Everybody’s Truckin’: Food trucks in Mexico City, part I

They roll into town, park, cook, sell, then disappear, vanishing like a gastronomic Brigadoon. They’re those food trucks, ubiquitous in Los Angeles for decades, now common in New York’s hip outer boroughs, but until recently relatively unknown in Mexico.

“A food truck, mobile kitchen, mobile canteen, roach coach, or catering truck is a mobile venue that transports and sells food.” explains Wikipedia. Some form of these rolling kitchens have existed in the U.S. since the 19th century. Here in Mexico City, where automobiles were relatively expensive and space was cheap, the trucks were not a common sight. Puestos, those little homemade shacks, pushcarts and simple improvised tables serve as venues for preparing and selling  wonderful and now much celebrated street food. Recently, however, a new breed of industrious culinary-academy-trained restauranteurs  have motored into town providing a sophisticated alternative to on-street dining. The new breed of street food is international, schooled and designed. 

You can't miss this purveyor of Viet tortas...

Trucking to ‘Nam - Ñham Ñham

A Bánh mì

Few Vietnamese walk amongst us in the Big Taco, and, until now, none of their brilliant cooking, in its authentic form at least, was to be found. The proprietor of Ñham Ñham, a spectacular red and yellow vehicle, which parks in Plaza Rio de Janeiro, studied cooking in Viet Nam and shares her skills with fellow Chilangos. Bánh Mì, the fusion paté sandwich, legacy of the French colonists, have been trendy in North American cities for years. Now they will give our beloved tortas a run for their money. Grilled meat, subtly aromatic with lemongrass, mint and/or tamarind is served on a crunchy roll with fresh vegetables. Pho (pronounced “fuh”), a rice noodle soup which is  the classic Viet breakfast is also available as is an Asian salad and those delightful summer rolls, packaged in rice flour ‘tortillas’ and thankfully not fried at all. Vegetarian versions of all of the above are on offer. The $70 tab for a sandwich may seem steep, but quality is high – vale la pena.

Ñham Ñham

Corner of Puebla y Orizaba, 1 block north of Plaza Rio de Janeiro,  colonia Roma

Daily from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m.

 

Don Kebab sometimes runs out before closing time...

They Drive By Night - Don Kebab

This purveyor of felafel,  kebab  sandwiches and other permutations of middle eastern take-away is wildly popular, often attracting crowds. Thursdays through Saturdays they pull up along the Sonora side of Parque México behind the bus stand and sell until they run out, ostensibly from 8 p.m. until midnight. Best bet is the marinated, good quality beef, grilled to tender perfection and served in a warmed pita with salad and pour-it-yourself salsas, one picante the other the classic yogurt-sesame familiar to aficionados of falafel. The combo, which includes fries and a drink costs $70.

Don Kebab
Av. Sonora facing Parque México, Condesa
Thursday-Saturday 8 p.m. to midnight

 

Fresh from the sea - Barra Vieja

Flying Fish - Tostadería Barra Vieja

Paella at Barra Vieja

This high design four-wheel seafood house, which parks in Pedregal does creative mariscos and, quality-wise is up there with its best stationary brethren. Barra Vieja’s tostadas of ceviche, pulpo and callo de hacha (scallop) are fresh as could be. And there are such creative offerings as tacos of pulpo con pesto de quelites octopus dressed with a wild green sauce, and almejas rasuradas, clams prepared in a soy dressing and served in their own shells. On weekends they pull into the parking lot of a restaurant and do a more than passable paella. 

Tostadería Barra Vieja

Camino a Santa Teresa, in front of ‘Pro México’s parking lot, weekends in the lot of Salón 777,

Blvd. de la Luz 777, Jardines de Pedregal  - see map

Open from 1-5 p.m.

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The Big Apple goes to Mexico

It's nice when your hometown recognizes and seemingly appreciates you. Especially when your place of birth happens to be full of the most competitive, cutthroat sell-your-own-grandmother-for-a-crumb-of-the-pie kind of folk. Yes, I'm referring to the Big Apple.

