- I hope you're having an amazing day, it's Mark Wiens.
I'm in Xochimilco, which one of the southern
16 boroughs of Mexico City.
And Xochimilco is very well known for its ancient canals
where you can jump on a boat
and you can cruise around on a boat,
and so the plan for today is, I'm about to meet up
with my friend Lalo, from La Ruta de la Garnacha,
and we're going to start in the center,
in the town of Xochimilco.
We're gonna eat some amazing street food
and then after that we're gonna go take a boat
and cruise around, this should be a lot of fun,
and I'm gonna share it all with you in this video right now.
(salsa music)
- Hey, hey, hey, hey.
We're in Xochimilco for this street food
of this small town inside the Mexico City.
- It doesn't feel like you're in Mexico City here,
but some history of Xochimilco is that it was,
before, it's own city, right?
It was a former Aztec city on the shores of
Lake Xochimilco, but Mexico City eventually grew into it,
so that's why it still has a small city kinda feel to it.
We are first heading over to the market
where we're gonna begin eating.
(salsa music)
This walk through Xochimilco towards the market
sorta feels like a carnival,
it's like a,
there are rides, there are
bubbles, you'll find clothes here,
you'll find restaurants, there's street food and snacks,
but we're gonna head over to the market first to eat.
(speaking in foreign language)
While you're walking through
Xochimilco you'll find a lot of pizza shops.
Pizza is very popular here.
(speaking in foreign language)
(salsa music)
We're just arrive to Mercado de Xochimilco,
and this is a manageable market,
they have everything you want.
There's clothes, there's food,
there's fresh fruits and vegetables.
We came here, we're hungry, we need to eat lunch,
we need some food so that we go to the boat prepared.
At one of the main entrances of the market,
there's just a lineup of ladies serving food
from baskets and they are packed.
This is where we're gonna start eating,
and they're serving a bunch of different things,
they all look very friendly.
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Lalo] And this is huitlacoche.
- [Mark] La-ko-che.
- You know what is that? - No.
- Huitlacoche its the mushroom,
actually of the mazorca,
mazroca is where the corn--
- Ohh. - So when they pass it
they cut it-- - Oh yeah.
- The mushroom-- - It's the fungus of the corn?
- Yeah, exactly. - Oh, I have to try that.
Wait, does this one have it too?
- This is mushroom and this is huitlacoche--
- Oh, okay.
This is called Tlacoyo.
When you order it, she grabs one of the bases,
she tops it with some salsa,
and then she adds on some tomatoes and some onions
and some nopal, which is the cactus,
and then she sprinkles it with cheese.
The base is kinda like corn starchiness.
But you taste the mushrooms in there,
and then you've got that salty, crumbly cheese,
you've got that salsa which gives it some
acidity and some sourness,
and then you've got the freshness of the tomatoes.
It's wonderful.
It's awesome. I got a big mushroom in that bite.
And you can see really close,
you can see that it's,
the bottom piece is just stuffed with mushrooms in there.
Lalo and I are sharing both of them,
and the next one that we got is with the corn fungus
which is called huitlacoche.
- I love the mushroom.
- You like the mushroom? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's made it with the hands so
it's made it with love. - It is, for sure.
Motherly love.
(salsa music)
Mmmm.
Oh, the corn fungus is amazing.
It has this crunchier texture,
and more of a sour taste.
Oh, this is delicious.
- [Lalo] Yeah, and it's unique flavor, too.
- That was absolutely delicious
and we are never getting far in this market.
We are just going across the way.
- Yeah. - And we're eating this next.
This is perfect then, we don't even need to walk
to the next place, we just,
we took about five steps--
(laughter) To eat our next food.
- It's look delicious, and look at all the--
- [Mark] Yeah, look at all these people.
This is the busiest place in the--
- Enter-- - Entrance of the market.
(speaking in foreign language)
She has two different things that she's serving,
tostadas and quesadillas, both with chicken.
But she takes the tostada shell
and she puts a layer of sour cream onto it,
and then she adds on the stewed chicken,
and then she adds on a handful of lettuce,
followed by a handful of cheese.
(speaking in foreign language)
She hands you your tostada or your quesadilla,
I got a tostada first, and then it's self service
for the salsa, and she said it's a spicy salsa.
(speaking in foreign language)
I'm beginning with the tostada.
- I'm beginning with the quesadilla of, is it chicken?
It's chicken, Senora?
- Oh wow, oh.
That chicken is just stewed with so much flavor,
and that salsa.
That salsa is a little bit spicy, but so flavorful,
that's sensational.
I honestly was not expecting it to be that flavorful.
That's awesome.
(mariachi music)
Outstanding. How's the quesadilla?
- It's really, really amazing.
At the beginning I feel like it's really
unflavored, but when you bite the chicken, wow.
This is a fried quesadilla,
normally they are not fried.
This is kind of quesadilla.
For the people that seeing this,
we call it quesadilla,
but only in Mexico City
we can try a quesadilla without cheese.
But in Mexico you can try the quesadilla without cheese.
- Wow, I never knew that.
Next up, my turn for the quesadilla,
and as Lalo explained, it's chicken on the inside,
so it's not a cheese quesadilla, and it's fried,
and that salsa is just blowing my taste buds
off of my tongue.
That salsa is incredible.
It is spicy, it burns your lips and I love it.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Oh wow.
The quesadilla is equally as delicious.
It's really crispy.
The chicken, he actually was explaining to use that
on the tostada it's pinga, which is the name of the dish,
it's like a stewed chicken.
But this one is just plain chicken.
It's just so unbelievably good.
