Buoyed by a good day at school, I decided to stroll through Parque México when we got out & take in some sights. Once I got through to the other side I wandered down a stretch of a fairly major street that I hadn't traversed yet (Sonora in case you're curious). From a block away I picked up the scent of good fresh-brewed coffee but I thought I had to be imagining it.
Despite México's significant crop of good coffee beans, there is very little coffee culture here. Most people are satisfied with instant coffee if they drink it at all & even most of the espresso is really thin, bitter & bland. There is "café de olla" (literally "coffee from a pot") which is enriched with piloncillo, the unrefined local sugar which imparts hints of cinnamon & is a major component of the excellent chocolate from Oaxaca, but it masks the shortcomings of the coffee more often than it creates a harmonious sum that's greater than it's parts. It doesn't help that for most of the last year & change I've been a regular at Abraco, a coffee joint near Porchetta which has the best coffee I've ever drank & a penchant for playing old Brazilian music to match it's Brazilian name.
I tracked down the source of the enticing aroma to a small shop called "Bolsa do Brasil". The synergy grabbed me & I had to order an espresso, or "expreso" as they write it here. While it wasn't quite up to Abraco's insanely high standards, it was a very nice espresso & the barista was genuinely interested in my opinion as I sipped. For the rest of my trip, this will be my place for coffee whenever the urge strikes me. And speaking of synergy, while I was having my espresso at Bolsa do Brasil my good friend Tim was at Abraco & sent me an email from his fancy phone.
After a brief stop home I decided to see if a tented open-air market not far from my apartment was running today. This isn't your typical weekend street fair junk: most of the stalls are satellites for high-end stores in the surrounding neighborhoods & the products (& their prices) reflect it. The one time I walked through in the past I was impressed by the looks of the extensive food section- which is definitely more street oriented than the other items- & I wanted to have something new for lunch. I was torn between a couple of stalls & they are so jumbled together that it was hard to tell where I was able to order from when I sat.
My first attempt to sit put me in the wrong place, so I ordered a little something so as not to look like a tourist. I had my second chile relleno taco of this trip & while this one wasn't fried to order, the filling was more flavorful that the one I ate previously so I was happy with it. I then scooted over to the next stall to order my real goal: a pambazo.
Pambazos are a sandwich I've only seen in the DF & even here not that often. It starts out with the same bread as a torta- the typical Mexican sandwich- but instead of piling on tons of different meats, pambazos come with a thinner layer of filling that gets molded into the bread. My selection was "chicharron prensado" which literally means "pressed pork skin" but is actually diced pork skin stewed in a red sauce. The woman carefully formed it into the bottom slice of my roll them laid it meat-side down on the griddle next to the unadorned top half (you can just barely seem them in the bottom right hand corner of the photo above). After a couple of minutes of grilling, the halves came together & the whole thing was dunked French Dip-style into a bowl of gravy-esque sauce, then placed back on the griddle. Once it was done heating through, another woman opened it back up to pour on my choice of sauce, a sprinkling of cotija cheese (which reminds me of a mild feta), a handful of iceberg lettuce and a squirt of mayo. It's a little messy to eat but well worth the sacrifice of napkins one needs to make it through. Besides being tasty, it's fun to say "pambazo" as often as possible. ¡Besos!
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