seekingmygreaterperhaps

Let’s start this post with a bold statement- Oaxaca is the best food location I have been to (yet). I added Mexico to my summer trip explicitly to eat, and it did not disappoint.

My first activity was a free walking tour (of course), and I wandered around the downtown area and got some food recommendations. The rain that had plagued me the entire trip…. still plagued me. While the sky was gray, the colors of the buildings of Oaxaca couldn’t be muted. After the walking tour I went to a lunch of a 7 mole tasting, which might have been one of my highlights of the entire city… which is a bold statement.

In Spanish, “mole” just means “sauce”. According to epicurious: Ingredients for traditional mole typically include a combination of chiles, sesame seeds, tomatillos, spices, dried fruits, nuts, and chocolate. There are more variations than we can count, but there are at least seven varieties from Oaxaca alone.

It will haunt me that I can’t remember the name of this restaurant I looked and I can’t exactly remember- but Los Pacos feels familiar. Man, I am really killing this travel blogging thing… Anyways. The waiter explained all of the types of mole to me, and it is served with rice and plantains. I started with rice on the first little bowl, but quickly abandoned it because the moles were SO GOOD, and I was getting full, and I didn’t want to waste my belly room on rice. The moles have the sauce, but they also have some veggies and meat in them. I can’t remember what my favorite one was, but I do remember that it wasn’t the mole negro, although that is the most popular one (for tourists prob- I think it’s for holidays for regular people).

I did a street food tour of one of the markets, and met these two girls in the picture above. I booked my tour with EthnoFood, and would highly recommend it. Our guide was super knowledgeable and we got to taste so many foods that I would never have known to order or ask for. The corn tortillas of the tacos were warm and handmade. The straight mole paste was a delight, the quesillo was squeaky, and so many flavors that I’ve never tasted before, that I fear might only be available in Oaxaca.

I dined at the Michelin starred Los Danzantes and was delighted with the fresh flavors. I liked the lighting in there too. I was blown away by how casual some of the people were dressed- I saw a guy wearing flip flops. My friend Maria would have judged them even harder than I did! But that didn’t take away from the fantastic food, more of just a side note. Haha!

My final night, I rallied a group of girls from my hostel and we used my reservation at Levadura de Olla– another Michelin star meal. It was some of their first times having a Michelin star meal, and I am really glad I went with a group because we were able to order a lot of different things and try even more. We tried ants for the first time- and with guacamole they aren’t as weird as I imagined. The tomatoes were incredible. An entire plate full, but this is what they are known for- all these different varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

Oh yeah, I also did some touring outside of just eating my way through Oaxaca, which honestly wouldn’t be a bad idea. I did a day tour to see the Hierva el Agua- one of only two petrified waterfalls in the world! Along the way we also stopped at the Tule tree, which has the largest trunk diameter of any tree in Mexico. I can attest, it’s a big tree.

We also stopped at a wool dying place, but I’ve seen this a couple times before. If you had never seen it, then I bet it would be awesome! However… Bolivia and Peru are where the alpacas actually are, so like *brushes dirt of shoulders*.

The main event was the Hierva el Agua, and it was truly incredible! There was minimal hiking involved, and I got to swim around in the pools a little bit. The water is a limestone color, and seeing a waterfall frozen in time was super neat! The surrounding scenery was breathtaking, and look at those blue skies! I would say this was the highlight of the tourist things to do in Oaxaca… that isn’t edible I suppose.

Also along the tour, we stopped at a sacred holy sight. I was getting a little tired by this time, but I was super impressed with the carvings. All of the stones were carved to fit like Jenga pieces, and each one represented something unique, and tied to nature.

We ended the tour at a Mezcal distillery and I learned about how Mezcal is made. It’s quite a process to get delicious liquor from the aloe plants, but I am sure glad they do it! A mezcal tasting later, and we were on the way back.

I am so glad I visited Oaxaca, and would definitely go back if not to just sit around and eat all day long. I tried to bring some mole paste back for my family… but it got taken from me at the airport in my carryon backpack. Apparently- a paste counts as a liquid. Oh well, the memories will live on in my taste buds.