[0:00] Everyone loves Mexican food.
[0:01] Tacos al pastor, burritos, quesadillas.
[0:04] Except what if that was just scratching
the surface of arguably the greatest,
[0:08] most diverse cuisine on planet Earth?
[0:10] What if the best is something
most of us have never seen before?
[0:13] So I'm traveling all across Mexico—north,
central,
[0:16] and south—to find the best
Mexican food in the world.
[0:19] The world thinks they know Mexican food,
[0:21] but we're about to open up the
other 95% that people have
[0:24] been missing out on all along.
[0:26] And it all starts in Oaxaca.
[0:27] If you could find where
Mexican food was born,
[0:30] you'd probably be looking
[0:32] here.
And our first stop blew my mind.
[0:34] Arguably one of the most insane
markets I've seen in my life.
[0:38] I'm so hyped!!
[0:39] They got grills lined all the
way down this entire thing.
[0:42] Charcoal grills.
They're flaming up over there.
[0:44] This is basically like an
all-you-can-eat buffet.
[0:46] Grill your own adventure.
[0:47] It's a happy place.
[0:48] This is my happy place.
[0:50] I say it first.
[0:50] Joining me yet again is the greatest
food guide in all of Mexico,
[0:54] my friend Gaby.
[0:55] And she's enlisted Oaxaca
native Coco to help us out.
[0:58] So let the adventure begin.
[1:00] Mira, ¡qué linda es ella!
Chorizo.
[1:02] Suadero.
This part here?
[1:03] Yes.
[1:04] And after we got our meats,
it was time to grill.
[1:07] This is fat I think she's
gonna use to grease it.
[1:09] And look how quickly it renders.
[1:10] Now she's essentially
greasing and glazing this,
[1:13] kissing it with melted beef tallow.
[1:15] This puts Korean barbecue to shame.
[1:17] After watching the master at work,
I finally was handed the reins.
[1:20] I didn't know I was gonna be cooking.
I'm hyped about it, though.
[1:22] She really cares about
making this a great product.
[1:25] While I was cooking,
she brought over some fresh,
[1:27] still hot from the griddle tortillas to
just use as a landing zone for the meat.
[1:31] You put the meat down and the
juices soak into the tortilla.
[1:34] This is so smart because instead
of squirting it with oil,
[1:36] you get this slowly rendered beef
fat so there's not a ton of flare-ups
[1:39] and you just kind of brush it.
[1:40] You're treating the chunk
of fat as your brush.
[1:43] Those beautiful peppers over
there are called chiles de
[1:46] agua from the state of Oaxaca.
[1:48] Nowhere else you find them.
[1:50] We'll have a touch of incredible
flavor that we are not going
[1:53] to find anywhere else.
[1:54] And after Gaby threw on
the veggies from the grill,
[1:56] we had our final plate.
That was incredible.
[1:58] I don't know if we made
meat or if we made love.
[2:00] We have here a bunch of
incredible meat: this beef,
[2:03] chorizo, suadero over there.
[2:05] We have some guacamole, aguacates,
lime, and special onions.
[2:09] Oh.
Unbelievable.
[2:11] There wasn't a single
bad bite on this plate.
[2:14] You tear some tortilla,
[2:15] and then you assemble
multiple combos of meat.
[2:17] I was in a state of bliss.
[2:19] But how did the exclusive
Oaxacan peppers taste?
[2:21] Chile de agua.
Cheers.
[2:23] Not too spicy, but what I love about it,
so flavorful.
[2:26] Like,
[2:27] one of the most flavorful
peppers I've ever had.
[2:28] Take a little bite of that.
A little bite of this.
[2:30] Magic.
[2:31] What makes it super incredible
is that grills are communal.
[2:34] It makes it a community...
[2:35] so we can meet people, and then,
of course, grilling our own food.
[2:39] You do feel the communal aspect.
[2:41] Everybody's selling something different.
[2:42] Oh, I want a little bit of this.
[2:43] I want a little bit of that.
[2:44] You can create, essentially,
[2:46] a chef's tasting menu
out of different meats,
[2:48] vegetables, salsas,
fresh chilies that are grown, like,
[2:51] right here,
[2:52] picked fresh the moment
before you grill it.
[2:54] The experience alone is a 10 out of 10.
[2:56] The food is so fresh, it's so delicious.
[2:58] You're going to walk away feeling good,
full, maybe ready for mezcal?
[3:01] Absolutely.
Ready for mezcal.
[3:03] Oaxaca is known for the
land of seven moles,
[3:05] and this iconic Mexican
staple was invented here.
[3:07] So according to Gaby,
[3:08] there is no one place with the singular
best. But there's so much variety,
[3:12] and frankly,
[3:13] it's all kind of up to
personal preference.
[3:15] I tried all seven of them at a
spot called Los Pacos for what
[3:18] I'll call a crash course...
in mole.
[3:20] And while they were all tasty,
[3:22] it's kind of difficult to pick a
favorite because they all have
[3:25] completely different applications,
[3:27] but also more specifically,
because we have even more mole later on.
[3:30] Up next,
Gaby is taking me to a very special spot,
[3:33] La Teca.
This is...
[3:35] coastal Oaxacan food.
[3:36] I'm very excited because I'm
with my very beautiful friend,
[3:39] Deyanira Aquino, known as La Teca.
[3:41] We call Teca to all the women that
were born in Istmo de Tehuantepec.
[3:45] So this is a strong, beautiful woman,
an amazing cook.
[3:47] She's bringing all the
products from their homeland,
[3:51] and she will cook as her mother
did and as her grandmother did.
[3:55] I'm excited.
Starting off with a chile relleno taco.
[3:58] This is heaven.
[3:59] That was completely unexpected.
[4:00] This is the best chile
relleno I've ever had.
[4:01] This is my favorite chile
relleno in the country.
[4:03] Chile relleno is essentially
a fried stuffed chile,
[4:06] but oftentimes I feel it's misconstrued.
[4:08] People just kind of stuff whatever in it,
and they end up being quite boring.
[4:11] And then the inside has this tender meat,
not too fatty, and little chunks of,
[4:15] like, toasted nuts and olives.
[4:16] It's briny, it's sweet,
it's fresh, it's fatty.
[4:18] It's like kind of everything in one bite.
[4:20] All in a nice little satchel.
[4:22] Garnacha.
[4:23] Garnacha?
Okay.
[4:24] That's a good reaction.
[4:26] You cannot try it anywhere else.
[4:27] This is what makes Oaxaca
so magic and so amazing.
[4:30] The quality of the corn and the technique
behind the corn matters infinitely
[4:34] more than anything else.
[4:35] You're down here with a
corn tortilla in a bag.
[4:37] Then you have your first fresh one you're,
like, up here.
[4:40] But then you go to Oaxaca and you see
how they treat corn and you're like,
[4:43] way up here, dude.
This is, like, so delicate.
[4:45] The topping is delicious as well.
[4:47] I love the grated cheese.
[4:48] It's almost like the Oaxacan
version of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
[4:51] It's delicious.
[4:52] Two great bangers at the gate,
and we still had a feast...
[4:54] in front of us.
[4:55] But what stopped me in
my tracks was the mole.
[4:57] We had the seven moles,
and this wasn't even on the menu for us.
[5:00] She just brought it out,
one of her random moles, and it's so dark.
[5:03] I was like, okay,
I'll give it a little try.
[5:05] It is absurd.
[5:06] It's so rich.
[5:07] It's like,
dark and deeply cooked and toasted.
[5:10] The texture is, like, smooth.
[5:11] It's a little fatty.
[5:12] It's got a sweetness to it as well.
[5:14] It's deep of, like,
this roasted chili combined with, like,
[5:18] this dark chocolate,
almost espresso-like level of flavor.
[5:22] It turned the pork into...
[5:23] a Michelin-star bite.
[5:25] I mean, this is...
[5:26] like a transformative sauce,
[5:28] and that is a perfect example
of the power of a good mole.
[5:31] My brain is opening up to the idea that
we might just be getting started here.
[5:35] I mean, if that's where we're at now,
who knows where we'll go next?
[5:39] Moving on.
We started Oaxaca on the street,
[5:41] but now it's time to hit the Michelin
Bib Gourmand level at Alfonsina,
[5:45] where the whole M.O.
[5:46] is to create all their foods
as sustainably as possible.
[5:49] Instead of using granulated sugar,
they squeeze it out of fresh sugar cane...
[5:53] on site in front of your eyes.
[5:55] We did a simple four-course.
Solid dessert.
[5:57] And like everything else Gaby
has had me try in Oaxaca,
[6:00] it was...
wonderful,
[6:01] and it turns out the food is inspired
by the chef's mom's home cooking.
[6:05] So jokingly, I asked,
is her food even better?
[6:08] And, well,
he sent me to his mom's house to find out.
[6:11] And you know,
[6:12] cooking runs in the family because
Tia Elvia runs a breakfast-only
[6:14] restaurant out of her home.
[6:16] And it's a beautifully short menu.
[6:18] But here's the thing.
[6:19] They have no restaurant cooktop.
[6:20] It's just two bricks,
a wire rack set over a flame,
[6:23] and a massive stone comal.
[6:24] Something tells me this
lady does not f*** around.
[6:27] So Tia Elvia took our menus and said,
get ready.
[6:29] I was born ready.
[6:30] First off,
eggs cooked in hoja santa on a warm,
[6:33] handmade, freshly ground corn tortilla.
It was so simple,
[6:37] it had me concerned that it
might be a little boring.
[6:40] The salsa is incredible.
[6:41] Better than any bullshit breakfast
taco you're going to get in
[6:45] Austin or everywhere else.
The texture is
[6:47] insane.
[6:48] The fragrance of the corn
combined with the egg.
[6:50] They actually seasoned it properly.
[6:52] And then that, like,
herbaceousness from the hoja santa.
[6:54] I don't want anything else at all.
Perfect as it is.
[6:57] But also, this salsa is incredible.
That's tremendous.
[6:59] Next up, Tia's original mole recipe.
[7:02] That's absurd.
Perfect.
[7:04] I think this is my favorite mole I've had.
It's so viscous.
[7:06] It coats your palate
almost like peanut butter.
[7:08] I taste the intensity of the mole.
[7:10] I taste the salty sort of
brininess of the cheese.
[7:12] And of course,
the fragrance of that sweet,
[7:14] beautiful corn.
I want to come live here with her.
[7:16] Okay, what's next?
The hits just kept coming.
[7:18] I'm already tapped in.
Memela.
[7:20] A perfect corn tortilla topped
with lard and fresh cheese.
[7:24] Oh.
Oh, my God.
[7:26] That is incredibly good.
[7:28] Another chile relleno taco.
[7:30] Jesus Gaby.
[7:31] Even chilaquiles.
[7:33] This is absurd.
[7:34] One of the best chilaquiles I've ever had.
[7:36] And last of all,
we might have something special here.
[7:38] Costilla frita,
fried ribs cooked in a fresh tomato salsa.
[7:43] This is...
ridiculous.
[7:45] 10 out of 10, no changes.
Zero.
[7:48] How often do I say that?
[7:49] That bite was easily the
best of the trip so far.
[7:52] And this is like a pinnacle example
of the culture and the food,
[7:56] not just of Oaxaca, but of Mexico.
[7:58] It's like an attention to
detail that is bar none.
[8:00] And it feels like we're experiencing
it in the way that it was
[8:03] meant to be experienced.
[8:04] Very, very traditional.
[8:05] We're literally in her home,
in her front yard.
[8:07] She's not even cooking with
conventional equipment.
[8:09] It's like wood-fired everything.
[8:10] She's making this as hard as possible.
[8:12] She has every reason
to miss something here,
[8:14] and she's fucking nailing it
better than most chefs do.
[8:17] I mean, it's fucking insane.
[8:18] So we're in search of the best
Mexican food in the world,
[8:21] and I almost feel like at this point,
we've found it.
[8:24] How do we keep going
from here is my question.
[8:26] Really good local ingredients
prepared properly.
[8:29] Is the food just being cooked
in someone's home in Mexico the
[8:32] greatest Mexican food in the world?
[8:34] Only one way to find out.
Okay.
[8:35] Our final destination of
Oaxaca is Casa Oaxaca.
[8:38] There's so much to say
about this restaurant.
[8:40] It's arguably the most influential
modern restaurant in all of Oaxaca.
[8:44] Many many,
many many
[8:45] many restaurants have been
influenced by this place.
[8:47] We're here to try everything.
[8:49] Just get the last final strong
tasting of Oaxaca before we move on.
[8:52] We were presented with a
simple tlayuda to dip in salsa,
[8:56] a chile de agua filled with ceviche,
a tostada with crab, and finally,
[9:00] an insect tostada with
crickets and mealworms.
[9:02] But the best bite surprised even me.
[9:05] That's the best tomato salad
I've ever had in my life.
[9:07] It's fucking insane.
[9:08] I feel wrong saying this,
but out of everything,
[9:11] this simple little tomato
salad is remarkable.
[9:13] It's so balanced,
and it leans directly into, like,
[9:16] the unbelievable produce of Oaxaca.
[9:18] So you got mini tomatillos,
local red tomatoes, grapefruit supreme,
[9:22] and this black sapote.
[9:24] I'm not a huge tomato salad guy,
[9:26] and this is my favorite dish
in the whole restaurant.
[9:29] Oh, margarita time.
[9:31] Mezcalita time.
[9:34] I do not know how anything will top
the experience we've had so far.
[9:38] In fact,
[9:39] the spots we've been going
to have been so good,
[9:41] I started saving every
single place on my maps.
[9:43] And the reason I can do that easily
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[10:09] The link's in the description.
[10:10] Now, on to the next stop.
[10:11] Of course I love Oaxaca,
[10:12] but everyone talks about really two
places when it comes to food in Mexico.
[10:15] Oaxaca and Mexico City.
[10:17] Those are the best
places to eat after all,
[10:18] right?
[10:19] What if there was a hidden gem that
has never gotten the love it deserves?
[10:23] I have no expectations,
but a lot of excitement for this one.
[10:26] Los Mochis in Sinaloa.
[10:27] I had never even heard of this
place until my chef friend Luis,
[10:31] who's from there, told me.
[10:33] I think it's the best trip.
See you soon.
[10:36] I love you.
[10:36] Luis, I love you too.
[10:37] We've got restaurants
literally floating in the sea,
[10:40] supposedly the greatest
seafood in the country,
[10:43] and more styles of aguachile
than I knew existed.
[10:45] Turns out we might not be
walking into a hidden gem,
[10:48] but a damn near seafood mecca.
[10:49] But then Gaby surprised me again,
[10:51] proving there's even more to
northern Mexico than mariscos.
[10:55] So we're in Burritos Beli.
[10:57] Los number one.
[10:58] Los number one in Los Mochis, but around.
[11:01] This is an amazing experience.
[11:03] Since you're watching how
they're doing the flour tortilla,
[11:05] this is an expertise that
only this woman will have.
[11:08] Like, in this region,
[11:09] the elasticity is very
important for the tortilla,
[11:11] and this is the perfect
size for a burrito.
[11:14] They're basically rolling every tortilla,
immediately cooking it,
[11:17] immediately stuffing it,
and then you eat it.
[11:19] This might be the fastest burrito
rolling I've ever seen in my life.
[11:22] So there's so much fat in the tortilla
that it creates a translucency
[11:25] in the final dough.
[11:26] That's a good thing.
[11:27] That's a good sign.
They're so thin.
[11:29] You can see the filling from the outside.
[11:31] We have three here.
[11:32] This one is the potato.
[11:34] This one, I think, is the barbacoa.
[11:36] The chicharron.
[11:38] Oh, my God.
[11:39] Insane.
[11:43] First of all, the tortilla is so tender,
it, like,
[11:45] melts in your mouth.
[11:46] And it's buttery, too.
[11:47] It has, like, a buttery quality to it.
[11:49] But the filling, this is my big thing.
[11:51] It is seasoned perfectly to
the absolute limit with salt.
[11:55] The porky flavor comes through.
[11:56] They're kind of frying it in its own fat
because you're getting a little bit of
[11:59] crunch from the exterior of the meat,
a little bit of chew.
[12:02] That fatty,
[12:03] sort of gelatinous chicharron
skin melts in your mouth.
[12:05] It's chewy.
It's crunchy.
[12:07] This is probably the best
burrito I've ever had.
[12:09] It doesn't need anything else.
[12:10] There's no rice in it.
[12:11] There's no cheese in it.
[12:12] There's not, like,
a bunch of tomato, onion.
[12:15] It's just literally tortilla, bean,
meat, and it's unbelievable.
[12:18] Next up, barbacoa.
[12:20] He's burrito drunk.
[12:23] What am I doing wrong?
[12:24] The meat is incredible.
[12:26] Even this sort of, like,
fibrous part of the meat is so tender,
[12:29] the second you chew, it just,
like, gives way.
[12:31] These are things that are made every day.
[12:33] They're lifted up by the culture.
[12:35] But if you were to go somewhere in, like,
New York and put this out for $20,
[12:38] everyone would be like, oh,
my God, you're the best of all time.
[12:41] These guys are doing it every day.
[12:42] They're just doing it the right way,
[12:43] And respecting the tradition
of the recipe of their family.
[12:47] I'm blown away,
[12:48] and we're starting off at a level I don't
know if we're going to recover from.
[12:51] I've eaten in all sorts of insane
situations around the globe,
[12:55] but our next spot is something
I have never even seen before.
[12:58] But first, meet Gaby's friend Irma,
our Los Mochis expert.
[13:01] I trust her because her
family owns El Farallon,
[13:03] one of the most legendary seafood
restaurants in Los Mochis.
[13:07] So I blindly followed Irma onto a boat,
and after the most beautiful,
[13:10] relaxing ride of my life,
[13:11] and a little show from
the dolphins—by the way,
[13:13] shout out to the dolphins—and maybe a
little bit of boat shopping for Gaby...
[13:17] Let's buy that one!
[13:18] That one?
Okay, I'll have my guy call them.
[13:21] We pulled up to a restaurant
in the middle of the sea.
[13:24] This is the best.
I'm blown away.
[13:26] I have no words.
Well, I have some.
[13:28] The first two words that
come to mind are: I'm hungry.
[13:30] Now,
I know this looks like a floating shack,
[13:32] but it's actually a seafood oasis
called La Casita del Ostion.
[13:36] This is the stuff I love.
[13:37] We walked on and they hammered us with
a massive spread of fresh seafood.
[13:41] I mean,
[13:42] we hadn't even exchanged
anything beyond a quick hello,
[13:45] and they went to work on oysters.
[13:47] Not so sure about this guy's technique,
but you know what?
[13:49] I'm not gonna question it.
First of all, listen.
[13:52] Nothing.
That might be the best part.
[13:54] Peace and tranquility.
[13:55] Okay, so we have oysters here,
fresh, shucked right in front of us,
[14:00] very simply...
Unbelievable.
[14:01] Wow.
Holy fuck.
[14:03] Salud.
Woo!
[14:05] These are the best oysters I've ever had.
[14:07] The texture is incredible.
[14:08] It has, like, a super meaty chew to it.
[14:10] And then we have a really
interesting ceviche.
[14:13] They scrape this,
[14:14] and then they're marinating
it with lime juice,
[14:15] etcetera, which cooks it.
[14:16] So you get this sort of, like,
fluffy texture.
[14:18] All sorts of vegetables I'm seeing.
Cheers.
[14:21] You know.
[14:23] I've never,
ever had any ceviche like this in my life.
[14:26] As it compresses when you bite it,
it becomes actually quite moist, like,
[14:30] because of all the acid and
the lime juice that's in there.
[14:32] This one has, like,
a lot of texture in it,
[14:34] and it still has the same meatiness
that a nice cooked piece of fish does.
[14:38] It's phenomenal.
[14:39] It's like the essence of the energy
out here is translating into the food.
[14:42] I love it.
Next,
[14:43] we knocked out some shrimp that were
cooked in seawater before our last
[14:47] dish: their impeccable grilled fish,
[14:49] which you assemble yourself
on a fresh tortilla.
[14:52] A touch of mayo,
add a nice little morsel of grilled fish,
[14:55] touch of onion,
and a good amount of salsa.
[14:57] Cheers.
Cheers.
[14:58] Wow.
Right?
[15:00] Wow.
Seriously, it's absolutely incredible.
[15:02] And the flavor of the fish, so fresh.
[15:04] The sweetness of the onion, like perfume.
[15:06] Whole fish,
a little bit of char on the skin.
[15:08] Clean, simple flavor.
[15:09] Everything we've had in Sinaloa
so far has all been about,
[15:12] like, emphasizing natural flavor,
[15:13] just coaxing it in the
right direction with really
[15:16] good technique.
[15:17] Welcome to Sinaloa.
[15:18] Thank you.
Yeah.
[15:19] And I'm never leaving.
Thank you.
[15:21] Now it's on to one of the biggest
reasons I came to Sinaloa.
[15:23] Aguachile.
[15:24] This is the dish that Luis got me to fly
all the way out here in the first place.
[15:28] After all, it is the aguachile birthplace.
[15:30] So we got set up with a
red and green version.
[15:32] Now, typically,
I prefer green,
[15:34] but we'll see which one
is the best of the two.
[15:36] There's our bite.
Mm.
[15:38] Sinaloa.
[15:39] You can't keep hitting home
runs every single time I eat.
[15:41] It's not fair.
It's absurd.
[15:42] I've been to one, two,
[15:43] three-star Michelin
restaurants that do aguachile,
[15:45] and I can tell that this
is what they're going for,
[15:48] and they still can't
achieve it at this level.
[15:50] It's so flavorful, it's so balanced.
[15:52] But also just the freshness is just, like,
hitting you from every angle,
[15:55] from texture to flavor
to balance of flavor.
[15:58] It's fucking unbelievable.
[15:59] That was just the green.
So how's the red?
[16:01] Wow.
I'm in heaven.
[16:02] I guess we move on.
[16:03] I don't want to leave, but we move on.
[16:05] Before I left Sinaloa,
I got to head to Irma's restaurant,
[16:08] El Farallon, and we finally found Luis.
[16:10] He's been missing for a couple days,
but that's all right.
[16:12] We had scallops, shrimp,
the whole gamut of seafood.
[16:15] But then I saw a dish that
stopped me in my tracks.
[16:18] I mean, I'm talking as dark as night,
made of burnt habanero.
[16:21] So how good could this really be?
[16:23] Favorite that we've had in
the world of raw dishes.
[16:26] Amazing marriage of tradition and new.
[16:28] The technique in that bang.
[16:30] Fruity sweetness from it is insane.
[16:31] Combined with the dark flavor
of the habanero is absurd.
[16:34] If you look up Sinaloa and you
look for videos about food,
[16:37] you probably will not find anything.
[16:39] And after being here,
[16:40] I'm realizing that that is probably
the biggest mistake that could
[16:44] exist on planet Earth today.
[16:45] I can't believe nobody has really been
here to talk about the cuisine here.
[16:48] Producing some of the greatest food
in the entire country of Mexico,
[16:52] in the whole world.
[16:52] And we're not even done.
[16:54] We have one last place.
[16:55] We've covered the origin, Oaxaca.
[16:57] Then we've gone all the way up north
to the seafood capital of Mexico.
[17:01] We have our last place, Mexico City,
[17:03] where the pure enjoyment of street food
at the highest level is juxtaposed with
[17:07] the beauty of one of the most dynamic
restaurant scenes in the world,
[17:11] including the number one
restaurant in all of Mexico.
[17:14] But to name the best
Mexican food in the world,
[17:16] it's going to require a unique strategy.
[17:18] We're doing something
different in Mexico City.
[17:20] We're stair-stepping our dishes.
[17:22] We're leading to a top of the mountain.
[17:23] We're starting at the
base of the mountain.
[17:26] It is the number one obvious example
of what Mexico City is about.
[17:30] It is where classic meets innovation.
[17:32] Al pastor would not exist without the
introduction of people from Lebanon.
[17:37] The trompo having the
spinning rotisserie of meat,
[17:39] and then the Mexican people,
combining their ingenuity and cuisine,
[17:43] has created arguably one of the
most iconic tacos in human history.
[17:47] This place is so professional,
but this is great.
[17:49] I always feel skeptical when
I see chef toques and tacos.
[17:52] It's a game changer, isn't it?
[17:54] Game changer.
The tortilla is unbelievable.
[17:56] So fragrant, so soft.
[17:57] The meat is fatty and like
perfectly seared on every side.
[18:00] And the juicy, sweet pineapple.
[18:02] I mean, listen,
it's a beautiful al pastor.
[18:04] I love it.
It's a perfect place to start...
[18:06] But where we are going to end,
it's going to blow your mind.
[18:08] We move on.
[18:09] We couldn't have this
video without this dish.
[18:11] Maybe you saw that coming.
