Wander(lust)

A Paean to Pisco

Having just been in Mexico, imbibing all those tequilas, reminded me of my other favorite firewater in all the world: the pisco of Peru. Now apparently the historical "ownership" of this humble little brandy is a bone of contention, with both Chile and Peru claiming parental rights. Never having been to Chile, I'll throw caution to the wind and side with Peru.

Our first time in Lima, we ate with our friends Richard and Avecita at a fantastic restaurant in Miraflores called Las Brujas de Cachiche (the Witches of Cachiche). It was one of the best meals of my life and apparently the restaurant is still rolling, so do look it up if you find yourself in Lima. It's a perfect introduction to the best of criolla cuisine, and the chef uses ancient recipes from pre-Columbian Peru. I must have had five different types of corn that night---a revelation to someone who'd only eaten one kind her entire life----including a purple version as big as a quarter. But I digress.

We had our first pisco sours at Las Brujas---maybe as many as three each---and then the four of us spent an hour and a half pleasantly carried away on the pisco ebb, as I came to call it, sitting on a high point and watching the waves of the Pacific crash a hundred feet below. I was hooked, and took every reasonable opportunity the remainder of our 10-day visit to sample pisco sours at every dive and upscale bar I could find.

True testimony: I would still be sitting up at Machu Picchu, scared out of my wits by the promise of the hurtling, "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" return ride down the vertiginous mountainside (Why, I ask, in god's name, were all the other passengers chatting and talking as though nothing amiss was happening? Didn't they realize that it was HIGHLY LIKELY we would all plunge to our deaths, a plunge that would no doubt be covered up by the Peruvian tourism industry......), if my husband hadn't lured me onto the bus with an $8 pisco sour from the hotel bar up at the top.

I've searched for the perfect pisco sour since then, made them myself, and had other friends make them. They never come out quite right. Also, one must admit that the angostura bitters and raw egg white are kind of a turnoff. So imagine how happy I was when I found the following recipe for a lovely concoction called a "Pisco-rita" at Webmaster.com (bless you, kind sir or ma'am):

Ingredients:

* 6 oz frozen Limeade concentrate
* 6 oz Pisco
* 3 oz Triple sec
* Ice

Add limeade concentrate, Pisco, and triple sec in blender. Add ice until blender is full. Blend on high speed adding water until blender is full while blending. Serve in margarita glass rimmed with salt if desired.

I can make that at home! Especially if it's on the rocks. But let's try to come up with a better name. Something this good shouldn't have to share the limelight, so to speak, with its Mexican cousin. How about the Conquistador? No, bad connotations. The Titicaca? No, too puerile. Ah---the Bolívar. Perfecto!

3 Stellar Playa del Carmen Restaurants

Although we mainly stayed happily moored in Tulum during our recent visit, we did venture into Playa del Carmen for three great meals.

It's astonishing—and more than a little depressing—to see just how bustling and quasi-tacky Playa has become in the past few years. But there is still some excellent shopping and eating to be had. Come to Media Luna or La Cueva del Chango for lunch, after savoring the quieter morning hours along Avenida Quinta. Alternatively, come to John Gray's Place for dinner, after a tamarind margarita or two at the venerable Casa de Tequila.

MEDIA LUNA

Yes, it's in all the guidebooks, but it's really, really, good. We've eaten there several times in the past.. and always leave saying that this is the kind of food we could happy eat day in, day out. Media Luna does a great job of fusing primarily Mexican and Asian cuisines with a deft touch and extremely fresh ingredients. On our  recent visit, we had huge fruit smoothies, zucchini-corn quesadillas with cilantro cream, and blackened fish with sesame-flecked rice and mango salsa. Quick service, colorful walls, and an open-air atmosphere perfect for people watching.

Avenida 5 (between Calles 12 and 14).


EL CUEVA DEL CHANGO

This was a new discovery, suggested by Elizabeth at Suenos de Tulum. We had a great lunch there (note that they serve breakfast all day), made with organic ingredients and served with friendly panache. We needed "stick to your bones" food, so ordered enchiladas verdes and sopas de pollo, followed by an amazing lime pie.

The location is enough off the beaten path that there was an interesting mix of tourists, ex-pats, and locals. You can eat in the airy palapa or outside, in the jungly garden. There's a pond with koi, cool lights, a stream that meanders through the restaurant, local art work for sale, and one of the most unusual bathrooms I've ever seen.

Avenida 5 at Calle 38, near the Shangri-La

JOHN GRAY'S PLACE

John Gray, a former Ritz-Carlton chef who worked at a number of the group's properties, settled down on the Mayan Riviera a few years ago. His first brainchild, John Gray's Kitchen, opened in Puerto Morelos in 2002. We ate there twice two years ago while staying at Ceiba del Mar, and the food was amazing. John himself was very cool and approachable, visiting each table to make sure diners were happy—and they were, especially me, who was nipping at my first-ever mescal margarita.

