¿Que Pasa Oaxaca?

Mexico is always on our list of places to visit. It's right next door and has amazing culture, food, cities, and nature. We've been to Mexico City, Tijuana, Ensenada and the wine region in recent years, and we've been eager to add Oaxaca to our travel list. In early fall we arranged a long weekend friends trip for David's birthday in December to take in this gastronomically renowned city in southern Mexico. We were joined by Shayna, Todd and Landon for this four day Oaxaca adventure.

Our party of five flew in on a Thursday. The trip isn't super far from Atlanta, but takes a bit of time with a layover in Mexico City. We arrived around 7pm and had enough time to run to our AirBnB and then spend the evening out on the town with drinks and late night snacks. Oaxaca is very walkable. Most of the main sites in the city are within a 15 minute walk from the city center (Zocalo). Our AirBnB was about 10 minutes northwest of Zocalo in a small compound of a couple different residences. The owner greeted us and gave us the tour and suggestions for food/drink in town. The AirBnB was Frida Kahlo themed and full of color.

Oaxaca from above.

Lots of little treatments to make the AirBnB special.

AirBnB Shrine...

It was called the "Frida Kahlo House" for a reason.

It featured a lofted hanging net for resting above the living room. Shayna is taking advantage of it.

The first evening in Zocalo we found lots of vendors for the Christmas festivities that were underway, along with a giant tree. It was very festive. We snacked on some mole tamales and elote from street carts and wandered around the atmospheric streets for a bit. Our next stop was mezcal and cocktails at Mezcalogia before grabbing a bite to eat at Don Juanito. Oaxaca is kinda famous for a few different types of food/drink; and mezcal is near the top of that list. Mezcal is basically a smoky tequila made from different agave plants native to various regions of Mexico. David isn't a fan (he doesn't love smoky-flavored food or the harsh alcohol-forward nature of mezcal), but most of the group were pretty happy with it.

Christmas tree in Zocalo.

Chicken mole tamales, Oaxacan style (steamed in banana leaves).

Colorful pedestrian street near the city center.

Mezcal cocktails.

David got a tlayuda, a regional food. Think Mexican pizza.

Friday morning we were all woken up at 6:45AM by the most confusing sound you can possibly imagine. At first we thought it was an obnoxiously loud alarm clock from a neighboring apartment. Apparently, gas trucks drive around the city delivering propane at all hours. They have a special horn they blow to let people know they're nearby. It's super annoying cross between an ice cream truck, a siren, a cow mooing, and a cell phone on vibrate. This happened every morning we stayed in Oaxaca except Sunday (ugh). Local charm, I guess!

After falling back to sleep and then gradually one-by-one waking up and showering we started our day with a quick coffee and pastry at a nearby cafe called "cafe cafe" before meeting up with some other folks for a five hour cooking class. The instructor's name was Alfonso and the business he runs is called Que Rico es Oaxaca. Alfonso is great and we'd highly recommend you book with him if you're interested in taking a cooking class in Oaxaca. The class included a trip to the nearby Sanchez Pascuas market to buy ingredients before taking a car to go to our instructors kitchen above his family's home a 15 minute drive from the city center. The experience included lots of music, mezcal, food and some time with Alfonso's lovable kooky parents.

The market was really neat, and fairly typical of markets we've been to in Latin America. There's lots of vendors selling fresh food, some stalls with prepared foods and juices and lots of interesting spices and odds and ends.

A beautiful morning in Oaxaca.

Landon enjoying a latte and some pastries to share.

At the market we were given jobs. Landon's job was to hold the onions.

Shayna helped pick some squash blossoms.

Paul's untrustworthy face left him in charge of holding tupperware.

There were tons of fresh veggies at the market!

Joining our group at the cooking class was two people visiting from New Zealand and a couple from the States (Miami and San Francisco). All four of them were very chill and fun to chat with. No one was too overpowering or bossy so deciding the menu and cooking was actually really fun. Alfonso made sure we didn't mess anything up too bad and the end result was a lot of delicious food. Our menu consisted of mole coloradito pork ribs, salsas, stuffed plantains, squash blossom huaraches, fresh tortillas, and custard for dessert. For snacks there were fried grasshoppers (another thing this part of Mexico is known for), chips and guacamole and plenty of mezcal and beer.

Adorable little garden in front of the kitchen at Alfonso's house.