A native New Yorker, I spent my early years in Greenwich Village, then still a mythical place inhabited by Bohemians and Italian immigrants. Later we moved up to the Upper West Side, the world of Zabar’s, the Thalia cinema, and suffering Jewish intellectuals like Woody Allen and my father (critic Richard Gilman). My twenties wizzed by in Brooklyn. I then made the big leap over psychological and physical borders to another world, Mexico, where I’m now a citizen. I’m here to stay. I no longer have even a thumb planted in what my Russian grandparents alluded to as 'ze old country'. And I've become an authority, of sorts, on eating in my adopted hometown, Mexico City. So when New York Magazine chose to honor our sprawling metropolis with a feature spread it was with pride that two dedicated food aficionados and I named our favorite hangouts. It's because we all know how cool it is here, and we want the world to know it as well.
In addition to me dishing the fish, read the opinions of:

Market-tour queen Miss Lesley Téllez, themijachronicles.com, a transplanted Angelina with Mexican roots as deep as a Yucatecan cenote. She's come back to the homeland and wants to stay. She also spends more time in the markets than anyone I know, vendors included. So wherever she says to eat mole is where to eat it.

And Sr. Guillermo Ysusi - elpurogusto.tumblr.com - born and raised here and knows the city inside and out. A 'salaryman' by day, he's a bloguista by night. He also happens to know where best to knock a few back. They should have also asked him about cantinas...

So take a little trip to New York this week:

http://nymag.com/travel/features/mexico-city-restaurants-2012-2/

If Walls Could Talk: Fonda La Reforma

“Stop!” I yelled as our car sailed down a narrow street in Colonia Guerrero, an area north of the historic center, bustling with funky Sunday commerce.

It was the sign on a corner restaurant that had caught my eye. “Fonda La Reforma: We’re backed by 75 years of tradition” it proudly proclaimed. I love tradition--and old, timeworn places. By the time I left my city of birth, New York, we had little of either left. But here in Mexico City, venues for nostalgia still abound. They linger, sometimes languish, waiting to be re-discovered and lauded by, well, people like me.

Aluminum soup pots, dented by years of serious stirring and ancient chipped cazuelas, browned by flame and mole, filled the window of the open kitchen. An old lady, in no hurry at all, stirred one of them. In another window the words “exquisito mole” were emblazoned over a crude painting of a mole pot. This is an archetypal fonda. It offers 35 or 40 peso comida corridas like any other.

But here there’s a difference. Besides its age--over 80 years--La Reforma has the distinction of having been a hangout for one of the most important writers of Mexico’s golden age, Salvador Novo. Poet, essayist, novelist and general bon vivant, Novo (1904-1974) was perhaps best known as a chronicler of life in the big city. A genuine eccentric, gay and out at an early age, he was sort of a Mexican Oscar Wilde but with a relatively happy ending. Novo loved all things urban, especially food. His Cocina Mexicana is and informal chronicle of cooking and eating in Mexico City. The Fonda la Reforma appears in its pages. Novo ate here with Octavio Paz. One of the elderly owners claims that other famous people also graced her humble dining room, but she can’t recall their names. If walls could talk.

Located across from the huge Mercado Martinez de la Torre (see my earlier post), La Reforma was founded in the late 1920’s by Maria Canales as a simple puesto offering pancita to feed hungry market venders and shoppers. It was taken over a few years later by her daughter, who had no less than 12 children herself.

Two generations later, the restaurant is still in the hands of the Canales Sánchez family. ‘Baby brother’ Marco Antonio, 60-something, whips up egg whites for the chiles rellenos, a house specialty since time immemorial. Meanwhile, sister Jovita, who’s approaching 80 (from which direction I’m not sure), deep-fries the chilies themselves. And they’ve got those chilies down! The crust is crisp but fluffy, the chili and cheese light as a cloud, the caldo de jitomate just thick enough and mildly spiky.

I sampled an earthy verdolagas con carne (purslane with chunks of falling-apart pork). The chocolaty mole (offered only Saturday, Sunday and Monday) is if not quite exquisite, certainly good. Lunches are served daily to old-timers and young locals alike. As they have been for 80 years.

I don’t promise a four-star meal at La Reforma. But for those wanting a soul-satisfying, authentic home-style meal in a prototypical inner-city D.F. fonda, this is the place.

