Antigua Taqueria La Oriental, Puebla: 100% Poblano

There are many overreaching stories about the Lebanese influence in the taco arabe, or arab tacos, but it's certain that the original creators of these Pueblan tacos were of Iraqi descent.


It was in 1933, that the Tabe Mena family first served what is now known as the taco arabe, a taco filled with spit-roasted pork and a chipotle salsa wrapped in a thick flour tortilla called pan arabe. Other families of Iraqi heritage dispute the Tabe Mena family's claim, but the Tabe Mena family maintains that their grandfather Jorge Mena, who had fled the Turkish invasion of Iraq in the late 1800's, was the first to set up shop.


The Tabe family is still behind the spit of one of the largest tacos arabes chains in Puebla, Antigua Taqueria La Oriental. There are currently over 300 taquerias in the city of Puebla that produce this iconic taste of Pueblan cuisine.





Unlike al pastor--also cooked on vertical spits, called trompos--the pork meat for tacos arabes is carved in the shape of a cylinder, not like a child's top, and the marinade consists of mostly herbs and spices.



At La Oriental, you can get the sweet barbeque-like chipotle sauce, or an herb and mayo dressing from squeeze bottles.





In addition to the original tacos arabes, La Oriental has added all sorts of menu items featuring the same delicious pork, even cemitas and arab pizzas! The two items that are here to stay though, are the taco de harina (same taco on a regular flour tortilla) and the taco oriental (same taco on a corn tortilla).



The taco oriental, oriental taco, is a lighter offering of the signature pork on a corn tortilla.




Taco de harina, La Oriental

The taco de harina, taco in a flour tortilla, is what you likely have been served under the pretense of of a taco arabe in the U.S., but if it's in a regular flour tortilla, it's just a taco de harina. Don't feel bad, these are great, too.



Taco Arabe at La Oriental

But the star here, and the most interesting taco, is the taco arabe, made from the thicker  pan arabe. The firm and thick artisanal tortilla has a lightly course texture, and makes for a more satisfying bite. The pork was consistent at the two branches I visited, tender, and plenty of herb-laced pork flavor sweetened by a spicy, smoky chipotle salsa.


There are many great taquerias serving the Pueblan taco arabe, but La Oriental is a wise place to start. It's an original and celebrated addition in the taco genre that's 100% Pueblan, and one of the delicious and unique tacos in Mexican gastronomy.


Antigua Taqueria La Oriental
Over 30 branches(see link to website)
Historica Puebla de Zaragoza, Puebla
Mexico

Super Cemitas Alex,Puebla,Mexico-Cemitas Poblanas, Torta's High Society Sister

What makes a great sandwich? Surely, we can all assemble one, and could likely put together any sandwich ever invented. We can buy fine ingredients, cover any substitutions, and do so with ease. I recently was presented this unusual position and thought about it some.

The cemita poblana is one of Puebla's culinary treasures. It consists of a sesame studded cemita roll, various meat options, papalo(summer cilantro),onion, quesillo(Oaxacan string cheese) or queso blanco(white cheese), sliced avocado, and chipotle or pickled red chile serrano.
But, it was a long journey of ingredients and invention to arrive at this delectable sandwich.

The cemita roll is a cross between a Spanish bizcocho de sal(a long and firm bread) and a galleta hueca, like a French roll. It developed as a unique bread roll during the colonial period, where the original cemita poblana was very different than it is today. Back then it was filled with potatoes,beans, and cactus, since meat was out of the economic reach of Spain's subjects.

The first home of the cemita poblana artisans was in the Mercado Victoria. Many of the sandwich makers experimented with fillings but a new sandwich with pickled cow's feet, onions, papalo, and serrano or chipotle peppers was a smash hit. Other meats were used and other styles of cemitas poblanas developed like in Izucar de Matamoros,Puebla, where carnitas are the filling of choice. There they are known as semivolcanes.

In 1913, the sandwich was given its trademark sesame seed decor.

Today, the Mercado Carmen in the city of Puebla is a popular place for cemitas poblanas as well as the Mercado Venustiano Carranza. Backed in August of 2009, I stopped by the Mercado Carmen entranced by the thunder created by rolling pin armed women pulverizing milanesas into cardboard thin steaks. But, I wasn't quite ready for this heavy lunch after taking in some other Pueblan delights.


After a bit of a stroll I entered the Mercado Venustiano Carranza for my first cemita poblana in Mexico, excited?Yes. A lot came of this little day excursion to Puebla.

There were plenty of fondas to choose from, all sandwich specialists. I looked at Antojitos Lupita and As de Oro, which my friend Javier Cabral dove into earlier this past year. So many cemitas poblanas, so little metabolism.

I settled on Super Cemitas Alex, with ham,foot,chicken,milanesa, pork leg in adobo, pork leg, head cheese, and barbacoa all screaming for their chance to be a part of my first cemita on Pueblan ground. The cemitas of the Venustiano Carranza Market are big, super cemitas!

This fonda had all the right stuff, a tempting tray of pickled cow's feet, and high quality cheeses. They've doing this for thirty-one years.

The butterfly herb,papalo, a pungent flavored green, is that guest at your party that's a bit funky, but you'll never throw another soiree without him.

Chiles don't come with your cemita poblana, they are a table condiment for you to choose your spice profile. Smoky house made chipotles or pickled serranos are both full of fruit and snappy heat.

But, the sandwich maker? He is an artisan that constructs the sandwich day in and day out, relying on a blueprint that has been rehearsed and perfected. He uses Reed avocados, and the bread? Only one bread maker supplies the bread for all the stalls in the Mercado Venustiano Carranza, the Dominguez-Bastran family, and they've done so for more than 30 years.

A woman named Guadalupe and her sisters carry a family ritual that has continued for more than thirty years. They bake in a community bakery nearby each day, fresh, and fashioned in Pueblan tradition.

The cemita poblana is beautiful, in harmonious design. Much more elegant than its street wise Chilango(from Mexico City) brother, the torta. The construction is essential, the sandwich maker crafts your flavor experience with ingredients and precise placement.

A half sandwich reveals Super Cemitas Alex's proportions. Cheese dominates here, then avocado, followed by papalo,and the thinest layer of pork milanesa, my choice for this anticipated event. In Puebla, you can go with the mozarella-like quesillo or the more mild and soft queso blanco.

The top roll is made thin by tearing out the insides, great for making migas,a Mexican bread and pork spine soup .

Making a great sandwich requires an sandwich specialist, the best common ingredients, and an artisanal bread maker. It's affordable because it's the food of the working class, a mid-afternoon caloric windfall for the hungry masses. In Puebla, the cemita poblana has been shaped by and standardized by the soul and ingenuity of the Pueblans. They aren't as good outside Puebla, and a novice can merely make a decent sandwich, or a home version.

My cemita poblana of tender milanesa at Super Cemitas Alex, deftly fried, perfect give of bread, and the forward flavors of bright cheese was marvelous. The extra richness of the Reed avocados and pack of acrid papalo are sensational, all ingredients working together perfect unison. My friend Rodrigo who came with me on this trip from Mexico City laughed how good it was.

Superior sandwich making belongs to the artisans that preserve those traditions, whose lives are pledged to a single task. The torta, the torta ahogada, the pambazo, the pastrami, the choripan, the croque-monsieur, and the banh mi.

We can all make a good or even great sandwich, but Puebla and in the spirits of poblanos artisanos(Artisanal Pueblan sandwich makers) is where the cemita poblana shines.

Super Cemitas Alex

mornings and until the market closes, around 5PM.

Mercado Venustiano Carranza,227

Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza(Puebla City), Puebla

Mexico

011-52-222-246-3301

011-52-222-294-4964

Mole de Panza- Puebla, Mexico: The Zen of Menudo

Menudo is another one of those Mexican foods that is best prepared by a specialist. It seems that all Mexican households have someone that keeps the family recipe. In Aguascalientes, it's my cousin Benjamin Romo. He can conjure up a a pot of menudo that can stop conversation a half block away. I've only had it twice, but its scent and flavor shall rest with me in my tomb, along with the congregation of of a lifetime of cherished pleasures.

In Puebla, the cow's stomach soup known as menudo is called mole de panza. The preparation and ingredients of menudo vary from state to state, or region to region. Some parts of the country, menudo is red, others it's white. Sometimes there is hominy, sometimes there isn't. Two states of Mexico with a similar style of menudo, say white, may vary not in color, but in the stomach parts contained in the recipe. The one thing that all menudos have in common is that they are a weekend specialty, and allegedly one of the greatest hangover remedies known to man.


It was just good fortune that led me to the small eatery run by Don Pedro, who makes mole de panza with the same recipe handed down by his Hidalgan father, Antonio Garcia. His mother was Pueblan. The marvelous soup I enjoyed last summer was fashioned precisely as it was fifty years ago.

It is a rule of thumb that when you see guy with just a couple of tables and one pot sitting on a burner, you must abandon your itinerary and have a seat.

Because this is all Don Pedro does, he is open during the week as well, it was a Thursday morning that I happened upon this place.



My friend and driver, Rodrigo, accompanied me on this trip, and recommended I try O-Key soda, a very local beverage that's not found outside of the state of Puebla. I took such a liking to this soda that I begged Bricia Lopez of Pal Cabron to grab some from her suppliers so that I may drop by to quench my O-Key soda lust every now and then.



One striking difference in the ingredients of mole de panza is the use of cilantro instead of oregano. Don Pedro ties a bundle of cilantro in cooking twine and drops it into the pot. The ingredients are minimalist in mole de panza, tomato, garlic, cilantro, dried chiles, beef stomach, and hey...why are you giving me all the ingredients? I didn't want the recipe, just the gist of the dish. Don Pedro just smiled and said, "I can give you the recipe, show you how to make it, even buy you the ingredients, but you can't duplicate my soup."


Out of respect, I asked if I should put any condiment. He said a little lime is fine, but really,it doesn't need anything else. Many people like lots of onion so I put it on the table. This has been the only compromise in the last fifty years, some chopped onions.

Rodrigo and eye dug in, and our eyes met with mutual amazement. "Riquissimo!" The taste of quality elements, a long and slow cooking, and perfection in a half century old sequence of movements. This is the Zen of menudo. A culinary life dedicated to meditation, and introspection about a single practice, a single bowl of out-of-this-world soup.


Mole de Panza Don Pedro
500 block of 6 Poniente, near 5 Norte
Heroica Puebla de Zaragoza, Mexico