaurant operations: she cooked using two bricks, a wire rack over a flame, and a large stone comal.
- Tía Elvia's cooking relied on traditional, largely wood-fired methods rather than modern restaurant equipment. Joshua considered her success especially impressive because she achieved outstanding consistency with a setup that offered little technological assistance.
- Eggs cooked with hoja santa became one of Joshua's favorite examples of simple cooking done exceptionally well. They were served on warm tortillas made from freshly ground corn, accompanied by salsa. He praised the seasoning, corn fragrance, egg texture, and herbal flavor of the hoja santa.
- Tía Elvia's original mole briefly became Joshua's favorite of the journey. Its unusually thick consistency reminded him of peanut butter, while its intense flavor worked with salty cheese and fragrant corn.
- Tía Elvia's memela combined a corn tortilla, lard, and fresh cheese. Joshua praised the quality of the corn preparation, demonstrating that extremely simple dishes could compete with elaborate restaurant cooking.
- Tía Elvia also served an exceptional chile relleno taco and chilaquiles. Joshua described the chilaquiles as among the best he had ever eaten, extending a meal in which nearly every dish exceeded his expectations.
- Tía Elvia's costilla frita became Joshua's best bite of the trip up to that point. The fried ribs were cooked in fresh tomato salsa, and he awarded the dish 10/10 with no changes needed.
- The meal at Tía Elvia's house challenged the assumption that the best Mexican food must come from prestigious restaurants. Joshua considered her home cooking a possible pinnacle of Mexican cuisine because of its ingredients, seasoning, traditional techniques, and extraordinary attention to detail.
- Casa Oaxaca was presented as one of Oaxaca's most influential modern restaurants. Gaby explained that many other restaurants had been influenced by its cooking, making it an important final stop before leaving the region.
- Casa Oaxaca showcased both traditional ingredients and inventive presentations. The tasting included tlayuda with salsa, chile de agua stuffed with ceviche, a crab tostada, and an insect tostada containing crickets and mealworms.
- A tomato salad unexpectedly became Joshua's favorite dish at Casa Oaxaca. Made with small tomatillos, local red tomatoes, grapefruit, and black sapote, it impressed him more than the elaborate dishes. He called it the best tomato salad he had ever eaten.
- Casa Oaxaca demonstrated how exceptional produce could outperform culinary complexity. Joshua attributed the salad's success to its balance and the quality of Oaxaca's local ingredients rather than complicated preparation.
- Los Mochis in Sinaloa entered the itinerary through Joshua's chef friend Luis. Joshua had not previously heard of the city's food reputation, but Luis, who came from the region, persuaded him to visit because of its seafood and aguachile.
- Sinaloa emerged as a major seafood destination that Joshua believed international food coverage had overlooked. The region offered fresh seafood, numerous aguachile preparations, and unusual dining experiences, including restaurants operating offshore.
- Burritos Beli provided Joshua's first major surprise in Los Mochis. Gaby introduced the establishment as a leading local burrito specialist, particularly respected for its handmade flour tortillas.
- Burritos Beli made tortillas individually immediately before filling them. A woman rolled each tortilla thin, cooked it, and filled it in rapid succession. Gaby emphasized that achieving the correct elasticity was a specialized regional skill.
- The tortillas at Burritos Beli were exceptionally thin, tender, buttery, and almost translucent. Their fat content contributed to their texture and appearance, sometimes allowing the fillings to be seen through the dough.
- Burritos Beli offered potato, barbacoa, and chicharrón fillings. The chicharrón particularly impressed Joshua because the pork combined crisp edges, chewy sections, gelatinous skin, and richly seasoned meat cooked in its own fat.
- Joshua considered Burritos Beli's chicharrón burrito possibly the best burrito he had ever eaten. He admired its restraint: rather than adding rice, cheese, and numerous vegetables, the preparation relied on a great tortilla and a small number of carefully prepared ingredients.
- The barbacoa burrito demonstrated equally strong meat preparation. Even the fibrous parts of the beef were exceptionally tender, breaking apart immediately when chewed.
- Burritos Beli illustrated how everyday family recipes could equal expensive restaurant food. Joshua argued that a similar burrito sold in New York for $20 would probably be celebrated as extraordinary, while the Los Mochis establishment produced that standard routinely.
