Baking pastries at Yesenia’s in Hillsboro. See video below.
There’s something wonderful about the aroma of bread baking. Even Franz with its Wonder-soft loaves smells good when the ovens are on. But Mexican bakeries—panaderias—are a whole other world. They use cinnamon, anise and orange in their fragrant pastries, called pan de dulce or pan dulce, filling them with guava, pineapple, coconut and vanilla cream. Savory breads are often stuffed with ham. Cookies even come in the shape of a pig. While every Mexican market in PDX carries these kind of goods, a smaller number make their own breads and pastries. Of these, two are a step above the rest: Yesenia’s and La Espiga Dorada. Don’t be shy. Just follow the grandmother with toddlers in tow, or the day laborer picking up some quick fuel, or the professional getting a box of sweets for the office. Grab a tray and some tongs and load up from the bakery case or the racks. (Hint: Items from the rack are fresher.)
Torta Ahogada from 7 Estrellas
Forced to choose, I would rather eat the rest of my days in the suburbs and outskirts of Portland, than in Portland’s core. No, I’m no fan of sprawl and McMansions. And yes, I realize that means giving up favorites like Toro Bravo, Apizza Scholls, Le Pigeon, Wildwood, and even the restaurants I own part of. But I’d gain places like Yuzu, La Guanaquita, Nakwon, Pho Oregon, Ocean City, El Inka, and Puerto Marquez. These small ethnic restaurants are the ones with the foods that I constantly crave — the ones I go to week after week. If nothing else, I’d certainly save money. There’s also not a single great ethnic market in downtown or inner-east.
As further evidence, I submit Tigard Plaza. In one strip mall are an Indonesian restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, and a Lebanese restaurant serving some of the best dishes of their kind in the metro area — many that you can’t find anywhere else. There’s another restaurant serving solid fish & chips and another serving decent Vietnamese food. Add to that a Mexican market, an Indian market, an Asian seafood market, a cake decorating shop, and a homebrewing supply store and you’ve got a lot of foodie fun per square mile.
Version 2.0 of Extramsg.com’s dining guide and tip sheet for the Portland metro area is finally finished. You can visit it here or by clicking the link at the left under Portland Food News.
The tip sheet has been greatly overhauled. Categories, such as Indian and Sushi/Japanese have been added, but also many of the entries in each category have been updated or completely changed. There’s also a new listing of “Quick Picks” by neighborhood in descending order by price.
Hopefully this tip sheet will help visitors and new residents of Portland — or those looking to expand their culinary horizons. If you would like to criticize or comment on the tip sheet, please follow the link in the dining guide itself.
Plaza Latina’s Bulk Chiles
I grew up just outside of Eugene, OR, home of the University of Oregon Ducks, although I always rooted for my dad’s alma mater, the UCLA Bruins. I still have family and friends in the area and visit at least a couple times a month. When I was a kid, Taco Time was probably my favorite cheap eat. Mexi fries, veggie burritos, and taco Tuesday — hey, it’s a lot better than Taco Hell.
That was before Thai food had caught on in the U.S. I hadn’t even tried Indian food and I doubt there was an Indian restaurant in all of Lane County. It was a decade, however, when Izzy’s still made all their pizza from scratch with quality ingredients and Pietro’s made a zesty and crunchy pie with a crust that actually had a chewy, airy texture like Italian bread, not spongy Wonderbread.
Despite the local government’s efforts to stifle change in Eugene, the town has grown up a lot since I left for college. It’s more cosmopolitan with all the expected international restaurants — Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese, etc. As a result, the cheap eats options have gone far beyond pizza and fast food. The following is a quick overview of some of my favorites, some places to avoid, and some places that have unfortunately disappeared or changed hands. I’ve also included a list of known blogs in the area that at least regularly post on food.
Scents sink to the ground. That’s why dogs sniff along the earth when tracking. Walking up the stairs from the Merced Metro station, before you see the food, you smell it. Ripe fruit mixes with sizzling chile sauces and charring meats. It’s a battle for the ol’ factory.
Next are the sounds, bustling and clanging and the call of “Tacos! Quesadillas! Huaraches!” As I reach the top, from the left of the stairs I hear someone announce that mangos are only four pesos.
Finally, the spectacle. Little ladies, tias and abuelitas, with bags of this and that hurry down the narrow walkways, passing eager vendors offering tastes of their goods. Senoritas press and sling masa onto griddles, feeding hungry workers and shoppers. Stepping into a wide aisle and looking down the length of the market, the massiveness is awe-inspiring.
The main market building is literally an airplane hangar. I can barely see from one end to the next. I don’t think I could hit the ceiling with a baseball. There are at least four other buildings about half the size of the main market building that constitute the rest of the market. A Walmart Supercenter could probably fit in any one of them. La Merced takes days to explore adequately. I only had hours. A food lover who visits Mexico and skips La Merced is like an art lover who visits Paris and skips the Louvre.
This last May, I made my seventh trip to Mexico and visited my 10th city there. Shamefully, this was only my first trip to Oaxaca — the area of Mexico Diana Kennedy describes as “by far the most complex … to know and understand” with numerous sub-cultures and micro-climates that produce so many “different types of chiles, herbs, and wild edible plants” that they and their uses “could be the study of a lifetime.” (My Mexico) With only a part of my two weeks being spent there, you can safely assume that I didn’t even explore the tip of the tip of the iceberg. But what I did get to enjoy, certainly made me want to return and test Kennedy’s assertion.
