I've made it no secret that I love Mexican food. In fact, this is probably about the hundredth post I have made highlighting this delicious cuisine. Guess what, it probably won't be the last either. In fact, just last week I wrote this post pontificating on the fact that if reincarnation is real in a past life I had to be Latin American or something.
As a relatively busy individual, one of the things I love about Mexican food (I'm talking the Mexican food that they serve across the US) is just how fast you can get it. If you think about it, it makes sense. I would argue 90% of Mexican dishes is all prep work. Do you think they are cooking the rice or refried beans to order? No! Those have been premade in huge batches and just sit in a big pot somewhere waiting to be plated. The carnitas have been slow cooked for a long period of time so it's just a matter of making sure it is warm.
Chicken and steak has been sliced into thin strips and just needs to be finished off over the grill or flat top. Then it's just a matter of throwing everything together on a plate, heating up some tortillas and there you go.
That's actually the main reason we happened to find ourselves at El Vaquero down in Columbus, OH on this particular Friday night. My niece had just finished up the last home basketball game of her high school career and the family was looking for something quick to eat. Like I said, they knew that we would be able to get in and fed at a Mexican restaurant pretty quickly. At the very least we would have chips and salsa to munch on until our dishes were ready.
El Vaquero means "The Cowboy" and it is a small regional chain with several locations across the Columbus, OH area. We have been there many times in our various travels to visit our inlaws.
It had been a long day for me, so I decided to indulge in a Modelo Especial (tall). It was delicious. I'm really happy that the US has started to embrace other Mexican beers outside of Corona. It's not that I don't like Corona. It's just nice to have some variety. Modelo does a good job of that with several different varieties of their beer. My brother in law got the Modelo Negra. I need to try that one some day.
Typically when I go to a Mexican restaurant, I usually get one of the three same things. Either fajitas, the fajita burrito, or carnitas. As I have said in the past, most American Mexican restaurants all have the same menu. This means you can go to that place in some small town in Tennessee and they will likely have the same dishes that you know and love in the middle of the mitten Michigan.
If that example seems very specific, it's because I have actually tested that theory. The only difference with the place in Tennessee was that they had an all you care to eat buffet. Bonus!
There is a dish that not every place has that has some variety of chicken, poblano peppers, onions, mushrooms, and queso. If the place we are eating at has that, I will usually get that as I am a big fan of poblano peppers.
On this occasion, I stray a bit farther off the well traveled path. @mrsbozz got a chicken bowl which she has gotten other places and as the title indicates, I got the Cochinita Pibil.
This was a new dish for me, but the description made it sound like something I couldn't turn down. It came with the "salad" plate that you see two photos above. Basically just lettuce, pico, sour cream, guacamole, and refried beans with cheese on a plate.
According to Google, Cochinita Pibil is:
"A traditional Yucatec Mayan slow roasted pork from the Yucatan Peninsula. The meat is marinated in a citrus juice along with annatto seeds which give the pork the strong orange color versus traditional carnitas. They then wrap the meat in banana leaves and roast it in a piib.
Cochinita means baby pig apparently.
I doubt they did everything in the traditional method, probably due to health code restrictions, but what I do know is that it was delicious. The pork was so tender and it had an absolutely amazing flavor to it. The rice absorbed the juices from the meat very well and just made the dish sing.
I'm definitely going to be looking for this dish on menus in the future. It's kind of like carnitas on steroids. You should check it out if you ever see it.
Meanwhile, my niece has become a bit of a Birra Taco connoisseur as of late. If we visit a place and they have birra tacos on the menu, that is probably what she is going to get. If I had to break it down into an easy explanation, birra tacos are basically like a Mexican version of the french dip sandwich.
The tacos are filled with braised beef that is slow roasted and cooked until it basically falls apart. The taco shells themself are then dipped in the jous and heated up or fried before being filled with the meat.
They then serve some of the juice/jous on the side in a bowl for you to dip the tacos in as you eat them, or in this case you can spoon some of the juice onto each of your tacos. I've never had the dish myself, but as I said, my niece is a huge fan of it. Although this dish originated somewhere around 1950 down in Tijuana, it didn't really become a thing in the US until the 2010's and it has virtually exploded since then.
According to Wikipedia anyway.
While my niece enjoyed these tacos, she said they weren't the best ones she has ever had. That honor is reserved for a place in Indianapolis that they visited a while ago apparently.
I've never tried them myself, but they look like something I might need to venture out and try one day. Have you ever had either of these dishes? Let's talk about your favorite Mexican dish in the comments!
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