...still more, limited to the Yucatan. They do not appear in Spanish dictionaries. (Another complaint: Spanish dictionaries are poor on Mexicanismos, and all dictionaries are poor on food terms.) Hence if you come to Cancun and look for Yucatecan food, treat this as an opening chapter, a place from which to depart, the beginning of a world of exploration, to mix the metaphors. You will go further than I did, and be quite content as a result. Ignore all that stuff in the hotels, except perhaps for the odd dinner -- or, better, to find ways in which the hotel chefs incorporate Mexicanisms into nouvelle cuisine. A few do it, and there is an annual gastronomic festival in which they show what they can do -- rarely, though, incorporated into standard menus.
You notice I said Yucatecan food. It would be too subtle to distinguish Quintana Roo from the totality of Yucatan. What we mean here is Mayan food, as presented to the mostly Mayan public in restaurants and taco stalls. It does not necessarily correspond to what you would get in a Mayan home, but it is closely linked. (For example, you might find venison in Mayan homes, but you can't find it in Cancun.) And the best restaurants for this kind of cooking -- and for many other Mexican kinds -- are to be found, so I am told, in Merida, not here. And what is very special to Quintana Roo is the seafood, of which more later. And I must of course try out some Mexican restaurants along the way, to notice the differences, and see what nouvelle cuisine can do with it.
But I am a consumer's representative, so off I go consuming, to see what I can find. Let it come as it may.
How to start? In the tourist brochures there are passing references to Yucatecan food, and sometimes you notice the word Yucateca, or something like it, attached to a menu item. But, with the possible exception of Los Almendros, one of a Merida based chain, none of the restaurants I eventually found figure in the listings. Nowhere in any of the tourist literature do you find "a visitor's guide to Yucatecan, or Mayan food". Like the Mayans in politics, it is hidden from foreign sight, except when it is transformed, as I shall show, into tourist food. Yet it is there. It has to be. The bulk of the population is Mayan.
So you ask.
One natural bias of many informants is to confuse ambience with good food. They want you to have a good time, an interesting one. So several people put me onto La Prosperidad de Cancun.
Thus I drove out along the Avenida Jose Lopez Portillo, a resounding political name of a street that would, if you let it, take you hundreds of kilometres to Chichen Itza and Merida, almost in a straight flat line. I reached the darkness at the end of the city and turned back on myself. Not far there was a brightly lit modern inn, crowded with parked cars, lively music flooding onto the street. I screwed up my courage and went in.
The ambience reminded me of a Mexican version of a North American beer parlour, except that at the checkered covered tables there were a few families with children. In the centre of the double room a band was revving up. A mature happy looking woman put me down at a table where the stage was inescapable. An older waiter with no English took an order for tequila. On the table was a form menu with a few items price listed. Very few struck me as having anything specially to do with Yucatan -- perhaps the cochinita were pibil, but that was not indicated, and at $30 who was going to find out? There was poc-chuc, a kind of mixed grill, and longaniza, a spicy sausage, but no prices, so not available. The rest, though probably good, were entirely Mexican -- flautas de mole, cabrito Norteña, res de carne tampiqueña, of which more later.
The band got to work with a handsome lead singer, and a chorus of young skimpy ladies cavorting in limited salsa movements, occasionally taking over the microphone with not bad voices, sometimes calling up a man to strut around licentiously, but all in all very innocent. The families had left, and most of the audience were men.
A young waiter helpfully practised his English on me. Sorry but the food service stopped half an hour ago -- at 6 pm. He saw my discomfiture, brought me another tequila. All of a sudden three plates were put in front of me with a huge basket of tortillas. Hard boiled eggs (three) with mole sauce; something that seemed like spiced ground beef with a few carrots; something that seemed like ground pork with garbanzo beans. It was cold but tastily edible, and it was very thoughtful of them. I like those surprises, which tell me that people are thoughtful and kind -- I was very hungry. And it's one way of getting interesting food, though it may not be what you came for.
And, though I didn't stay any more for the tinselled dancers, they charged me only for the tequila.