Fonda La Reforma is located at the corner of calles Heroes & Degollado,
Colonia Guerrero
It's 2 blocks north and west of Metro Guerrero
Open daily for comida



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A note to my readers: Good Food in Mexico City has been chosen by Saveur Magazine as one of the top Global food blogs! See: http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/SAVEURs-Favorite-Global-Food-Blogs

Down in the Valley: Humbertos & Fonda 99.99

Salbutes de 'but' negro

Colonia Del Valle is that quiet, resolutely middle-class, luster-less neighborhood where lots of people live, essential to every big city. Think Queens. There are nice, post-war vintage homes, clean streets, a few tidy parks. You don’t feel the genteel breeziness of Polanco, the buzz of the Condesa, the encroaching hipsterism of La Roma, the intellectual vibe of Coyoacán or the walk-on-the-wild-side artsiness of Santa Maria la Ribera. But there are some cultural and culinary gems hidden in the Valley’s streets. The Centro Libanés is one. Fonda Margarita is another. And now I've discovered two Yucatecan mini-institutions, owned by brothers, that sit back to back on a particularly quiet thoroughfare. These busy kitchens whip up their versions of that most incendiary of Mexican regional cuisines, and are amongst the best in the city.

Fonda 99.99 is the simpler of the two, its décor practically non-existent – it’s bright and clean inside, at least –the color scheme is hospital white. The menu is limited to those well-worn peninsular antojitos: cochinita pibil, in its various guises, such as tacos, panuchos and tortas. The sopa de lima has that particularly satisfying savory balance of perfumy and picant. And padadzules, those eggy, blue concoctions, a rare (in the Mexican lexicon, anyway) vegetarian, if not vegan dish, are creamy and nutty. I asked a manager from whence comes the 99.99 theme – she couldn’t tell me. Avis's old “we try harder” ethic, I suppose.

The quarter-century-old Humbertos, entered through 99’s driveway or from around the corner, sports warmer decoration. It features a long and intriguing menu. Expectant diners line up for a table – they look happy when they are seated and eat a lot. Here, the ‘99’ theme spills over, and all prices end in .99, even though we no longer use 1-centavo coins in Mexico. “99 44/100 per cent pure” promised those old Ivory Soap ads. As a particularly cynical kid I always wondered about the other .56 percent. The missing percentage here undoubtedly refers to the part of the menu that isn’t Yucatecan. Could be ‘spaghetti rojo a los 6 quesos. Six cheeses! Don’t order it. Stick to the many southern regional specialties, some familiar others less so. The afore-mentioned cochinita is succulent and perfectly complimented by the fiery but aromatic jade-green salsa. Try the delectable but oddly named salbutes de ‘but’ negro: light crispy sopes are topped with ground meat steeped in the salsa called recado negro. I never really ‘got’ this sauce myself, it always seemed thin and lacking in complexity. But here it works, perfuming the meat with a delicate smokiness. A little chopped egg makes for pretty. Tacos de lechón, suckling pig, were addictive - I lusted after my neighbor’s huge plate of pure lechón, Monday’s special. But I had ordered the tacos de cazón, that light baby shark with which the Yucatecans work so well. The classic pan de cazón, is presented here as a pretty stack of herby braised fish, black beans and tortillas swathed in gorgeous red tomato/chili sauce like a Dior model in crimson organdy. Of course you’ll wash it all down with ice-cold horchata or Montejo beer.

Prices in both places are reasonable – a comida will set you back no more than $100 pesos. But be aware that they are only open for lunch - no late night chilli-fests.

So go down to the valley - it can get hot there.

Fonda 99.99

Moras 347, between Miguel Laurent & San Lorenzo, 6 blocks east of Av. Insurgentes, Col. Del Valle (Metrobus Parque Hundido)

Tel. 5559-8762

Open Tuesday-Saturday 1-8PM, Sunday until 6

Restaurante Humbertos

Patricio Sanz 1440, (entry from Calle Mora, see below) Col. Del Valle

Tel. 5559-8760 Open every day but Tuesday, 1-6PM Ver mapa más grande A note to my readers: See my new article about eating in Egypt: http://www.zesterdaily.com/travel/985-street-food-in-cairo-egypt