- Irma became the group's local seafood expert in Los Mochis. She was introduced as Gaby's friend, and her family owned El Farallon, which Joshua described as one of the city's legendary seafood restaurants.
- Irma arranged a boat trip to La Casita del Ostion, a seafood restaurant in the sea. The journey included dolphin sightings before the group arrived at a simple offshore structure serving extremely fresh seafood.
- La Casita del Ostion served what Joshua called the best oysters of his life. They were shucked in front of the diners and served simply. He particularly praised their firm, meaty texture and freshness.
- La Casita del Ostion prepared a distinctive ceviche using scraped seafood and lime juice. The technique produced an unusually fluffy texture that became moist when chewed, while retaining the substance and chew associated with cooked fish.
- The offshore restaurant also served shrimp cooked in seawater. This preparation reflected the restaurant's broader emphasis on preserving and highlighting the seafood's natural qualities.
- La Casita del Ostion's grilled whole fish was assembled into tacos at the table. Joshua combined pieces of fish with tortilla, mayonnaise, onion, and salsa. He praised the lightly charred skin, clean seafood flavor, and aromatic sweetness of the onion.
- Joshua identified restraint and technique as defining characteristics of Sinaloan seafood. Rather than masking ingredients with complicated preparations, the cooks used freshness, seasoning, and simple techniques to bring out their natural flavors.
- Aguachile was one of the main reasons Joshua traveled to Sinaloa. The region was presented as the birthplace of the dish, and Luis's recommendation had specifically motivated the visit.
- Joshua compared green and red aguachile preparations. Although he usually preferred green aguachile, both versions impressed him with their balance, flavor, freshness, and texture.
- The Sinaloan aguachile surpassed versions Joshua had eaten at Michelin-starred restaurants. He said he had tried aguachile at one-, two-, and three-Michelin-star establishments but believed they had not achieved the standard demonstrated in Sinaloa.
- The visit to El Farallon reunited Joshua with Luis before the group left Sinaloa. The restaurant served a range of seafood, including scallops and shrimp, before presenting a particularly unusual raw seafood dish.
- A dark raw seafood preparation featuring burnt habanero became El Farallon's standout dish. Joshua praised the combination of fruity sweetness and deep, dark chile flavors, describing it as his favorite among the raw seafood dishes encountered.
- El Farallon demonstrated that Sinaloan cooking could combine tradition with innovation. Joshua particularly admired the technical skill behind the burnt-habanero preparation rather than treating the area's cuisine as exclusively traditional.
- Joshua concluded that Sinaloa was substantially underrepresented in food media. He considered Los Mochis capable of producing some of the finest food in Mexico and expressed surprise that its cuisine had received so little attention compared with Oaxaca and Mexico City.
- Mexico City formed the final stage of the journey, deliberately progressing from familiar street food toward fine dining. Joshua organized the visits as an ascending series of culinary experiences to investigate how traditional flavors were interpreted at increasingly elaborate restaurants.
- Tacos al pastor were presented as an example of Mexican cuisine incorporating immigrant influences. The episode traced the rotating vertical spit, or trompo, to Lebanese immigration, explaining how Mexican cooks developed the technique into the familiar pork-and-pineapple taco.
- The opening Mexico City al pastor taco established the traditional baseline for later comparisons. Joshua praised its soft, fragrant tortilla, fatty and well-seared meat, and juicy, sweet pineapple.
- El Sella introduced Mexico City's traditional cantina culture. Gaby brought Joshua to the establishment as an example of a restaurant style beloved by locals but less familiar to international visitors.
- El Sella's atmosphere was built around conversation rather than entertainment or formality. There was no background music; the sounds came from customers talking. Joshua praised its relaxed, sociable environment.
- El Sella served traditional dishes reflecting both Mexican and Spanish influences. The meal included chorizo a la sidra on a sizzling platter and chamorro, a tender braised pork shank.
- The braised pork shank at El Sella was tender enough to pull apart without a knife. Its homestyle preparation reinforced Gaby's description of cantinas as places serving familiar, comforting meals.
- Chorizo a la sidra became Joshua's favorite dish at El Sella. He praised its smoky, acidic, salty, and rich flavors, particularly the rendered pork fat surrounding the sausage.
- Bread was an important part of the El Sella chorizo experience. Unlike meals served exclusively with tortillas, the cantina also provided sliced bread, which diners could use to soak up the flavorful chorizo fat.
