Category: Flavors

Best Restaurant in Valladolid, Plus Warning

postcardsfromsanantonio1 Comment

Every trip we make, we depend on other people’s food reviews.  I always pledge I will come back and leave extensive feedback on Chowhound.  But those good intentions get buried quickly under work waiting on my desk.

As a start, the best meal on our trip to the Yucatan was not in Merida but in little Valladolid.  While the patio courtyard of El Meson del Marques offers an extremely pleasurable dining experience, a new restaurant opened in November – Taberna de los Frailes – next to the Monastery and Church of San Bernardino de Siena.  The contemporary restaurant steps beyond the traditional recipes of the Yucatan.

Dining under a shady palapa in the back, our group sampled filete de pescado fresco en salsa verde mexicana (in this case an oregano-based salsa);  salmon zarandeado; and mero maya.  The mero, fresh grouper, had been marinated in the region’s sour orange juice and was presented in four coiled spirals, perfectly cooked.  What kept everyone’s forks hovering above my plate, though, was a mound of black risotto with complex layers of flavor popping out in every bite.   The dish sent us scouring the market the next day to purchase some of the rich relleno negro seemingly at its base.

At 160 pesos (about $13), the fish dishes were not the least expensive in Mexico, but they were more than worth the tab.  The service was professional, except our server neglected to inform us when we ordered that the restaurant has a chocolate souffle that needs 25 minutes to prepare.  We would have eaten at La Taberna de los Frailes daily, had Merida not been our base.

On the other hand, we did not feel satisfied with a 350 peso tab at the Hacienda Temozon on our way to Uxmal.  Fortunately, it was early in the day; so margaritas and mero (There it would have been fresh grouper with mango sauce and black sesame and couscous.) were not yet on our minds.  We simply ordered four mineral waters and an order of guacamole.  350 pesos, tip not included.  Although beautiful, the hacienda is definitely not a place to drop in for dinner, unless money is no object.

While it has not been open long enough to make it into the guidebooks, La Taberna de los Frailes in Valladolid is not to be missed.
Don’t even drink the agua mineral at Hacienda Temozon, unless money is no object.
Vic Hinterlang preserved the moment we were served the expensive canned mineral water at the Hacienda.

Note on March 20:  For anyone traveling to Merida and the Yucatan, I expanded this post on Chowhound to include numerous other restaurants .

Update on December 4, 2012: The New York Times travels to Valladolid.

Pearl Farmers Market

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

On Sunday afternoon after the San Miguel Writers Conference, I had been charged with fetching some freshly made sauce and pasta from Natura on my way back up the hill to Chorro.  Sunday, however, meant it and seemingly all of the neighborhood tiendas were closed.  I asked an ex-pat at the conference where to head, and, much to my disappointment, she recommended the Mega.  Naturally, I headed in the opposite direction, to the old market house in the heart of downtown San Miguel de Allende, where produce and flowers are artfully displayed, even on Sunday.

Upon my return to San Antonio, the Saturday market at Pearl Brewery provided a welcome transition back to reality.  While pop-up tents perched in a parking lot are not as colorful as the old market house, the produce and fresh meats were bountiful.  Children were dancing to the live music, and the browsers – arriving not only by car, but by bike or on foot – came armed with their reusable cloth sacks  from home.

The vendors Pearl has assembled seem to be have chosen with great care.  Last Saturday brought rustic breads from Sol y Luna Baking Company; artisanal cheeses from Humble House Foods; jams and soaps from Imagine Lavender of Vanderpool; guajillo honey pecans form Al’s Gourmet Nuts; luscious-looking jams produced by Watson Farms of Stonewall; and olive soaps and oils from the Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard near Elmendorf, site of Les Dames d’ Escoffier San Antonio Chapter’s second annual Olives Ole! festival on Saturday, March 27. 

Many Saturday market shoppers arrive by bike or on foot.
Sol y Luna Baking Company crafts rustic breads spiked with fresh herbs or jalapenos.

I might just have to return to Pearl for another transitioning session when I return from Merida next week.

Books so flavorful you can taste them

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

A sold-out barge full of women laughing their way around the river bend launches the San Antonio Public Library Foundation’s 2010 round of Literary Feasts, which translate literature into words you want to eat.  Diane Mathews and JoAnn Boone are hosting tonight’s floating feast based on the ultimate feel-good book for women, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  Ironically, though, Rubin recently blogged that she is far from being a foodie:

I must confess that I have very little interest in the ruling passion of Julia Child’s life. Food has never been very interesting to me. I love certain foods, of course, but I like very plain food best. I don’t get much of a kick from visiting new restaurants, or from eating a wonderfully cooked meal. Some people love exploring farmers’ markets or learning about how foods’ origins or cooking – not me. One of the sad aspects of a happiness project, for me, was to Be Gretchen and to admit to myself that this area of experience, so vibrant for so many people, leaves me cold.

Fortunately, JoAnn and Diane are, and so is Jason Dady.  Dady is opening four of his restaurants for feasts, with the first one at Insignia in the Fairmount on Tuesday, March 23, focused on a book firmly fixated on food, High Bonnet: A Novel of Epicurean Adventures by Idwal Jones.  According to Publishers Weekly:

This is a novel about food with a capital F, about meals, extravagant meals, had in fine dining rooms, country gardens and filthy taverns alike. As Anthony Bourdain (author of Kitchen Confidential) says in an introduction, in this book “everyone” from Jean-Marie’s confectioner uncle to the Gypsy coppersmith who mends the kitchen pots “is a gourmet or a gourmand, racing through life oblivious to all creature comforts but the pursuit of flavor.”

Celtic music, Irish food and plenty of spirits will be featured in the feast hosted by Joan Cheever and Trisha Tobin on April 15.   McCarthy’s Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland serves as the inspiration for the dinner.  MacMillian describes author Pete McCarthy’s approach to his journey:

…traveling through spectacular landscapes, but at all times obeying the rule, “never pass a bar that has your name on it,” he encounters McCarthy’s bars up and down the land, meeting fascinating people before pleading to be let out at four o’clock in the morning.

Erasing the stereotype that all children are picky eaters is the thrust of Nancy Tringali Piho’s My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus, the theme of Dady’s family-friendly feast on April 17 at Two Bros. BBQ Market.  AP writer Michele Kayal described Phio’s book:  “If you’re bent on raising a gourmet, this is your Dr. Spock.”

In a Publishers Weekly post, Frances Mayes writes,  “The happiness that suffuses my Tuscan days drove my pen.”  It drove her pen to describe many a good meal in Under the Tuscan Sun, the theme for a feast at Dady’s Tre Trattoria on May 18.  Note to self:  After returning from Merida, head to Tre for my favorite meal to split with Lamar –  grilled radicchio; goat cheese, pistachio and balsamic cippolini pizza; and, for dessert, a grilled peach with marscapone.

Other dinners include South Pacific on May 6 at Zinc Wine and Champagne Bar; Napa: the Story of An American Eden  on June 22 at Bin 555; and The Great Gatsby on July 27 at The Lodge.  Jill Giles Design created appetizing “bookplates” as the online invitations for each feast.

The Lavenders and the Molaks are hosting a feast on May 6 at Zinc.

Proceeds from the Literary Feasts benefit the San Antonio Public Library Foundation.