Another, less pleasant, way of getting misled, is through the touts who are the curse of the area. They do not perambulate the streets selling drugs and sex of all kinds, as in Bangkok, nor do they push their wares in front of your nose with pressing "bargains" as in the souks of the Muslim world. They stand outside their offices asking you to come in to look over the specs of a condominium for sale, or to hear about a special tour, to get a car at a cut price. Or they flash menus from the restaurants and offer discounts and all the booze you can drink in a night for free. They don't bother you if you just walk past. What amazed me was the high proportion of tourists who allowed themselves to be drawn into fruitless conversation -- fruitless because what the touts had to offer was not in the priority zone of their hoped-for clients.
One day I was outside the Federal Express office waiting for it to open so that I could collect mail. When it is being regular it opens about half an hour after the posted morning and afternoon times. Sometimes as in this case it is irregular and you either give up or wait patiently for an hour or so. Today was one of the latter occasions, which gave a tout from the next door tourist office a chance to talk to me, and tell me about Federal Express - and restaurants.
He heard I was interested in Yucatecan food. Well, he said, it so happens........ The upshot was that he gave me a voucher for a free lunch at a hotel where he said the buffet featured Yucatecan specialties. My part of the bargain would be to meet him there and he would show me the hotel and get a commission. Fair enough, because quite often (but not it seems in Cancun) hotels in exotic places do a great deal to show-case indigenous food, and prepare them in ways that retain their qualities but make them appeal to visitors -- witness the marvellous activities of the Intercontinentals in francophone West Africa, and hotels in Mauritius and Fiji and Kenya. Furthermore my new found friend, for I was beginning to think of him as that, rattled off in a most impressive way the ingredients and herbs in several Yucatecan dishes. He knew the subject, and I fantasized I would invite him here and there to assist my explorations.
So off I went to the rendezvous. The lobby was crowded with U.S. jocks and their girl friends, eyes glued to basketball game on a huge TV monitor. The steps were filled with baggage, and young people disconsolately waiting for tour buses to take them to the airport and home. This was American Spring Break, the beginning of weeks of beer drinking, hoopla, beach parties, and, if you are in the wrong place, rape.
No sign of Andre. Twenty minutes later still no sign. I went to the restaurant, showed my voucher, checked the buffet -- standard blah, wilted salads, heavy desserts, cold cuts. I said to the manager I would like your Yucatecan specials, because I hear they are very good. Yucatecan specials? Sometimes we have Mexican but never Yucatecan.... Next day I sought out my friend. Where were you? he said as he rushed to meet me. In the lobby. I couldn't find you. Did you have your lunch? No, there's never been any Yucatecan food there. Oh, did you hand in your voucher? Of course not. Are you sure, didn't the manager take it? Certainly not. His face fell. End of commission. He was not at all interested in whether my need for Yucatecan food was fulfilled -- his only concern being that I turned up, handed in the voucher, and made him eligible for his payoff.
But by that time I had started on other leads, and was making progress, adding a few observations of my own as I drove the streets. Here is a list, without which you can do no wrong, believe me. I am not a tout. I have no vested interest.
The one that will be mentioned to you by almost anyone you ask (though I did hear one lady criticize it), is called Los Almendros (Almonds) on the peripheral street called Avenida Bonompak -- right opposite the stadium that serves as the bull fighting arena. It even gets into the tourist brochures occasionally.
I'll tell you about the food soon. It is a big place in two brightly clothed rooms, adopting the style of Mexican restaurants that show the process of cooking with the kitchen before your eyes. Except that here much of what goes on is behind glass and invisible, the visible part consisting of hot trays with finished results being kept warm. Los Almendros is part of a formula chain based in Merida, and though it is streets away from such places as Denny's, the formula influence prevails. So the food in the trays does tend to dry out, and many of the dishes suffer as a result.