Shayna and Paul getting ready to cook!

Group shot.

Alfonso knows his way around some chilies.

Mole has so many ingredients! These are just the dry spices and nuts.

David smashed plantains for about 10 minutes.

Huaraches with hand-made tortillas, Oaxacan cheese, freshly made salsa, and the squash blossoms Shayna picked out at the market.

Alfonso's parents are sandwiched between Todd and one of the New Zealanders.

Landon and Paul pretending to look busy. Paul was in charge of the custard.

Red Mole pork rib.

After the cooking class, we went back to the AirBnB for a mid-afternoon food coma siesta. Paul woke up earlier than the rest of us and took a little stroll around the neighborhood. A few blocks away was a nice old cathedral (Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad). After the rest of us woke up we went to check out a different nearby church (Templo de Santo Domingo). The church is apparently where everyone wants to get married and on Friday evenings and all day Saturday there seemed to be one wedding after another. All the weddings featured a spinning globe with the bride and groom's names and giant puppet effigies that were danced through the square and down the pedestrian street. There was music, dancing and fireworks. These were a welcome fun little discovery for us! We highly recommend you spend some time in this square; it's a great place to hang out.

Paul discovered the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad at sunset on his stroll.

Spinning globe and effigies.

Closer pictures of the effigies. We saw several weddings over the weekend and the quality really varied.

Agave plants growing in the cathedral courtyard.

Our next stop was a mezcal tasting at La Mezcaloteca. They offered a guided tasting with explanations about the mezcal production process, the different types of agave plants and the different notes you should taste in each mezcal variety. Most of their mezcal is small-batch and artisanal. The experience is a good deal for the price, especially if you're interested in learning more about mezcal without taking a day trip out to the agave fields or distilleries. David still wasn't a fan, but appreciated the experience. The mezcal flavor word of the day was "astringent."

After the tasting we made our way back through the church courtyard where we watched another wedding procession before trekking to the south of zocalo to find a hole-in-the-wall bar named La Giralda that one of Shayna's friends recommend as having great micheladas. It wasn't too far of a walk, but it was certainly in a quieter neighborhood that was non-touristy. The bar/restaurant was a lovable dive, with white plastic furniture and fluorescent lighting. Here Paul was introduced to the suero (a combination of lime juice and beer) and he was converted to the suero life for the rest of the trip. Similar to Spanish fashion, at this bar small bites of food came when you order some drinks. So after ordering our first round of drinks we were treated to tepid shrimp soup and some cut up veggies. The shrimp were very "fresh" with antennae and all still attached. David avoided, but everyone else seemed to like (or tolerate?) the soup. After the next round we were treated to some chips, peanuts and eventually even some rolled taquitos. Not a bad deal for what was essentially $1.25 beers!

While at the bar, a few of us decided to use the restroom... which was a mistake. No toilet seats, no running water and lots of stuff was being stored in the bathrooms. Shayna perhaps had the best experience. She found two buckets of water in her bathroom and since the sink wasn't working she assumed the bucket was for washing her hands. She came back to the table, hands wet with bucket water in somewhat of a panic over what she instantly decided was a bad idea. 😅

After leaving the bar we were ready for some more food, and we saw there was tlayuda place near by. It turned out to just be a street cart, but a very popular one named Tlayudas de la Chinita that is only open after 9PM. Despite being in a very quiet neighborhood, the cart was bustling with locals. We waited and got a ginormous tlayuda to share. Worth the wait and a fun off-the-beaten-path experience! Finally we walked the 25 minutes or so back to our AirBnb. There were still ongoing little festivities around the city center, including some teenagers who had set up a pinata in the street just a few blocks from our AirBnb. We settled in for some sleep, ready for two more days of exploring the city.

Tasting glass with an agave plant map.

Mezcaloteca bottle... there were lots of tasting experiences around Oaxaca.

Another wedding procession after dark, complete with a full band.

This one with 50% more fireworks.

Lots of people hanging out in the plaza on a Friday night.

The main water feature in Zocalo.

Drinks and shrimp soup at La Giralda.

Street art

The tlayuda line!

It was a well-oiled assembly line.

Well worth the wait! That's one giant tlayuda cut in half and each piece folded in half again.