- Gaby described cantinas as long-established places of personal hospitality. Regular customers could expect waiters to know their preferred food and drinks, while the casual setting encouraged people to spend hours eating, drinking, and talking.
- El Sella offered an informal dining experience without the need for reservations or special clothing. Joshua considered this style of restaurant one of Mexico City's most overlooked attractions for visitors.
- Maizajo represented a modern taqueria built around exceptional corn preparation. The restaurant was presented as potentially one of the best taquerias in Mexico, combining traditional tortilla-making with imaginative contemporary fillings.
- Chef Santi was introduced as a young cook giving new life to traditional Mexican food. His approach retained familiar ingredients and flavors while introducing new techniques, presentation, and combinations.
- Maizajo's shrimp flauta demonstrated creative technique without unnecessary ingredients. A whole shrimp was wrapped in a house-made corn tortilla and deep-fried, allowing the tortilla to protect the shrimp while developing a crunchy exterior.
- Maizajo's suadero taco remained close to tradition while incorporating modern accents. The taco's beef preparation impressed Joshua, while pickled onions and chilies gave the familiar dish a contemporary touch.
- Maizajo's New York strip taco relied on exceptionally good beef and restrained cooking. Thin slices of well-marbled steak were lightly grilled, carefully seasoned, and served on handmade tortillas. Joshua said the dish needed nothing else.
- Maizajo illustrated a middle ground between traditional taquerias and haute cuisine. Its appeal came from respecting established recipes while allowing a younger chef to improve preparation and introduce carefully chosen variations.
- Gaba pushed Mexico City's culinary experimentation further. The restaurant served hamachi crudo, tomato salad, and a chayote squash preparation that Joshua particularly appreciated.
- Gaba's beef tartare became one of Joshua's highest-rated dishes. The beef was aged, cured, lightly smoked, and served on a tostada. He praised its concentrated meat flavor and precise seasoning, placing it between 9.8 and 10 out of 10.
- Gaba changed Joshua's opinion of tripe. Although he generally disliked it, the restaurant's preparation became his favorite tripe dish ever. He returned for additional bites and admired the chef's willingness to serve an unpopular ingredient in a more ambitious restaurant.
- Gaba's tripe retained flavors associated with traditional tacos. This mattered because the chef's creativity was rooted in recognizable Mexican cooking rather than simply presenting unfamiliar techniques.
- Gaba reimagined al pastor as a substantial grilled pork chop. Instead of serving the familiar sliced meat in a tortilla, the dish paired a large pork chop with brûléed pineapple and dressed lettuce.
- The pork chop demonstrated how a traditional recipe could inspire an independent modern dish. Joshua considered it successful because it retained al pastor's essential flavor relationships while creating a substantially different eating experience.
- Joshua praised Gaba for prioritizing delicious food over visual spectacle. He argued that its beautifully presented dishes remained focused on flavor, avoiding the tendency of some ambitious restaurants to value presentation over eating quality.
- Quintonil was the final restaurant and the journey's fine-dining benchmark. The episode introduced it as the number-one restaurant in Mexico and number three in the world, placing it at the top of the itinerary's progression from street food to elite restaurants.
- Quintonil's central test was whether sophisticated fine dining could outperform traditional food. After exceptional meals in home kitchens, markets, taquerias, and seafood establishments, Joshua wanted to determine whether innovation and prestige produced a more satisfying experience.
- Quintonil opened with a pescadilla combining Mexican and international ingredients. It contained Baja tuna, caviar, Thai chilies, and grasshopper salsa. Joshua recognized flavors resembling dishes he had eaten in Sinaloa, showing how regional traditions remained present in the fine-dining format.
- A mussel tostada became one of Quintonil's most successful opening bites. The mussels were pickled, grilled, and glazed, creating concentrated layers of flavor. Joshua said he could happily eat 30 or 40 of them.
- Quintonil served fried escamoles, or ant larvae, described as Mexican caviar. The preparation reminded Joshua of aged cheese, demonstrating how an unusual traditional ingredient could be presented in an accessible fine-dining format.
- One Quintonil preparation reminded Gaby of her grandmother's cooking. Its flavors brought back memories of a simple tomato-based pasta with cotija cheese, demonstrating how technically sophisticated food could evoke intimate family memories.
