Angels and Insects

From our hotel it's a nice walk through the Zona Rosa to "el Angel" on top of the Monumento a la Indepencia, one of Mexico City's most recognizable icons.
The colomn with the angel is found on Paseo de la Reforma, which was shut down for cars today, they have been doing this for a while now on Sundays, to give the city back to the people, a lot of people were walking, rollerskating or cycling down this 12 km long, broad boulevard.

We strolled along Reforma for quite a while and visited the Palacio de Belle Artes (the Palace of Fine Arts), we had never been inside before and the interior is beautiful Art Deco with Pre-Hispanic details and more murals by Diego Rivera.
Man, controller of the universe, by Diego Rivera.

After a drink on Plaza Garibaldi, where the Mariachi bands hang out, we went to Los Girasoles for lunch. This is one of the places in Mexico City where you can eat Aztec style food.
I had the blue corn quesadillas as a starter, which were filled with squash flower and Oaxacan cheese which were very nice but not what we came for. The thing to eat here are insects, my main course was the Aztec Mosaic, which is like a sampler plate of worms, grasshoppers and ant eggs, served with guacamole and green taquitos (small tortillas).
Worms, Grasshoppers and Ant Eggs.

The worms are maquey worms who live in the agave plant and can also be found in bottles of mezcal, these tasted very nice! The grasshoppers we ate before in Oaxaca and these weren't as nice, way to salty for my taste. The big surprise were the ant eggs, fried in butter, a very delicate taste, a great new discovery!
I also realized that I didn't even think about this food as being odd, it's like I pulled a switch when I ate insects the first time in China, it was scary the first time, but after that it's just food.
For dessert I had a cajeta gelatin with rompope sauce (gelatin made of the Mexican version of Dulce de Leche with an alcoholic eggnog sauce) which was fabulous.

After buying some fruit at the produce market near the hotel, we went back to the room for a little rest.

Dinner was down the block from our hotel, tacos al Pastor and tacos with cheese and nopales, part of the prickly pear cactus.

Comments

Cheryl said…
Wow. The insect picture threw me for a loop. I just don't know if I could do that. Kudos to you, though!
April 18, 2008 at 10:07 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linzer Sablés

Image
Made it back safely after a fabulous cruise! Our luggage decided to stay away a day longer but apart from that everything was great. This week's Tuesday With Dorie recipe was picked by me! The first guy who joined the group finally got his pick :-) I choose the Linzer Sablés, so far I've enjoyed the European style recipes more than the American, maybe because I'm European and my tastebuds are more used to those treats? Anyway, I love the way they look with the jam peeking out of the little hole. I made mine with raspberry jam which I passed through a sieve, after heating it up, to get rid of the seeds. They were very easy to make and the taste of the cookies comes close to " speculaas ", must be the cloves. I'm pleased with my choice, it's not my favorite recipe but I would make it again. Here is the recipe: When I was a kid, the main street in our neighborhood boasted a bakery every two blocks. We always had freshly made bread from the baker closest to o...
Read more

TWD: Pecan Honey Sticky Buns

Image
This weeks Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was picked by Madam Chow of Madam Chow's Kitchen . When I read the recipe and saw that it uses the same brioche dough as we made for the Brioche Raisin Snails I was thrilled and scared at the same time, the dough is fabulous, but if you don't have a Kitchen Aid but just a cheap hand mixer it's quite a challenge. I decided to make the dough this time by hand because I think my mixer wouldn't survive another round with the brioche dough. The dough came together by hand a lot easier than I expected, I had to use some elbow grease but I would do it again this way. You need only half of the brioche recipe, I used the other half for more Brioche Raisin Snails because my brother keeps asking me to bake some more. I made seven buns, the rest I froze for a later date. We all thought that these buns were nice but way too sweet for our taste. When I make the remaining ones I won't use the pecan honey glaze but drizzle over the glaze that...
Read more

TWD: Brioche Raisin Snails

Image
This weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie , the group has grown to over 80 bakers, was picked by Peabody of Culinairy Concoctions by Peabody , thanks!! Brioche is something I always wanted to try and this recipe had some nice additions, like flambeing and making pastry cream. The first day I made the dough and I can tell you without a stand mixer that is quite a task! I have a lot of respect for all my fellow bakers who did this one without a Kitchen Aid! So with a lot of elbow grease and some work done by my hand mixer the dough came together nicely. After that I tackled the raisins, well the flambeing wasn't the hard part, no that was which dark rum to use from our liquor cabinet, Captain Morgan Spiced Dark Rum, Bacardi Spice or Bacardi 8 after a long thought I decided on the Captain Morgan. The flambeing went smooth and the alcohol in the rum burned of in beautiful red flames. The pastry cream came together very easy too and I had to restrain myself from eating too much of it! ...
Read more