He debuted his second restaurant, John Gray's Place, on Calle Corazon (right off Quinta Avenida) in September 2004. In a town of "primitive chic" establishments, its streamlined black and off-white color scheme is a nice change. Reservations are highly recommended. The menu features only six or seven entrées nightly, adapting to take advantage of what is fresh. Standouts were the grilled shrimp with tabbouleh; the duck breast with chipotle-honey glaze, accompanied by sweet potato hash (pleasing the Southerner in me); and the Mexican-influenced crab cakes.
                  

Calle Corazon, off Avenida 5, between 12th and 14th.

Mole Olé: Great Oaxacan Restaurants

As if Mexican food weren’t already wonderful enough, Oaxacan cuisine adds another layer of subtlety and complexity. Avocados, squash blossoms, chocolate, nopales, almonds, corn, bananas, tomatoes, peanuts, beans, green olives, cinnamon—the list goes on and on.  Add to this the remarkable palette of chiles and local herbs such as chepil, epazote, and hierba santa. And a special niche in gastronomic heaven should be reserved for Oaxaca’s delicious string cheese, or quesillo. It’s impossible to describe how something so prosaic can be so good. During a recent stay at La Casa de los Milagros, the centerpiece of our favorite breakfast was melted string cheese (quesillo a la plancha) topped with a tangy salsa verde.

Oaxaca is known as the land of the seven moles, but visitors to its capital city will find that those are just the seven basic moles. Restaurants regularly feature negro (black), amarillo (yellow), coloradito (reddish), almendrado (with almonds), verde (green), rojo (red), and manchamanteles (translated as “tablecloth stainer”). But chefs are continually experimenting and adjusting, adding a pinch more or less of this or that to their moles, which can include 30 or more ingredients.

And, lest I forget, there’s mescal—tequila’s smokier, earthier relative. Forget all that you’ve heard about the worm in the bottle and mescal’s rough edge. Undoubtedly, factories somewhere churn out firewater complete with the requisite maguey worm. But the best of the artisanal mescals are surprisingly smooth, with flavors as complex as moles.

Following are five of our favorite restaurants in the city of Oaxaca, all of which share an emphasis on creative renditions and the freshest ingredients possible:

CASA OAXACA EL RESTAURANTE
Constitución #104

Casa Oaxaca is probably the city’s top-shelf hotel, filled with art, flowers, and Oaxacan textiles. In its restaurant, chef Alejandro Ruíz specializes in seafood, which he has flown in from Oaxaca’s coast.  There is a dining room in the hotel proper, on García Vigil #407, which caters to the hotel’s guests, as well as another space on Constitución, near Santo Domingo, where we ate. A narrow pool forms the centerpiece, with some tables straddling the water. Our server brought out a immense platter of raw seafood for us to peruse that included red snapper and large camarones. We chose roasted sea bass and grilled shrimp in a garlic sauce with hierba santa, both of which were superb, and finished with pumpkin and coconut flans.

LOS DANZANTES
Macedonio Alcalá #403

Translated as “the dancers,” this restaurant serves nuevo Mexican cuisine. The setting is half the treat: Stepping in from the street, you enter a sanctuary with soaring adobe walls, columns, and fountains that is half open to the sky. We had lunch there, and particularly enjoyed the pasta with wild mushrooms and pasilla chiles. Other standouts were the duck enchiladas with a pumpkin-seed sauce, and the roasted hierba santa appetizer stuffed with Oaxacan and goat cheeses and topped with a tomatillo sauce. At night, the courtyard is beautifully lit, and its hip little bar even offers “hand-rolled organic cigars”.

EL NARANJO
Trujano #203

Chef Iliana de la Vega’s restaurant, a block or so from the zócalo, has received much press coverage and acclaim, including a prominent feature in Bon Appetit. The patio setting revolves around a fountain and the orange tree that gave the restaurant its name. We began our meal with a robust guacamole and an organic spinach, lettuce, and jicama salad with a hibicus-flower vinaigrette. For my entree I chose the poblano relleno de flor de calabaza, a poblano chile stuffed with queso fresco, squash blossoms, and fresh corn, served with an almond sauce. John ventured into his first authentic mole experience, trying the coloradito, a red mole replete with ancho and other chiles, almonds, raisins, bananas, tomatoes, chocolate, and a touch of cinnamon. Even with all this food, we couldn’t resist the great whole-wheat bread served with two spreads, one a chicken-liver pâté, the other a blend of butter with orange zest and piquin chile. Iliana, who is fluent in English, stopped by our table to see how we were faring, and we signed up for one of her cooking classes on the spot.

LA BIZNAGA
Garcia Vigil #512

Biznaga, named after a type of cactus, was our special find in Oaxaca. It serves "cocina mestiza" in an open-air courtyard—with retractable roof—surrounded by an art gallery. The menu begins on one huge chalk board and continues across the courtyard on a second. We liked the romantic, upscale bohemian atmosphere, which included music by unexpected favorites like Tom Waits, Miles Davis, and Radiohead. We ate dinner there twice, and each night began with excellent, tart margaritas. We ate fairly lightly both nights (one day we had taken Iliana’s cooking class and feasted on a late lunch), savoring their huge salads and unusual appetizers, including quesadillas featuring three different flavors of tortillas, each filled with mushrooms, squash blossoms, sauteed onions, chiles, and cheese.

LA OLLA CAFE-GALERIA
Reforma #402-1

Two blocks from the stunning church of Santo Domingo, this restaurant is affiliated with the Las Bugambilias B&B. For those tired of moles and other heavy Oaxacan cuisine, its inexpensive comida corrida or a la carte choices are a welcome change. The space is cozy, with local art work for sale and ochre-colored walls. We ate lunch here twice, and enjoyed the tlayuda azteca, a thick tortilla laden with chicken, avocados, and quesillo, as well as excellent, unusual sandwiches and salads. Chef Pilar Cabrera and her assistants bake their whole-wheat bread—still a rarity in Mexico—and say that they even make their own mayonnaise from scratch, a claim I have no reason to doubt.  Vegetarians will be very happy here, and you can finish off your meal with locally roasted coffee, vanilla flan, or a house-made granita.

Waiting for the End of the World

The big Y2K scare that turned out to be for naught—I wonder how historians will write about it. But, lest we forget, it did hold a certain frightening, yet thrilling, potential to rewrite our lives. It was in that spirit that John and I traveled to Florence for New Year’s Eve 1999, reasoning that if chaos were to reign and our bank accounts to be frozen, we might as well be in Italy when it happened.

Back that September, my mother-in-law had supplied us with cans of Sterno, a campstove, flares, Clif bars, and everything else we needed to be survivalists extraordinaire. But we quietly, stealthily plotted  to travel to Tuscany over New Year’s. This plan was initially met with protests by both our families, but we calmed their fears as we made reservations to travel to Florence, San Gimignano, and Siena. We arrived in Florence on December 28 and settled into the Loggiato dei Serviti.

Over the next two days, we traversed Florence, from the Duomo to the Medici Chapels to the perfect 11th-century chapel of San Miniato, high above the city. We were humbled by Fra Angelico’s ethereal frescoes at San Marco and by Masaccio’s haunting “Expulsion of Adam and Eve” at the Capella Brancacci. We ate semifreddi at Vivoli and bought marbled paper. But we couldn’t find a decent meal. 

I was a vegetarian at the time, and most restaurants in Florence tend toward the other extreme—wild boar, duck, rabbit, and the ubiquitous bistecca alla florentina. At long last, on December 30, we found Baldovino, a bright, artsy trattoria on the Piazza Santa Croce, run by David Gardner, a transplant from Scotland. We had two creative pastas, a perfect wild-mushroom risotto, a great bottle of wine, and were hooked. As we left, we asked the hostess if we could make reservations for the next night. “Ah, I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re closed tomorrow. But there is a prix-fixe dinner at our sister restaurant, Beccofino. Here’s their card; have your hotel call and see if there are still any spots left.”

We rushed back to the hotel. The concierge called and miraculously secured us the last two places. The cost was $150 per person, cash—she made doubly sure we understood that part. Apparently David was taking no chances in case everyone tried to use their credit cards after midnight to pay for their meal. The next day, we took turns taking cash out of the ATM, aware that these might be our last withdrawals for quite a while. Well, we weren't averse to manual labor; we could always pick grapes and eke out a living as modern-day serfs if need be.

Beccofino has just opened that May and was already a huge hit. Dressed to the nines, we sat down promptly at 9 pm, and immediately knew that our money would be well spent. The dining room was modern, with tables well spaced apart, striking flower arrangements, and an open kitchen. Glass windows opened onto the Arno, just steps away. We began with a terrine of goose-liver paté with onions braised in port. Next came tortelli stuffed with chestnuts, served with a ragu of pigeon and black truffles. This was followed by the main course of a roast rack of lamb with whole fennel drizzled in balsamic vinaigrette. Dessert was a champagne and chocolate sorbet with lemon sauce. Each course was accompanied by wonderfully chosen wines, including a Chianti Classico Riserva ’96 Fonterutoli and a Saturnes ’89 Chateau de Rayne. Needless to say, I abandoned my vegetarian ways with little ado as soon as the paté arrived and haven’t looked back since. 

We finished eating just as the clock struck midnight, an action timed perfectly by the servers. Along with the other diners, John and I streamed out of the restaurant, champagne glasses in hand, to shout “Buon Capo d'Anno” and kiss a few strangers. We stood on the nearby bridge and looked up and down the Arno—there were similar scenes in either direction, with family members of all ages toasting each other, setting off little firecrackers, and blowing paper streamers. We repaired back to Beccofino’s bar for more champagne (this was, after all, a one-in-a-lifetime occasion) and eventually made our way through the throngs of people the Piazza del Duomo to the hotel. We were ambivalent that we’d have to return to school and jobs in a few days, that we wouldn’t be breaking our backs over that year's grape harvest, but in the end we were happy—very happy—that the world hadn’t ended.