One of the nice things about Guanajuato is the street food. It is plentiful, cheap, and quite good, often tastier than what you'll find in restaurants. The places I tried, mostly around the Embajadoras area, have all also been safe on the stomach. One could live off street food, I would think, at least in a crunch, spending less than $5 a day and yet be fairly well filled. Not a bad thing, and yet all a fun sort of scavenger hunt.
The first food stall I tried in Guanajuato was one selling tacos al vapor (see pic below). Yes, steamed tacos, which are basically a variation on the tacos de canasta theme. They are soft, since steamed, which makes them feel more like enchiladas than tacos, but they are good and cheap at only 7 pesos a piece. The fillings are usually cheese, mashed potato, chicken, or chicharon. At most stands, you can also pile as much cabbage, jicama, pineapple, lime or whatever else they have on stock on top, making for a mightily delicious meal.
One of my favorite street foods in Guanajuato were the tamales, and these are sold there almost exclusively in the morning. There was a fellow near school who set up his table early in the morning, where he'd sell tamale, both in the northern style wrapped in corn husks and in the Oaxaca style, wrapped in banana leaves. I would go almost every morning before my classes and get a tamale and a chapurrado (chocolate flavored atole drink).
Another street food that I quite like, and it is one thing that I think they seem to do better in Guanajuato than in other parts of Mexico, is the corn on the cob, known as elotes. They take the boiled corn on the cob, impale it on a wooden stick, and then cover it with mayonnaise, queso blanco, and a bit of chile powder. It is really good! The same thing can be had off the cob, served in cup, in which case it is called, at least in Guanajuato, esquites.
You will notice in the photo below that while the woman is preparing an elote, the man is preparing what looks like giant edamame. Well, they are not edamame but rather garbanzos. Yes, a green relative of the chickpeas of salad bar fame. They sell them in a bag, with a squeeze of lemon juice and some chile sauce. Quite good too.
In some spots you see tiny little stands selling tacos dorados (goldne, i.e., fried, tacos). These are quite cheap and pretty tasty, albeit simple. The fillings can be chicken, picadillo, or even potatoes. The stands usually surface late in the afternoon and stay open until about 8PM. There was one I used to visit fairly often near the school, which you can see in the pics below.
Of course, the king of the food stands is the taco, and most of the taco stands came out at night, well, at around sundown, and stayed open until about 9. Some stands specialized in one thing. The stand below, for example, was all about beef.
One of the most popular stands in the neighborhood was one that specialized in tacos de tripas (tripe). It was one of the few taco stands that was open only during the day, from about 9:30 to 3:00. It seemed especially popular among students, which surprised me for some reason. Anyway, I tried the tacos a couple of times, and they weren't bad.
The best taco stand of all, however, was the one at the base of the stairs of my callejón. It had odd hours and was sometimes not there at all on days when you were the hungriest, but it was definitely the most popular spot in the neighborhood, and there were always people crowded around. It usually had three or four different meat fillings available, and they changed every day, and the tortillas were large, and the toppings and salsa many. They also had a pot of beans from which you could spoon out some beans to put on your taco, and they had small potatoes roasted over the fire. One night I was surprised to meet a couple of Korean nurses there who were travelling through Latin America, and we had a good time talking about their travels. They said that the stand had the tastiest tacos they had ever had, so the place had its appeal.
Now although technically not street food, the mercado in the Embajadoras area sort of crossed the line a bit, with many street stands directly outside the mercado and the people going into the mercado to get other things to eat with the things they were eating outside. And the greatest thing they had in that mercado were the tortas de carnitas. The meat there was delicious in that wonderful Michoacan style. Definitely glad I don't live near the place or I'd have a heart so badly clogged they'd have to put dynamite in my body to clear it all out. Haha. Yes, I thought it was that good!
I could go on and on about food in this post, but I have to stop somewhere, and so I'll stop with hamburgers. Hamburger stands are pretty common in Guanajuato, and they usually serve hamburgers and hot dogs. Although I had eaten burgers in Guanajuato before, I decided to try one from a street stand on my very last night in town, which seems an odd choice for a farewell-Guanajuato meal, but it somehow just seemed to match the mood of the evening.
The burger was good, at least it was normal, and it came with a plastic bag of jamaica and french fries. Like most places in Mexico, the fries are cut and fried when you order then which results in their taking a bit of time to prepare and cook, and of their being fairly pale, though hot and cooked, once on the plate.
