Roadside Food for Mexico Adventure Travel

“You’re going to Mexico, huh?  Don’t drink the water.”  Well-meaning friends have no idea, even though they think they do.

Montezuma’s Revenge: The food-based “burning ring of fire” as experienced by those of us who eat a meal or two south of the border.  Some say it’s from the water.  Some think it’s from beef you thought was sirloin that turns out to be – most certainly – not sirloin.

Though you may avoid drinking the tap water, simple foods like lettuce still get washed in it.  So do the plates you’re eating off of.  Embrace Montezuma, to hell with it – load up.  All you have to do is get through it once, and you’re good.  This means crossing over and locating a smokey carne asada stand or “Tacos de Miguel” roadside shack: and throw down with the food, including all the vegetables, fresh made salsa, hand-squeezed limes, and the who-knows-where-this-cow-came-from-or-which-part-of-it-I’m-eating meat.

Bear down for the next 48 hours.  Then it’s over.  You’re Aquafina-and-FDA-pampered Norte Americano digestive system has been introduced and prepared for the way food is handled and eaten around the globe. Eat all the streetside Mexican fare you want, you’re body’s been through rush, or boot camp, or whatever you want to liken the experience to. Go ahead, drink the Mexican water.  No worries.

On my adventures down Mexico way, this is just the way it goes.  Because the food is so damn good.  It’s worth it.

Did you know that the 50 pounds of free chips and salsa you get at your nearest Mexican food restaurant in the U.S. of A. is an invention that’s not practiced in Mexico?  However, unique salsa is.  I swear, it’s never the same in any two restaurants, or taco stands – and you never know if it’ll be a firey kind, a green kind, a red kind, or heavy on cilantro, or light on onion, or if the tomato is diced or minced . . . so this is part of the fun with eating down south.  

Not long ago, I passed through the town of Caborca in Sonora, Mexico, and stopped at “Super Pollo.”  Stop laughing, that’s really the name of the place.  Super.

Inside, you’ll find several quaint tables, hanging plants, and a nice lady bringing cold Pepsi’s in glass bottles and then a husky guy operating the charcoal grill.  He’s got it loaded up with 20 or 30 whole chickens and he’s coating them with raw eggs.  How’s that sound?  

I’m with my wife, and daughter, and my brother, his daughter, and his girlfriend.  So we order up two whole chickens and the full works of veggies and sides.  That is, fresh lettuce and onion, a dozen or so lime halves, a warm basket of both flour and corn tortillas, and (of course!) a small dish of hand made salsa.  It’s rather green in color, so it’s light on tomato and heavy on fire.  Superb.  A set of cold Pepsis to coat our teeth with high-fructose corn syrup and help wash down the egg covered chicken.

Yummy.  

The nice lady, too, pulled some string for us and got the Super Chicken Grill Man to make two small quesadillas for our daughters.  For the record, I think that quesadilla translates literally to: cheesy thing, or thing made with cheese.  That cracks me up.

Check it out, a video of real roadside pollo al carbon in Mexico: