Food

Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.

Guadua ranks arguably as the best restaurant and bar in Puerto Escondido in terms of both ambiance, and quality and creativity of fare. In fact for this reviewer it’s a full notch above the rest.

The restaurant’s designer has done an impeccable job of creating an atmosphere fitting a bistro on the beach, yet with class and subtlety, and a conspicuous lack of that all-too-prevalent and overpowering nautical paraphernalia. No walking over an arched mini-bridge onto these sturdy hardwood planked floor boards. With its full open concept, there’s nary a wall to hang a dolphin, a net, or an oversized photo of the owner’s big catch. While structurally a palapa, the configuration is more than simply functional cross beams and uprights supporting palm leaf; posts are erected at aesthetically pleasing and unusual angles, worthy of note in Architectural Digest. Lighting, while somewhat dim for late night dining, is provided by bulbs dangling inside smartly strung over-sized patterned burlap balls.

Waiters are quick to welcome, take your drink order and arrive back with a basket of warm, multi-grain hand-sliced loaf. The recorded music consists of tasteful Latin-style new age, but only until the fifty-something Cuban-born troubadour sets up with his companion off to a corner to serenade with familiar soft rock and the odd Spanish tune. Otherwise there’s the sound of the surf, with the sand virtually at your feet and ocean merely yards away.

Our first appetizer was tuna timbal with couscous, consisting of chilled and properly fluffed couscous lightly tossed with cucumber, purple onion, avocado and diced fresh tuna marinated in garlic ginger soya sauce. Each ingredient retained its distinctive flavor. The soya was used sufficiently sparingly so as to not overpower. Equally impressive for its ability to showcase each component was the eggplant bruschetta … a purée with roasted tomato, melted Roquefort and homemade mayonnaise, over the requisite thick rounds of toast.

The seared white fish baked in rosemary butter was prepared to perfection, and arrived with sides of salad and mashed potatoes. My long pasta with parmesan and cream cheese with cracked cardamom was cooked to the optimum degree of doneness, but required a bit of doctoring to bring out the Indian spice. The tuna loin lived up to its “rare on the inside” billing, often a struggle to achieve when dining in southern Mexico. Once again the marinade, a teriyaki, was well understated.

We completed our cena with snifters of Torres 10 brandy, and shared the lemon pie frozen to perfect consistency, with hibiscus flower coulis, and then a personal size dark chocolate cake filled with melted white chocolate, accompanied by vanilla ice cream and cacao brandy sauce.

The menu selections at Guadua cover all the usual bases, so there’s little if any likelihood you’ll have difficulty finding offerings which call out to the palate. But the expected ends there. Whether it’s the guacamole with grasshoppers or grilled vegetables with balsamic vinegar from the appetizers; arugula salad mixed with slices of parmesan, fig and lemon olive oil vinaigrette; a burger or baguette; tomato dill soup with sautéed shrimp; a filet mignón basted with green pepper brandy cream sauce; or the more standard seafood selections, each is accented with its own Guadua touch.

With tip and taxes included, appetizers, soups, salads and lighter fare range from 50 to 100 pesos; and entrées from 100 to 160 pesos. Hard to beat? I thought so too!

Guadua
Tamaulipas esq. con Zona Federal
Col. Brisas de Zicatela
Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca
Tel: (954) 107-9524

Alvin Starkman together with wife Arlene operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ). They provide guests with a unique Oaxaca accommodation style which combines the service and comfort of a Oaxaca hotel, with lodging style characterized by quaintness and personal touch. Alvin received his masters in social anthropology in 1978, and his law degree in 1984. Thereafter he was a litigator in Toronto until taking early retirement. He and his family were frequent visitors to Oaxaca between 1991 and when they became permanent residents in 2004. Alvin reviews restaurants, writes about life and cultural traditions in Oaxaca, tours couples and families to the craft villages, ruins, towns and their market days and other sights, and is a special consultant to documentary film production companies.

Alvin Starkman M.A., LL.B.

It’ll cost María Sara and her husband Hilarino about $7,000 USD to get electricity for their tiny, roadside eatery, located about an hour outside of the City of Oaxaca. It’s feasible only if they can get some of their neighbors to chip in. But that would detract from the allure of their restaurant: fresh meats delivered to the premises daily and kept cool in an insulated box; hours of operation governed by nature; no stove or oven, nor subtle din of an electric fridge; and no TV revisiting Mexico’s last soccer triumph.

El Tigre is about the last vestige of Old Mexico you’ll encounter on a visit to Oaxaca, while at the same time as comfortable, accommodating, and safe for North American gastrointestinal tracts as you’ll find in the finest white linen restaurants in the downtown core. Sure, the wood-burning hearth over which all of their daily offerings are prepared, produces distracting smoke from time to time. And it’s doubtful that the blocks of ice cooling the Coke, Fanta and Corona will keep the beverages as cold as most are accustomed. But save and except for these shortcomings, if you’re heading to Mitla, or out towards Hierve el Agua, a visit to El Tigre is not to be missed.

You’ll be warmly greeted by María Sara and her daughter-in-law Alma. Conceivably Hilarino will be there as well. He runs the mezcal operation alongside the restaurant, the implication being that if you order mezcal, it’s on the house.

But you’re stopping for the food and the open air ambience and basically nothing more. There’s no menu, so you’d better either have a minimal knowledge of Spanish, or read on and take notes. Each morning María cooks up a different stew, be it beef in green sauce, pork in red, or something similar. Otherwise the standard choices available every day are quite simple: grilled chorizo (Oaxacan sausage); a plate of cecina (sliced pork lightly dusted with chili); tasajo (thinly sliced beef); eggs, either scrambled alone or with chorizo, or fried; quesadillas; and memelitas. María is used to this writer bringing by North American tourists, who have often commented that it was the best meal they’ve had in Oaxaca. You can ask for anything to be cooked on the comal, over open flame, sans lard, oil or butter.

The accompaniments are sliced tomato and onion (disinfected), boiled black beans, and freshly made salsa with garlic, chili, tomato, and little more, served hot off the grill in its molcajete, the pestle and mortar used in preparation. You’ll generally see a pot of simmering corn kernels being softened and readied for the next day’s grinding into a masa for making tortillas. And yes, of course the tortillas, made with hand-ground cornmeal and prepared on the comal before your eyes complement every order.

Since 1994 El Tigre has been serving the surrounding communities, the odd visitor en route to and from to Hierve el Agua, and those in transit between Oaxaca and the district known as the Mixe. The main attraction for many Mexicans is the mezcal produced on site by Hilarino, using the age old traditional techniques of his grandparents and their forebears. But for those who yearn for a taste of down-to-earth, unadulterated southern Mexico, El Tigre is a must --- uniquely Oaxacan, and as fresh and flavorful as you can get.

El Tigre is open 7 days from morning until 7 pm, Sundays until 2. It’s along highway 190, perhaps a 15 minute drive beyond Mitla, on the left hand side about a half mile before you get to the San Lorenzo Albarradas cutoff which takes you to the bubbling springs.

Alvin Starkman has a masters in anthropology and law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School. Now a resident of Oaxaca, Alvin writes, takes tours to the sights, and owns Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ), a unique Oaxaca bed and breakfast experience which combines the comfort and service of a large downtown Oaxaca hotel, with the personal touch and quaintness of a country inn. Alvin consistently receives cudos from his touring clients after a visit to El Tigre.