The sauces were, however, an eye opener, as we shall tell. Soft, spicy where required, complex in their tastes, but their tastes always available to the palate, truly worthy of great international cooking. Another interesting place is also tucked away a bit, on the corner of the great Avenida Uxmal, where it narrows into a small street, and joins Avenida Jose Lopez Portillo. The first time I went to Los Venados (venados = deer) I was out of luck. Like many of the "people's" restaurants, it shut down firmly at 6.30 (opening toward mid-day). This taught me to watch it, reminding me that Cancun is full of the oddest eating hours. Some of the fancy restaurants in the hotels have two "sittings", one for the North American early birds around 5 or 6, the other around 9 for the Spaniards, bourgeois Mexicans, and other assorted Europeans. Restaurants in the old town can have lineups from mid afternoon into the late evening, tacos bars, unless dealing with things like late movie goers, go for the lunch time jugular, and can shut as darkness comes. And some of the American style or little tacos places are open twentyfour hours (with varying degrees of alertness.....) The second time it was a bit better. Self-conscious for arriving around five, I was confronted with a small smiling woman who rattled off a list of dishes in the fastest impossible to follow Spanish with a Mayan accent (even Mexicans find Mayan Spanish hard to follow). I grabbed hold of one word I heard and had it -- succulent, large spicy meatballs. No booze. No credit cards.
The room is "typical", that is compromises not one whit to tourism. The ladies are in their normal dress, which means beautifully embroidered garments as you would see in a village, kerchiefs, and smiles. They can't be bothered helping you if you are having language difficulty -- except for the large ebullient manageress who spends most of her time watching TV. In one corner is an old bent lady busily making tortillas by hand, the guarantee for which is her finger marks on what you receive. And excellent they are, too.
The third time I came I made the waitress give me her words one by one, and wrote them down. That time I made a more careful selection. And then I noticed as I went to photograph the tortilla maker that there was actually a chalk written menu board. But by 5 p.m. most of the items were finished.
Then, more or less by accident, I came across an empty looking quite modern simple cafe style place at the magnificently strategic corner of Avenida Tulum and Avenida Cobå. I'd passed it many a time but did not think it had much to offer. But by then I'd started to get into Yucatecan snacks, and I noticed its name, Antojitos Yucatecos, i.e., guess what, Yucatecan Snacks.
So I went in. And was very glad. Simple indeed, with a little lady and a couple of helpers doing the work, not too many people, tourists going by but passing because there was no tout and no mariachi band and no Mexican stuff like fajitas. It may not be the greatest cooking in the world, but if you want to know what Yucatecan cooking is like, for next to nothing by way of cash, and with friendly people who may not be able to talk to you much, but who are totally willing to give you what you convey to them you want, this is it. Tops in my book. Without any fussing, they broke up the dishes as described on the menu, and allowed me to taste, say, three delectable mouth watering yummies I'd never had before, instead of being held to one plate of three of the same. Three seafood places figure on my list.
I would never have found La Calamar had it not been for a lady behind one of the desks at Cancun Tips. It is away from every boulevard and side restaurant street, not far from Avenida Uxmal. Like any really local place, it too closes down the kitchen at 6.45. My first time I arrived at 6.30 but they served me with grace anyway.
It looks simple inside, neat but unpretentious. The proprietor was a fisherman who began the place fifteen years before my visit. On the walls are photographs of every celebrity in Mexico, all in the company of the owner. It is nationally famous, and unknown to the tourist. The food is exquisitely prepared and of the most evident, refreshing freshness you could imagine. You know how cold raw fish can tell your palate straight away that there's been no monkeying around; and you know that that quality can survive cooking and marinading if the skills are there. It may be the owner is sitting with his back to you with a group of friends; it may be that only one of the waiters can communicate, but graciously; it may be this is not the place for gringos really; it may be that vegetables can be banal; but it is the place for beautiful fish and its sauces.
Another place also recommended in the same way, but which I did have on my list, was Los Flamingos, almost at the end of the eight kilometre or so drive, between the Isla Mujeres ferries at Puerto Juarez and Punta Sam. (There are several promising fish restaurants along this stretch of road, some of the very simple, but reputedly worth the drive). Los Flamingos is big and bouncy, well patronized by Mexicans and tourists alike, some chic, mostly just there for the food. There is a great maritimely decorated banquet hall, an open style dining room and a verandah that juts onto the beach facing Isla Mujeres. The waiters were busy and ignored me as I chose a table. After a suitable period of suspense, one brought me a menu.
Total disappointment. Nothing but your ordinary "fish as you like it", lobster, garlic or meunière. I showed my disappointment and again was rescued by a young junior waiter wanting to play with a little English. "There's another menu," he said, "It's got more on it." Marginally, it did have, and at least gave me a chance to go further with Yucatecan styles. It is a fashionable place for Cancun family and group Sunday outings.
The third place I found accidentally, named after the island of Contoy at the northern tip of the Peninsula, a name that was hidden from me by various awnings and decorations. It is in a part of town tucked between the junction of two Avenidas, Uxmal and Chichen Itza, only a few yards from each, yet an island of local activity where the tourist is as rare as jaguars in Mexico City. The area is known as Mercado 23, and consists mostly of small covered shops selling everything from shoes and clothes and hardware to vegetables, spices, poultry, meats, fish, shellfish. I had come there in search of a Mexican popular (in the sense of "people's") restaurant called La Flor de Hidalgo, of which more later. It was shut, so I was walking disconsolately around, and noticed Contoy at the end of a street. It advertised mariscos from the island, and a notice board listed some unusual lunchtime tacos that I did not get a chance to explore. It was a simple place, decorated with fishnets and models of tuna and swordfish, people dropping in for real meals, discussing and enjoying their food. The payoff, as I enjoyed my meal, was a waiter who, though having no English and me little Spanish, took great pains to tell me what was what, what the chiles were, and the herbs, with no reticence and much care.
One of the first and best, for food, I found driving back into Cancun from the south along Avenida Kukulkan before it becomes the hotel zone. A sign on the seaward side said Restaurant Rio Nizuc - Cooperativa -- Pescados y Mariscos. So I drove off the road down a pot-holed track and found a small group of parked cars. A few yards further was the bank of a river or estuary joining the inside lagoon to the sea, with a highway bridge over it. A boardwalk led me along the side of the estuary toward the sea, with flamingos and pelicans and frigate birds. It was a Sunday. Mexican families were coming back carrying picnic gear, and some food wrapped in tin foil. I wondered if, at five o'clock, I was already too late, or even that I'd missed the restaurant entirely.
But in the end, there it was, a small kitchen building with a large thatch out-jutting roof, a few iron chairs and tables roughly set out underneath, families outside and on the tiny isolated beach. You would not have known that the next habitation along the coast was the famous Club Med.... Rough direct service, beer from the bottle with a paper napkin around the top to indicate hygiene, no menu. With some difficulty, a waiter was found with a few words of English, "Good grilled fish...." It was the best ceviche of shellfish and fish I had anywhere, and as for the tikin zic, wait until I describe it. I had to come again with my friend Jaime Rubio to sample it, the small sward covered with eating and picnicking families, Mexican, Mayan, and some tourists off the beaten track.
There are of course innumerable seafood restaurants around town, serving excellently fresh produce, well cooked, and worth your visit if seafood is what you like. But very few indeed make any attempt to present Mexican, let alone Yucatecan, versions. An extremely popular place, which can have line-ups from four in the afternoon, is Il Pescador, off Avenida Tulum. It is unpretentious with a highly charged crowded atmosphere, with nothing Yucatecan. Less excusable is the Hyatt Hotel's Seafood Market, a pleasant open air casual place with a chef who is a member of the Chaine de Rôtisseurs and makes a show of presenting his "regional adviser". All the fish is on display, fresh and sparkling from the sea. Just about the only sauce you can get is meunière, and there isn't a trace of such things as chile, achiote, or Mayan relleno (stuffings). You'd think an ambitious chef could do better than that. Perhaps he's not ambitious. The attitude is perfectly summed up by the words of the maître d', totally taken aback by my observation -- "But, sir, we don't have Mayans here....." On the other hand, to be fair, the Bucañero has one dish called Yucatecan, cooked with...