- Quintonil's butternut squash salad combined horchata foam, brown butter, rice vinegar dressing, and toasted pumpkin seeds. Joshua praised its creaminess, seasoning, and balance, observing that its success still rested on the principle of simple ingredients prepared exceptionally well.
- Quintonil presented a contemporary version of Oaxaca's tlayuda. Its interpretation included crab salad and a sauce incorporating pipián and galangal, moving beyond a strictly traditional Mexican preparation.
- The tlayuda demonstrated Quintonil's deliberate blending of Mexican and Asian influences. Joshua identified Thai and other Asian flavors alongside recognizable Mexican ingredients, describing the result as the creation of a distinct contemporary cuisine.
- A pork tamale finished with onion ash brought the meal back toward traditional Mexican flavors. Joshua considered it a successful reinterpretation of a familiar classic rather than an abandonment of tradition.
- Quintonil's mole created the clearest direct comparison between elite dining and home cooking. Joshua initially suggested that it might be the best mole he had ever eaten, but after reflecting on Tía Elvia's version, he awarded the comparison to her.
- Tía Elvia's mole ultimately defeated Quintonil's in Joshua's personal judgment. Both were considered outstanding, but the home-cooked preparation left an impression strong enough to prevail over one served at an internationally celebrated restaurant.
- Quintonil concluded with a corn-based dessert featuring passion fruit foam and burnt corn-leaf ash. Joshua rated it 10/10 and considered it an exceptionally strong conclusion to the tasting menu.
- The Quintonil meal moved through international experimentation before returning to recognizable Mexican traditions. Its progression from seafood snacks and cross-cultural combinations toward tamales, mole, and corn-based dessert demonstrated the continued importance of traditional ingredients in contemporary fine dining.
- Joshua's strongest experiences were distributed across very different regions and dining formats. He specifically highlighted Los Mochis' burritos and seafood, Gaba's inventive cooking, Mexico City's cantina experience, and Tía Elvia's handmade breakfast.
- No single restaurant emerged as the definitive winner of the search. Joshua concluded that the leading meals were outstanding in different ways, making a simple ranking misleading rather than useful.
- Expensive restaurants did not consistently outperform inexpensive or informal establishments. Quintonil delivered extraordinary food, but Tía Elvia's home kitchen, Burritos Beli, traditional cantinas, and Sinaloan seafood restaurants repeatedly produced experiences Joshua considered comparable.
- The strongest dishes shared an emphasis on ingredient quality, precise seasoning, and thoughtful preparation. Throughout the journey, Joshua repeatedly favored dishes that used relatively few ingredients but handled them exceptionally well.
- Traditional recipes remained the foundation of much of the journey's innovation. Maizajo, Gaba, and Quintonil introduced sophisticated techniques and international influences without completely abandoning the flavors and methods associated with regional Mexican cooking.
- Corn was one of the clearest connections across Mexico's different culinary traditions. Handmade tortillas, tlayudas, memelas, flautas, tamales, and desserts demonstrated how a basic ingredient could support both home cooking and world-class fine dining.
- Regional diversity made the idea of one universally best Mexican dish difficult to sustain. Oaxaca's moles and corn traditions, Sinaloa's seafood and flour tortillas, and Mexico City's combination of immigrant influences, cantinas, and contemporary restaurants offered fundamentally different forms of excellence.
- Family knowledge and inherited techniques proved as important as formal culinary training. Deyanira Aquino, Tía Elvia, and the cooks at Burritos Beli demonstrated how recipes and skills preserved through generations could achieve results comparable with highly trained chefs.
- Local ingredients shaped each region's cooking more than a single national formula. Oaxacan chilies and corn, Sinaloan seafood, and Mexico City's broad range of traditional and international influences produced distinct culinary identities.
- Joshua's final standard for exceptional Mexican food was care rather than status or price. He concluded that cooks at Tía Elvia's home, Quintonil, and traditional cantinas could demonstrate equal dedication, even while using dramatically different ingredients, equipment, techniques, and resources.
- The journey's final conclusion was that great Mexican cuisine exists across the entire dining spectrum. The distinguishing factors were respecting local ingredients, preparing dishes properly, maintaining traditions where they added value, and ensuring that the food delivered genuine enjoyment rather than relying on prestige, complexity, or presentation alone.