Tijuana, Tacos and a Birthday Piñata in San Diego

After exploring Ensenada and the Guadalupe Valley, our final afternoon and night in Mexico was in Tijuana. The city has quite the reputation - Americans tend to think of it as a former seedy tourist party city that was more recently besieged by drug cartel violence. But in the last decade, huge changes have occurred. Señor Frogs and the tacky tourist shops are gone, and crime is down - locals have reclaimed their city as a hub for culture and food. New restaurants and local shops are popping up, making Tijuana an exciting and unexpected destination. We already knew this from Alex and her family, but people are starting to catch on: The LA Times, New York Magazine, and other media are all talking about the new energy in this vibrant border city.

We booked a room at Hotel Pueblo Amigo near the border so we'd be able to walk across in the morning. After dropping off our rental car, we spent some time at Casino Caliente, attached to our hotel. David won some money on roulette! It's fun to bet in pesos, because you get so many more chips to play with. After getting our fill of the casino, we went to Mercado Hidalgo, a large market filled with all kinds of produce, candy, and household goods. We walked across the street to Tacos El Gordo for some delicious al pastor tacos. This is the original, but they've since expanded and we've actually been to their location in Las Vegas!

The view from our hotel, with new skyscrapers going up.

Mole at the market.

Can I have this at my birthday party?

Paul in the pinata section of the market.

Tacos on the outdoor bar, right in front of the grill.

So many tacos on this trip, and they were all great!

David with the trompo team.

They were super friendly!

It was a short walk from Tacos El Gordo to Centro Cultural Tijuana, a huge art museum and cultural hub. We didn't go through all of the exhibits, but we browsed the small but cool gift shop. The building is really neat - it's a huge tan sphere, with a lot of outdoor art and a cafe. Definitely a centerpiece of Tijuana. We crossed the street to Plaza Fiesta, an area with narrow pedestrian streets and a lot of bars. It was still early so it wasn't lively yet, but a few places were open. We sat for a while at the Border Psycho brewery and tasted some of their beers. Beer is another thing that is really starting to catch on in Baja California, with a number of new breweries in the area. Next we walked back to the hotel to change before dinner.

The cultural center is really impressive.

Really cool art at the cultural center.

Beer flight at Border Psycho.

There's a lot of cool street art all around the city.

Crossing the Tijuana River. Similar to the Los Angeles river, it's been fully channelized.

The atrium of our hotel, complete with casino.

Dinner for Alex's birthday was at Misión 19. It's a really trendy restaurant with creative dishes based on the produce and seafood of the region. It's in an upscale area of Tijuana, on the second floor of an office building with big windows overlooking the city. The chef is a culinary pioneer who helped to kick off the foodie renaissance in Tijuana. And what a meal we had! Every dish was delicious, and uniquely presented. We definitely recommend this place as your "fancy" meal when visiting the city. Be sure to make reservations! After dinner we went up one floor and had some drinks at Bar 20 before going back to the hotel to rest up for our early morning departure.

Nice cocktails and great food at unbeatable prices (thanks exchange rate)!

Delicious grilled octopus. So much negative space...

Three types of local pork. All amazing.

Deconstructed red velvet cake. David prefers it fully constructed. 

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and walked back across the border, catching a Lyft to Alex's parent's house south of San Diego. The schedule for the day was a birthday party for Alex, complete with lots of grilled meat from her cousin (a chef). We stuffed ourselves with tacos and had our fill of tequila and beer, before whacking a piñata and having a living room dance party. Fun times were had by all!

The remains of someone else's bad choices the night before.

Firing up the grill for the all-day birthday taco-fest!

The beer of choice for many of the party-goers. Look at those peppers!

He's kinda a wolf pup...

This is small fraction of all the meat grilled on this day!

Stuffing the piñata.

Alex's dad was pretty adamant we drink lots of tequila.

Hanging out, drinking and eating with friends and family. Yay birthdays!

It got a bit cloudy and cold, but the rain held off until night.

So many tacos...

Who doesn't love a good birthday piñata?

Moana piñata, of course!

Blowing out the candles.

Lots of Mijares!

What a face!

That's a wrap on our February trip to San Diego and Baja, Mexico. This trip had been in the works for a couple years and we had a great time with Alex, Julie and Monique. Baja is often overlooked as a tourist destination by Americans, but has a lot of things that make it appealing: from food and wine to beaches and friendly people. We know we'll be back to Mexico soon - it's one of our favorite countries!