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View From Your Table

The reader writes: I think this is the fourth VFYT I’ve sent and you’ve been gracious enough to post the previous three. This one is even more personal! This is from my favorite restaurant in Puebla, Mexico, and anywhere. It’s called “El Balcon”, the Balcony, and I’ve been eating here for twenty years now (stink, […]
Puebla, Mexico
Puebla, Mexico

The reader writes:

I think this is the fourth VFYT I’ve sent and you’ve been gracious enough to post the previous three. This one is even more personal! This is from my favorite restaurant in Puebla, Mexico, and anywhere. It’s called “El Balcon”, the Balcony, and I’ve been eating here for twenty years now (stink, I’m that old!), since a summer in Puebla while I was in college. The owner is close friends with my uncle’s family, and I’m good friends with one of his sons. Lots of stories to be told about this place.

But the food…the restaurant’s tagline is “Antojitos mexicanos” (Mexican appetizers) and includes such classics as carne asada, queso fundido, pozole, tostadas, mole de panza…and more, all of great quality (and price!). But this dish tops them all. It’s called alambre (“wire”, as in a “shish-kebob”). It’s pork, bacon, onions, green peppers grilled with Worchestershire sauce (an unexpected ingredient, that). You can get it in Mexican restaurants in the States, but of course nothing close to the real thing. Throw some of the queso fundido with it in a corn tortilla, squeeze on lemon juice and generously pour on salsa roja. We missed the Coke in glass bottles today (a much better flavor, of course), but the sangria pop is real good.

That’s Real Madrid playing Juventus on the TV. I can’t bring myself to like Real Madrid, since that would be like rooting for the Yankees.

So…when are you coming down to try it out…?!

You tempt me. You tempt me more than you think.

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