Oaxacan Breakfast Every Day, Please.

September 22, 2015

The wonderful chef, Alex Ruiz, a man with a big smile and a bigger heart, invited a group of us to have breakfast at his restaurant, Guzina Oaxaca (he's taken over the space in Polanco once occupied by chef Patricia Quintana.

It was, I think, the best breakfast I've ever eaten.

It started with hot chocolate- not too sweet, not too rich, tasting mostly of cocoa beans and extraordinarily refreshing.

And this plate of fresh vegetables IMG_6529

which soon became a fresh salsa, pounded in a molcajete.

We spooned it onto quesadillas, cheese and squash blossoms folded into hand-patted, just made tortillas. 

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and onto these spectacular black beans, which were unlike any I've had before.  The beans were cooked with avocado leaf, which left behind a whisper of anise-like flavor, and epazote (the fiercest green I know), and then refried in lard with smashed plantain. The resulting flavor is sweet and vegetal, with the slightest hint of pork, as if a little pig had just passed through on his way to play.

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That salsa also went onto chilaquiles

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and huevos rancheros

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These pork ribs, cooked with chiles and purslane, were irresistible (and especially good scooped into a bit of black bean and wrapped in warm tortillas).

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Hungry yet?  There was more to come. IMG_6539

 

And finally, the densest, darkest, most devilish version of huevos rancheros – blanketed in a richly flavorful mole.  

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I'll improve this post – but right now I'm running out to my next meal.  But I was so enchanted by this meal I wanted to put it up while it was still fresh in my mind – and mouth.

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