today we're in Mexico City and we're here to eat this Mexico City series is all about sharing with
you some of the best spots to eat in this amazing city
Mexico City is a
megalopolis with a dynamic culinary scene this is our second video from
Mexico City and we're hunting down the best food in the neighborhood Coyoacan
watch out for some of the city's tostadas, iconic street snacks
and loads more in this massive Mexico series we're hunting down the country's
best food from traditional street snacks to food from Mexico's most exhilarating
markets you don't want to miss this series get ready for some mouth-watering
food I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope you're
hungry, let's eat!
this video is going to be set in the neighborhood of Coyoacan, Coyoacan
is a really colorful neighborhood there are lots of historical sites, the Frida
Kahlo museum is here and there is a really vibrant market the market
has been here since 1921 and it is packed full of stalls selling incredible
produce, seafood, meat all sorts of household goods and there is a tonne of
delicious food to eat here
like all of our videos this one is just going to be about great food so we're
not here to show you massive food or to find a crab just because it's some
stupid amount of money we're here to find the best food so all of our videos
are like that it's all about the best food we're not necessarily about the
visual just because it's going to look good on a thumbnail just because people
will click on it we want people to click on our videos because they know they're
gonna see incredible food so this video again is very heavily researched we've
actually been here a few years ago in the past and researched where to eat so
we're just here to show you the best food and we're at our first stop right
now
one of the most popular things here to eat in the market are tostadas and
this is one of the most famous stalls we have eaten here in the past and the
tostadas are brilliant let's go and grab a seat
what's great about this stall is the visuals you can see all of the toppings
for the tostadas all lined up in front of you it's a really clear menu so
you order a tostada and then you choose the topping that you want
there's seafood there's meat there's vegetarian options tons to choose from
we ordered two drinks two of our favourites when we're in Mexico so
that's tamarindo which is a tamarind juice and jamaica which is hibiscus
flower they're really refreshing and now we've got to make a choice as to what
tostadas we want to order
so I think I ordered a shredded chicken and also a
ceviche tostada now our Spanish is virtually muchas
gracias is virtually non-existent but I think
that's one of our goals for this channel is to encourage you to use food to have
a genuine local experience Thomas and I don't travel with fixers we
don't have someone behind the scenes ordering for us in the local language
but that's part of the adventure for us that's part of the excitement and joy
of travel
we've ordered two tostadas so the first tostada is ceviche so you've got the
fried tortilla and then it's topped with fish which has been cured in probably
lime there's tomato lettuce some avocado it looks very fresh and then
this one here is the tinga de pollo which is shredded chicken
so shredded chicken on the bottom cooked with onions and then lettuce there's some
fresh cheese some crema which is like a thin sour cream almost and then
some avocado and lettuce
I've got to get into this ceviche it's gigantic
tostadas are one of my favourite things to eat I love the texture the
tortilla is so crispy and then you've got all of that juicy topping on top so
the ceviche is very tangy from the lime juice great hit and burst of freshness
from the onions and the lettuce now in front of me here I've got a ton of
different salsa so a whole lot of our different sauces so we've got the green
salsa verde, salsa Roja this one is sort of like a a chunkier tomato and
coriander and onion salsa what I'm going to do is add a bit of the salsa verde so
the green salsa which is my favorite onto this tostada
to give it a bit of heat so it's made with coriander so cilantro and also chillies and
tomatillo which are green tomatoes so chuck a ton of that on there cause I love
a bit of spice all right one more bite
it's rapidly breaking up because the juice from the ceviche is soaking
through the tostada so time to eat quickly
the heat from the salsa verde is brilliant it's spicy but but it doesn't
kill your taste buds it's just a nice tingle works perfectly with all
of those ingredients
something I love about this place is how big it is so all the
yellow around us belongs to this restaurant and as far as market food
stalls go I've never seen one like this and it really screams about how popular
this place is they have so many seats right let's have this chicken one so I've
put no toppings on top ooh you've gotta be careful that was pretty close to
breaking in my hand
Wow
oh that is good the shredded chicken is beautiful the onions really
come through so they've got a very strong sweetness and tang from the
onions now I might put something on this so I said toppings before obviously these
on here already are the toppings what I meant was the salsas so we'll put a
little bit of this nice dark red one on so we'll just sprinkle that all over look at
that beautiful piece of avocado Mexico is known as the avocado capital of the
world they grow more avocados here than anywhere else and the quality is so high
of the avocados
that salsa it's amazing not as spicy as it looks it's really red so it looked
really fiery but it's not and the avocado so creamy everything on this
tostada works perfectly together oh okay now the salsa is a bit spicy but
the perfect level not too crazy now I think this is going to go perfectly with
my favourite drink in Mexico this is jamaica so it's a it's a cold water
based drink but made with hibiscus flower
really nice and floral not too
sweet but definitely nicely sweetened that is super refreshing it's really
good on the super hot days in Mexico it's not actually a hot day today but
it's still super refreshing with the spice and Sheena has her favorite drink
which is tamarindo which is same style of drink but made with tamarind so I'm
gonna steal some of hers
nice and sour but again nicely sweetened so really well balanced and that one's
got sort of some chunkiness in it so it's a little bit gritty super good
drink as well
this is one of my favourite markets in Mexico City the vendors are all really friendly
there's so much to look at and it's so colorful there's actually tonnes of
decorations and whatnot at the moment for the Day of the Dead which is coming
up and also Halloween it's just a really vibrant fun market to walk around
time for some more food there's a spot up ahead which we've heard is really
popular with the locals for quesadillas so let's go and grab some quesadillas
this stall is all go there are people tearing around taking orders the food is
flying out of the kitchen the tortillas are being made to order they're being
pressed right in front of us we ordered a quesadilla which has been just
grilled and then filled with huitlacoche which is corn smut so the
grey stuff here and then also some cheese now this is a true quesadilla
this is not Tex-Mex quesadilla and it's very simple and the smell of the
tortilla is absolutely incredible so let's get into this thing
Wow the huitlacoche is incredible so it's corn fungus I suppose and it's got a beautiful
soft texture and quite a strong flavour, bery earthy the texture of it is almost like cooked
garlic and then the cheese is just perfect I love the simplicity of it the tortilla
has a great flavour too
so we got two sorts of quesadillas and the most obvious difference is the way
they're cooked so this one is deep-fried whereas Sheena's was cooked on the hot
plate so you can see this one's sort of pinched together and it's a little bit
crispy around the edge but exactly the same same tortilla but just cooked in
oil this one and I got flor which is the zucchini flower essentially so the orange
flower you see off the zucchini plant and it looks like there's some cheese hiding in
there as well
Wow look at it, it's super super hot in there very crunchy on the edge where it's been
in the oil so as crunchy as a as a tortilla chip like a corn chip very
crunchy beautiful flavor from the from the tortilla I'm gonna get some salsa on
this one the red one is right in front of me so I'm gonna grab a whole lot of
that pour it in that little hole that's on the top fill it up
sweet spicy earthy from the flowers the cheese is just a nice little creaminess
and that crunch from the tortilla is magical
we're going to leave the
main market now and head down the road to a market which specializes in
antojitos which are little snacks but before we leave one of my favorite
stops in any Mexican market is the sweet shop I just love seeing all the
different types of sweets on offer and there's one particular sweet that we
need to pick up for the road
these are my favorite they're called mazapan and
they're made out of peanuts and sugar and they're really crumbly they just dissolve in
your mouth so we're gonna grab a few of those
yum
we popped our heads into the snack market but it was just more of the same
so lots of quesadilla stalls so we've doubled back and we're heading to a
stall which we've heard does really good like tlacoyos which are like a corn patty
that are hand moulded and then cooked on the comal which is this big pan and then
topped with all sorts of toppings so let's go and grab one
so we've got all sorts of toppings on here we've got nopales which is
cactus paddles and then salsa Roja and salsa verde so the red salsa, green salsa
and then this lovely lady is popping on some fresh cheese for us too
what's most distinctive about the tlacoyo here is that it's made with
blue corn dough so you can see the color is just stunning and this one is stuffed
with cheese you can see the cheese in there it's topped with a red salsa and
then the green topping here is nopales which is cactus paddles there's some
onion and there's some fresh cheese so they're being shaped by hand and
then they're cooked on the comal there so just very gently heated and cooked
this looks really good
Wow the flavour is stunning it looks like it
would be quite heavy and tough but it's not it's very light the cheese inside
has melted a little so it's very creamy and the masa has got a beautiful almost
smoky flavor from being on that comal the nopales which is the cactus
a little bit crunchy it has the texture of capsicum it's got a really nice
flavour oh so good
as a whole it's very simple but all the flavors are very distinctive I
really like the different textures the creaminess and then that masa the
corn dough oh it's stunning
that was such a delicious street snack so I don't know whether it's just
because it's a weekend it's a Sunday today
but the streets of Coyoacan are lined with street stalls so all sorts of
food, snacks and handicrafts so it's a great atmosphere that stall um is usually
there most days so she's a sort of a permanent stall she's just outside of
the main market on to our next snack
our next street food is gonna be churros and
chocolate so churros and hot chocolate so in Coyoacan there are tons of churros stalls
this area is sort of quite famous for them we've come to a really popular
old-school spot it's called La Parroquia and I love the facade of it it just has
this really old world feel so let's go and get some churros and hot chocolate
the smell of this dish is incredible so you've got the smell of the churros
themselves and that sugar on the outside and then you've got the smell of
the chocolate now I find this dish really interesting because it's got two
very different origins that came together and morphed and changed so
churros very well known often called a Spanish doughnut and the churros did
come to Mexico with the Spanish conquistadors so when the conquistadors
came to Mexico they brought the ingredients and the idea of churros so
that came to Mexico at that time however chocolate is something that's been
around a long long long time in Mexico it was very very sought-after chocolate
here in fact was seen as a sacred drink and was used in many ways in sacrifices
it was drunk to cleanse the body so the Aztecs and the Mayans all used
chocolate so I love that when the Spanish came they brought the churros
and then they also brought sugar as well so all these different things came
together to make this so you've essentially got we've got four churros
here which is just a wheat batter basically a donut piped into hot oil
deep fried and then coated in sugar and you can see the shape of them so they're
piped in with a with a with a pipe so you get that beautiful shape and then
we've got the hot chocolate so which has been nice and bubbled up so it's just a
nice little cup of hot chocolate and the magic happens when you dip the hot
chocolate and the churros so oh look at that so I thought the hot
chocolate would be darker actually but it's nice and milky so you can see all
the bubbles on the outside
really good I like this often I find this dish it's too much the chocolates
often very very thick very sweet and it's not the case here and I like how
it's a bit thinner so you can see here when I stir the chocolate it's a very
thin and quite milky hot chocolate so it's not crazy thick but it gets into
the churros really nicely
this is a brilliant version really well done often
it's just too much after one churros you're dying you've got too much sugar the
chocolate's too rich this is not the case here it's just light really good
afternoon snack this sort of ties up our day perfectly