Comida Mexicana

Recently, Nate, my parents and I spent a wonderful week in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. There, we relaxed, spent hours at the beach, drank a lot of Mexican cerveza (plus margaritas, pina coladas ... you get the picture) and, of course, ate lots of wonderful food. Lucky for you, I took tons of food pictures (seriously, by the end of the trip, I was tired of documenting our meals!). (Also, please note, that I didn't actually eat all the meals pictured below, but I did, for the most part, at least have a bite of everyone's meal--it really pays off being a food blogger!) Zihua is a great, mid-sized city with tourist amenities, as well as an authentic town feel and culture. We did not stay at an all-inclusive hotel (I think you'd be hard-pressed to even find one in Zihua), but rather a small, "mom-and-pop" type hotel with just a few rooms and barely a reception desk. Lucky for us, this meant we got to try lots of different restaurants, as well as have some meals in our room, due to having a mini kitchen with a fridge, microwave and toaster. Each morning (other than the two mornings we went out for breakfast), we started with some fruit and often fresh pastries in our hotel rooms. The fruit was outstanding (except for a bad papaya we picked up)--we had lots of bananas, two types of mangoes and a mini watermelon. There was a bakery near us that had outstanding pastries. I'm not sure what they were, but the mini loaves of coconut bread were fantastic. We often at our lunches while lounging at the beach. Because we weren't at a typical resort, and because Zihua has four main beaches, we spent the day or majority of the day at different beaches, at different restaurants. There, for lunches, we had a variety of Mexican food, which usually included seafood. We had ... .... shrimp and fish tacos. .... lots of guacamole, fresh salsa and freshly made tortilla chips. ... one of my favorites, shrimp salad in an avocado half, served on saltine crackers. ... another of my favorites, that I had never had before but I wanted to try down there, chilaquiles. I had these twice--once for lunch (pictured here) and once for breakfast. I preferred the lunch one, I think mostly because of the red sauce. ... black bean and cheese sopes. For dinners, we again had lots of seafood. If you don't like seafood, I have to say it would be hard to eat a lot of different meals in Zihua--it seems to be in everything! For dinners, we had ... ... fish fillets with different sauces (just about every meal we had came with a side of freshly made corn or flour tortillas. I'm not sure I can go back to having the packaged tortillas we have here!). ... octopus with different sauces. ... shrimp in a tasty, spicy chipotle sauce. ... beef, bacon, veggie and pineapple "fajitas," although they were called something different on the menu. ... octopus, fish and shrimp, cooked in a molcajete. ... pozole (one of the things I can't wait to make at home). That's actually just a taste of everything we had in Mexico. I'd love to document it all here, but, sadly, I don't think there is enough room! For more pictures of the food we had, visit On My Table's Facebook page.