My foodie friend David recommended this Oaxacan restaurant Guelaguetza, he said it’s a LA foodie favorite! And I can see why. Oaxacan is a regional Southern Mexican state and their food seems spice centric, the aroma, color, and diverse flavors are AMAZNG!
A special Horchata con Tuna y Nuez: Sweet rice drink with chopped walnut, cantaloupe and red cactus fruit puree. YUM! Looks so pretty~
Chips with Red Mole sauce, the chips were a bit stale but the red mole is so addictive. Oaxacan mole sauce best known for 7 different colors, they were all mixed with many different spices including cocoa (they do taste chocolatety!), reminds me a bit of Chinese’s five spices sauce, but mole taste more complicated, and has a very unique tingling spicy touch. Tasty Pork rib~
Enchiladas Mole Negro, Black mole sauce here, it’s not my plate but I kept scooping the sauce, too good! (less spicy than red). Vegetarian Tamale (banana leaf wrapped Tamale, fine ground corn dough stuffed iwth red melo and mixed veggie).
This HUGE round plate is my order Clayuda Tres Carnes. It is basically crunchy tortilla covered with black beans, cabbage, and my favorite Oaxacan stringy cheese (chewy!).The 3 toppings are (from left to right) Cecina: grilled spiced pork cutlets (a bit dry), Chorizo: spicy pork sausage (so so), and Tazajo: sliced thin salted and dried beef (very delicious, tearing them in strands are so fun too).
David asked for a sample of Huitlacoche, corn fungus. It tastes like Chinese cuisine’s Fat Choy mushroom sauce. Everything is so spiced and flavored with complicated tasting sauce. The plates are all huge too~ I was both in total delight and lost when I saw the menu, because every item on menu sounded so tempting to order (4 of us only have 4 stomachs). **(Oaxacan pronouced as: wa-ha-khan)
WOWOWOWOW~!!! So exotic!!!
What is mole though??? What is melo??? ^^;;;
Tamale looks curious! The pizza-looking thing you ordered, how do you eat it?? Meat and tortilla separately??
The pizza looking tortilla, it was cut and I’m supposed to grab one slice and wrap pieces of meat around and eat…but the tortilla is quite crispy, it’s hard to wrap~ I ended up just picking up bits by bits with fork and knife ^^;; Oaxacan Mole is these paste they made with mixing 30+ different spices and ingredients. There’s cocoa in them so it has a very rich chocolately and subtle sweetness. The taste is really complicated and rich~ When I brought the leftover homes and Joan smell it, she said “wow smell so…elaborate~” There’re 7 kinds (c&p from the link in the entry): negro(black), amarillo (yellow), coloradito (reddish), almendrado (with almonds), chichilo, verde (green), and colorado (red).
hey Joan and I are planning a beach resort vacation with 2 other friends, and Oaxacan is one of our consideration. But it’d be hurricane season at that time so now we’re planning for Maui. Ah damn want to go to Oaxaca! Next time..next time…Oaxaca is where food lover would go (we should go together ^^;;;)
Sounds fun~~I have never been to Mexico, I want to go!! Maui is in Hawaii? I have never been to Hawaii too!!
Yeah Maui is a slightly less touristy island off Hawaii, no good reputation for food though. ^^;;