It is right at the entrance of Puerta Cinco,
gate number five, Mercado de Xochimilco.
You have to come here.
It's awesome.
(speaking in foreign language)
It's almost the same, it's completely deep fried,
there's beef in the center, but then she does open it up,
and there is, she does add in a little bit of salsa.
Oh, you can even see that's deep fried beef
inside of there.
Cheers. - Cheers.
The beef have a delicious flavor.
- It does.
It almost tastes like a sausage.
- And the sauce is not spicy.
Mmmm.
- That's tasty. - And juicy.
- Often, Ying and I like the Jamaica,
which is hibiscus, or roselle, it's roselle.
And it's a great juice, it's refreshing.
We need some refreshment, some cold drinks
after all those salty tacos.
I think I got one of those straws with a hole in it,
because I can't suck up that much.
But it is good.
It's sweet, it has a little bit of a floral taste to it.
Yup.
(salsa music)
Oh wow.
(grunts) (laughter)
Hey we're actually running out of time
because to Xochimilco in the afternoon,
and we gotta catch the boat,
but we're running out of daylight.
But we chose to eat one more thing,
we're coming to eat carnitas,
this is the awesome-est looking stall ever
and he's so friendly, he's such a character,
and they just have this massive pile of
gnarly looking braised, fried meat, carnitas,
just heaping, it's a heap of meat.
So this is a place we have to eat.
They've just given us a sample of the carnitas.
Oh yeah.
That is tender, greasy, supreme.
You can trust this man with your pork,
he knows what he's doing.
He braises all that meat,
and cooks all that meat and then it sits out
on the counter there,
and then when you order he chops it up.
And what he does is he grabs that handful of meat
and he sticks it back into the pork oil juices
and lets it boil again
to heat it and then also to
inject it with more flavor,
and then that goes into your taco.
This thing is an absolute taco monster.
Look at that, there's so much meat in there.
I dunno if there's gonna be any clean way
to eat this, so I'm just gonna go for it.
- I'm ready.
Oh, your amazing taco (laughs).
Huge. - It's huge.
It's huge.
(laughter) Okay.
That is like tender, fatty, oily meat.
And salty.
And just falling all out the back end,
look at my plate.
I'm losing things.
(mariachi music)
Oh man, there was so much meat
in that tortilla, it was just,
it was bloated with meat.
We gotta run now, because we're running out of sunlight.
So this market, you have been very good to us,
amazing food, very friendly people,
and just a very cool, low key,
easy to get around market.
This is a great market to explore before
you get on a boat when you visit Xochimilco.
There are quite a few different boat docks
where you can catch a boat,
but we're walking to one just down the road here.
(speaking foreign language)
We are at Embarcadero Caltongo,
which is the dock that we're setting off from.
So right now we're just,
Lalo is trying to negotiate for a boat.
(mariachi music)
I love the boats, how colorful they are.
They're so iconic.
(mariachi music)
There are so many boats,
so we have to walk all the way to the end boat
to leave.
That took a little negotiating but
we finally got a driver and we're on our way.
Oh, this is our boat.
I think this is it.
Oh, this is excellent.
Micah, you're gonna love this.
Micah has been looking forward to this all day long.
(laughter) Yeah.
So like I was mentioning before, Xochimilco,
its a very historic area, it's a Pre-Hispanic,
it was a Pre-Hispanic town,
and they had created a very extensive
system of manmade canals,
and so that system connected many of the villages
throughout this valley.
Today it's more of a party environment.
People, families and parties rent these boats
and they cruise around and hang out and have parties,
but it's really a fun environment.
One of the great things about this is
there's no motors, there's no engines on the boat
so they row the boat by a big stick,
just pushing the stick down.
So it's peaceful,
you can definitely hear the sounds of music and people
but the peace of the canal is beautiful.
(lively banda music)
- I really love Xochimilco because it's like a party,
really party on the the boats, on trajineras,
it is amazing, just check it.
- When we started off it seemed to quiet.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And then we got into the canal
and all of a sudden it's like a giant party--
- And you say, no, it's so quiet,
you can (overlapping speech).
- A little bumper boat?
- But now, it's-- - Yeah.
It's like a canal highway.
- Yeah. (laughter)
- And there's all sorts of different music
you can hear from every single boat.
It's pretty cool, some of them
are college parties,
some of them are family get-togethers.
- With Mariachis-- - Mariachi band right here.
(mariachi music)
There's so much going on.
(lively music)
- Wooo!
(laughter)
We're adults! We're not fun!
- We're the only ones not partying.
(laughter)
Okay, so it is just about pure dark right now,
but the party continues,
there's so many boats out here on the canals
in Xochimilco,
and our boat driver just said that they'll go all night
if you want to pay for it.
(lively banda music)
Traffic jam right here, there's so many boats,
there's about 25 different musics.
(lively music)
So that brings us to the end of this Xochimilco tour.
Big thank you to Lalo.
He's La Ruta de la Garnacha on Youtube,
I'll leave his link in the description box,
check out his awesome videos.
Yeah, we had a lot of fun.
The market is especially awesome,
there's some amazing food,
so if you come here, be sure to go to the market first,
eat some amazing food and then come get a boat,
and if you come, you can come in the day time,
and it will be a little less of a party environment,
but you can still come 24 hours a day.
- Mexico is waiting for you, welcome to Mexico, Mark.
- Thank you. - It was a pleasure,
it was an honor to be with you.
(speaks in foreign language) - So much fun, always fun
to hang out with Lalo.
But that's it, thanks again for watching.
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and goodbye from Xochimilco.