It was also my first trip to Puebla, the central city of the state with the same name. In A Cook’s Tour, Anthony Bourdain declares it the place “where cooks come from.” “If there was a mandatory day of rest –” he explains, “or a public holiday for all Poblanos — a lot of restaurants in America would have to close their doors. As it is,” he continues, “the day after the fifth of May (Cinco de Mayo), half the cooks in America are hungover.” While it was a town overlooked by most foodies, I left loving the food and the people as much as Bourdain did. It’s a city I could imagine living in quite easily.
Then there’s Mexico City. Like most massive metropoli, DF can feel oppressive. The city expands as concrete buildings across the high dessert and into the hills for hours in every direction. Millions pile daily shoulder-to-shoulder in the subways. Traffic lights are treated more as a suggestion than a command. The smog and altitude leave you breathless. But so does the staggering variety of food options, from cheap and soulfull antojitos on the street to creative and refined haute cuisine. It’s been that way since before the Conquistadors.
The great island city of Tenochtitlan, on top of which was built Mexico City, had one of the largest pre-Columbian markets, Tlatelolco. “With sixty-thousand daily visitors and whole streets devoted to prepared foods, [it] provided a fertile environment for gastronomic innovation. … Many people visited markets simply for the spectacle, the delicious stews, and the latest gossip. … An innovative popular cuisine developed in Mesoamerica on the modest foundations of corn and chiles. … Tamales assumed a great variety of forms and flavors with no ingredients beyond maize, herbs, and chiles. A cook could shape corn confections into ovals, canoes, animals, or stellar constellations.” (Que Vivan Los Tamales)
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a Spanish historian who joined the likes of Cordoba and Cortes in their conquests of the New World, described one of Motecuhzoma’s banquets as consisting of over 300 dishes with ingredients ranging from “fowl, wattled fowl, pheasants, native partridges, quail, domestic and wild ducks, deer, peccary, reed birds and doves and hares and rabbits, and many other birds and things.” Of course, this meal ended with foaming liquid chocolate served in gold goblets. (America’s First Cuisines) What is now Mexico City has always been at the forefront of both food for the peasant and the powerful.
I hope you’ll look forward to my coming reports, a project that’s much overdue. I’ve filtered through over 1,000 photos. I have a filled notebook, including rough maps of Mexico’s two largest markets. Expect separate entries on the street foods and the haute cuisine of Mexico City, Mercado de Abastos in Oaxaca, the restaurants and street food of Oaxaca, and the foods of Puebla.
Clockwise from top left: Desserts at Pix; Margherita from Apizza Scholls; Cherries and blackberries from the Portland Farmer’s Market; Burger and fries from Cafe Castagna.
Version 1.0 of Extramsg.com’s dining guide and tip sheet for the Portland metro area is finally finished. You can visit it here or in the future by clicking the link at the left under Portland Food News.
The tip sheet suggests quality restaurants in a variety of categories and cuisines, plus places to shop for food. Following these recommendations are a list of dining options on Sundays and Mondays, links to online discussions of Portland eateries, and other dining guides. Finally, there is a list of over-rated restaurants to avoid.
Hopefully this tip sheet will help visitors and new residents of Portland — or those looking to expand their culinary horizons. If you would like to criticize or comment on the tip sheet, please follow the link in the dining guide itself.
“2658 North Milwaukee,” I mutter to myself as I look down at the printed Metromix page and walk out of the underground blue line stop. But which direction am I facing? I look at the map and which way I came out of the train. I’m in a hurry. It’s already past nine. I finally choose a direction and start walking. There aren’t many storefronts with numbers and the street is dark here. I pass by a Mexican restaurant and dance club with pockets of young Latinos hanging out around their cars. I reach California and look at the map again. A stocky woman with half a tooth missing in the front, like Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber, asks me if I have any change. I have less than a buck which I hand over. Then she asks if I need help and I tell her I’m looking for Taqueria Puebla and explain that it’s a Mexican restaurant that is supposed to be good, that I’m on a trip for food, etc.
“There’s a Mexican restaurant across from the McDonald’s that way,” she says as she points the opposite direction I’ve been walking. “But I don’t think it’s called Puebla. There’s a gas station over there,” she continues as she points down Sacramento. I thank her and start walking to the gas station. Just as I start to walk off, she asks, “Are you looking for some fun?” It takes me a second before I realize what she’s doing.
Just off the Zocolo, on the tight streets of Mexico City’s Centro Historico, you can find CDs for 12 pesos each, five for 50. DVDs for 300 pesos each. Computer software for a tenth of the price you’ll find it at Best Buy. Of course, it’s all pirated. You’ll also find blender parts, toys, lingerie, socks, and sunglasses. Sure, I hover over the CD pile a bit, but the true object of my desire is the food. Tacos, churros, quesadillas, huaraches….
I wasn’t sure exactly what the Maxwell Street Market would entail. But after only a few steps, I realized: it’s a little bit of Mexico City. Socks, sunglasses, CDs — they’re all there. Duct tape, a wall of pink hats, lawn Jesuses (or is it Jesai?), radios, a selection of posters with Al Pacino from Scarface, bras, toys, tools, and, my personal favorite, the table of comic books and porn. But most importantly, Mexican street food.
$230 round trip tickets to Mexico seemed like as good a reason as any to take a trip. That they were to Mazatlan, the shrimping capital of Mexico, was fine by me.
I’m rather cheap, which marries quite nicely with my loathing of the typical tourist in Mexico who just wants to broil their outside during the day and ferment their insides at night. I go for culture and food (but not necessarily in that order). I also go to inflict my high school level Spanish on unsuspecting taco and regalo vendors.
