After our successful street meat adventure the night before, Jen, Kevin and I were all about finding more delicious street meat options. Jen had read about this place on another travel blog (While Yelp and TripAdvisor are still great research options, I love reading other people's travel blogs for ideas) and since carnitas wasn't an option at the last place, we were jazzed to try this place out. A word of warning, it's quite the hike out of town - we may have taken the long way there and it was hot AF the day we decided to go, but it felt like we had walked to another town to get there. It's located in the 'burbs of San Miguel - it's an interesting walk because you get to see real life and lots of school kids running around but just be sure to have your walking shoes on.
But the reward is some of the most succulent pig you've had in a while. The place is pretty much a shack and zero English is spoken. Your choices are pretty much tacos, tortas and gorditas - all stuffed with carnitas. The entire pig is sitting under a heat lamp and it's already been butchered and shredded but you can see the crispy skin and elements of certain body parts. There are 3 women who sit there hand making the masa and tortillas in front of you so you know it's fresh. We opted for the torta and gordita as our first round. She asked us if we wanted white meat and I reluctantly agreed but that ended up being a BIG MISTAKE. While I know that dark meat isn't as good for you health-wise, it's by far the tastiest part of any animal. But we were trying to be healthy and had good intentions. The torta was basically a huge sandwich with nothing but white meat stuffed inside. Honestly, if the meal were just this dish, I would have given the place 3 forks. The bread was dry as was the white meat - it needed more moisture and flavor to it. Luckily the gordita turned things around for us. I had actually thought gorditas were things that Taco Bell made up, but I guess it's a real thing. The masa for the gordita was super tasty, crunchy and held the meat in well. Based on this delicious bite, I felt like I had to round out the experience and get a taco. Since I don't speak Spanish very well, I had to do a lot of pointing and said "no blanco" which I'm not even sure if the right terminology. The woman pointed to her stomach which I interpreted as tripe which is really the one part of an animal I'm not down with. I ended up pointing to a bunch of dark looking meat and she threw it on a taco for me. After my bite, I confirmed that dark meat is the way to go. It's juicy, tender and holds much more flavor to it than white meat.
I noticed that other locals were just buying platefuls of carnitas and then making their own meals from it - something I wish we had done but lesson learned. Despite the long hot walk, this was a wonderful experience. You can probably just as easily take an Uber there too. Total bill: 185 pesos or $10 USD for 3 people.
Moxi Aldama 53, Centro, Zona Centro, 37700 San Miguel de Allende 4 Forks
Despite all the great street meat options in San Miguel, there are quite a few high end places you can go for dinner. Moxi was our first foray into fancy pants dining in San Miguel. It's located inside the gorgeous Matilda Hotel - I will say that San Miguel may have the highest number of beautiful boutique hotels per capita I've ever seen in any city. Except for the Rosewood, there aren't a ton of large chains and every hotel seems to have a either a cute courtyard or rooftop bar.
Unfortunately the night we had dinner here it was pouring rain, but we had an awning to cover us for most of the night. Most of the luxury restaurants in town have a tasting menu and that's what we decided to do here. Compared to the tasting menu prices in NYC, these meals are a total steal. It was a 6 course meal for $53 USD. Yes, you read that correctly. You can also get a wine pairing but we decided to stick with cocktails instead. The courses were as follows: beef taco amuse bouche, then the actual dishes (1) mushroom tamale (2) French onion soup with zucchini blossoms (3) corn risotto (4) striped sea bass (5) mandarin orange sorbet (6) chocolate mousse.
There wasn't a huge Mexican flare to the meal but it was all executed perfectly and had great presentation. The one thing we all noticed was that despite this being a tasting menu, all the portions were real entree sizes. Usually when I get tasting menus, the portions are smaller because you know you're eating many more dishes than normal. Needless to say, by the time we got to dessert, we were all stuffed to the gills. The mushroom tamale was the winner of the night although there weren't any complaints about the other dishes.
Overall for the ambience, quality and amount of food, it's most definitely worth the price even if it's on the pricier side of town.
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