It’s been a while since our last food post, and this is supposed to be a food blog! Well, it’s been a while since our last post, but I’ll try to keep the posts coming, even if it takes me more time than I think.
Today I wanted to share this awesome tiny little place that I consider a must if you visit Mexico City. When you arrive, you won’t be surprised at all, the place is tiny, it’s just a kitchen and some tables outside. You could easily just pass it without stopping by, and that would be a big mistake.
The place is called Expendio de Maiz and here is when it becomes interesting. This is a cash only restaurant, they don’t have a menu and most of their ingredients are organic, endemic and wild. The name translates as Corn Store and just like the name, all of their dishes are based on corn.
I’m not sure if you can make a reservation, we didn’t. But when you arrive, at least in the weekends, the restaurant will be full. They will tell you if they can give you service today and at what time. If you accept, they will put your name in a list, ask for contact number and they will ask you about allergies or if you can't eat something.
We had to wait for almost 2 hours, but the neighborhood is cool so you can take a walk, go for a drink or eat something else to calm the hunger. We live close, so we went to buy some stuff we needed for the house and came back.
Because this place is popular and very small, we encourage you to arrive early. Around noon would be fine. We got there at 3 pm and they told us to come back at 4:30.
Now the good stuff, the food. This is going to be a little hard because I don’t know the names of all the stuff we ate. Many of them are not common or at least I didn’t know them. Also, I think half of the foot they serve is vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian and the food was spectacular, just take a look at the pictures. I’ll try to describe them.
This is a squash sope. A sope is a rounded piece of corn dough with rough edges to contain the food inside.
This was called "La Hidalguense". Is a pocket of corn dough filled with some sauce and vegetables with a fried egg on top.
I think this was a wild mushrooms taco with grilled cheese.
They receive you whit this. It's a tortilla with the shape of a pig, ant maybe it's the only thing you can repeat in the menu in every visit. It has some requesón on top, its like a very fresh cheese.
This is another sope but with some pork meat, onions and avocado.
This is a huarache with cecina, onions and some vegetables. The huarache is a tortilla but filled with beans, usually is really big, but here they made you a small version.
We paired our food with some craft beer.
Can't remeber whar was this but it has cauliflower with a Pipian sauce and some mash potatoes. Pipian is a kind of mole, in plain words a Mexican sauce.
This is another picture of La hidalguense.
This was the last course, the dessert. It was a Concha (a type of sweet bread) cut in half with some sweet creme and flowers. On the side there is a spoon with honey and another with piloncillo (an old kind of sugar)
This was a squash quesadilla with avocado and herbs.
Another sope but with pork.
And that's it. I need to make a note and say that we ate all of this between two persons. Not just me.