This photo of me looking dweeby with all hands full, was taken by a girl who was waiting for her hot dogs at the same stand. Well, to honest, we were both waiting on the fries, which as I mention take a while to cook up. Turns out she was a nursing student (why to I know and run into so many nurses and nursing students?) from some town in southern Texas near the Mexican border.
The first food stall I tried in Guanajuato was one selling tacos al vapor (see pic below). Yes, steamed tacos, which are basically a variation on the tacos de canasta theme. They are soft, since steamed, which makes them feel more like enchiladas than tacos, but they are good and cheap at only 7 pesos a piece. The fillings are usually cheese, mashed potato, chicken, or chicharon. At most stands, you can also pile as much cabbage, jicama, pineapple, lime or whatever else they have on stock on top, making for a mightily delicious meal.
One of my favorite street foods in Guanajuato were the tamales, and these are sold there almost exclusively in the morning. There was a fellow near school who set up his table early in the morning, where he'd sell tamale, both in the northern style wrapped in corn husks and in the Oaxaca style, wrapped in banana leaves. I would go almost every morning before my classes and get a tamale and a chapurrado (chocolate flavored atole drink).
Another street food that I quite like, and it is one thing that I think they seem to do better in Guanajuato than in other parts of Mexico, is the corn on the cob, known as elotes. They take the boiled corn on the cob, impale it on a wooden stick, and then cover it with mayonnaise, queso blanco, and a bit of chile powder. It is really good! The same thing can be had off the cob, served in cup, in which case it is called, at least in Guanajuato, esquites.
You will notice in the photo below that while the woman is preparing an elote, the man is preparing what looks like giant edamame. Well, they are not edamame but rather garbanzos. Yes, a green relative of the chickpeas of salad bar fame. They sell them in a bag, with a squeeze of lemon juice and some chile sauce. Quite good too.
In some spots you see tiny little stands selling tacos dorados (goldne, i.e., fried, tacos). These are quite cheap and pretty tasty, albeit simple. The fillings can be chicken, picadillo, or even potatoes. The stands usually surface late in the afternoon and stay open until about 8PM. There was one I used to visit fairly often near the school, which you can see in the pics below.
Of course, the king of the food stands is the taco, and most of the taco stands came out at night, well, at around sundown, and stayed open until about 9. Some stands specialized in one thing. The stand below, for example, was all about beef.
One of the most popular stands in the neighborhood was one that specialized in tacos de tripas (tripe). It was one of the few taco stands that was open only during the day, from about 9:30 to 3:00. It seemed especially popular among students, which surprised me for some reason. Anyway, I tried the tacos a couple of times, and they weren't bad.
The best taco stand of all, however, was the one at the base of the stairs of my callejón. It had odd hours and was sometimes not there at all on days when you were the hungriest, but it was definitely the most popular spot in the neighborhood, and there were always people crowded around. It usually had three or four different meat fillings available, and they changed every day, and the tortillas were large, and the toppings and salsa many. They also had a pot of beans from which you could spoon out some beans to put on your taco, and they had small potatoes roasted over the fire. One night I was surprised to meet a couple of Korean nurses there who were travelling through Latin America, and we had a good time talking about their travels. They said that the stand had the tastiest tacos they had ever had, so the place had its appeal.
Now although technically not street food, the mercado in the Embajadoras area sort of crossed the line a bit, with many street stands directly outside the mercado and the people going into the mercado to get other things to eat with the things they were eating outside. And the greatest thing they had in that mercado were the tortas de carnitas. The meat there was delicious in that wonderful Michoacan style. Definitely glad I don't live near the place or I'd have a heart so badly clogged they'd have to put dynamite in my body to clear it all out. Haha. Yes, I thought it was that good!
I could go on and on about food in this post, but I have to stop somewhere, and so I'll stop with hamburgers. Hamburger stands are pretty common in Guanajuato, and they usually serve hamburgers and hot dogs. Although I had eaten burgers in Guanajuato before, I decided to try one from a street stand on my very last night in town, which seems an odd choice for a farewell-Guanajuato meal, but it somehow just seemed to match the mood of the evening.
The burger was good, at least it was normal, and it came with a plastic bag of jamaica and french fries. Like most places in Mexico, the fries are cut and fried when you order then which results in their taking a bit of time to prepare and cook, and of their being fairly pale, though hot and cooked, once on the plate.
This photo of me looking dweeby with all hands full, was taken by a girl who was waiting for her hot dogs at the same stand. Well, to honest, we were both waiting on the fries, which as I mention take a while to cook up. Turns out she was a nursing student (why to I know and run into so many nurses and nursing students?) from some town in southern Texas near the Mexican border.
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