But next up,
[18:13] things in here that I didn't even know
existed from a traditional cantina,
[18:17] a type of restaurant mostly
unknown to outsiders,
[18:19] but locals love.
[18:20] Gaby took us to one of
the most celebrated,
[18:22] El Sella.
[18:23] And I'm going to be honest,
it looks a little too simple.
[18:25] This could be a situation
where looks are deceiving,
[18:28] because this could be
the best meal in Mexico.
[18:31] Hidden in plain sight.
[18:32] The energy is giving me energy.
[18:33] All the people talking.
[18:35] And the crazy thing is there's no music.
[18:37] The music is just...
Just like...
[18:39] this.
[18:40] We just sat down and already...
[18:42] Yeah.
[18:43] One of the best things about
cantinas is the service.
[18:45] The service is amazing here.
[18:47] What is this?
Like a...
[18:48] Chamorro?
Yeah, this is
[18:50] my favorite dish here.
[18:51] Oh, my God.
Another dish.
[18:53] Two different dishes.
[18:54] We have a chorizo, a sizzling platter,
[18:56] and then this beautiful
braised pork shank.
[18:58] The chorizo smells...
[18:59] Amazing.
[19:00] Oh, my God, smell that.
[19:01] We call it chorizo a la sidra.
[19:03] Smoky sweet porky.
[19:04] I mean, it just smells unbelievable.
[19:06] This feels like a very Spanish dish.
[19:08] And they even served it with bread.
[19:10] Not just tortillas, but also sliced bread.
Wow.
[19:13] That looks tremendous.
[19:15] I didn't even need a knife.
[19:16] It just, like, came out.
[19:18] Cilantro, onion, cilantro, some chili.
[19:20] That's a lot of chili.
It's habanero.
[19:22] Oh, okay.
I don't want that much.
[19:25] Amazing.
[19:26] I love this because it's
just like homestyle cooking.
[19:28] This is exactly what you
will find in cantinas.
[19:31] The Mexican, the Spanish.
[19:32] But the feeling of the homestyle,
everything feels familiar here.
[19:36] The waiters, they will know you.
[19:37] They will know what you drink,
they will know what you eat.
[19:39] You can spend here hours.
[19:41] It's just very uncomplicated.
[19:42] You don't need to feel stuffy or
nervous or like you need to dress nice,
[19:45] throw something on, sit down,
[19:46] and then just eat and
hang out with your friend.
[19:48] That's like my kind of day.
[19:50] How do I try the chorizo?
[19:51] I think with bread.
Amazing...
[19:54] I knew you would love it.
[19:56] Yeah.
The chorizo is by far my favorite.
[19:57] Really?
[19:58] Seasoned crazy phenomenal.
[20:00] It's super acidic, but also very salted,
very, like,
[20:03] unctuous.
[20:04] And there's a smokiness to it,
and it's just like bathing in its own fat.
[20:08] When you're done eating the chorizo,
[20:09] you take your bread and you mop
that chorizo fat up and enjoy that.
[20:12] This is an experience that you
have to have when visiting Mexico.
[20:16] No reservation.
[20:16] You show up, eat,
hang out, drink a little bit,
[20:18] dip.
[20:19] This might be the most slept
on thing in Mexico City.
[20:21] I love it.
On to the next.
[20:22] We started with two classics,
but our next step up is Maizajo,
[20:26] arguably one of the best
taquerias in all of Mexico City,
[20:29] possibly in Mexico.
[20:30] And a place where they treat corn like
[20:33] gold.
[20:34] But it's their mind-bending taco
creations that teach us exactly
[20:36] what makes Mexico City so special.
[20:38] Chef Santi, good friend of mine.
[20:40] Thank you for having us here again.
[20:42] He's a new young chef, but also,
more importantly,
[20:45] perfect example of breathing
new life into old traditions.
[20:48] Santi told me he'd give me the
best the restaurant had to offer...
[20:52] So we started out with a bang.
[20:53] Dish number one, a shrimp flauta,
or his inspiration of it.
[20:57] Whole shrimp
[20:58] left all in one piece,
[20:59] wrapped with the corn tortilla that
they make in-house and then deep-fried.
[21:02] The corn tortilla wrapped around
the shrimp protects it just like
[21:05] it would its natural shell.
[21:06] The meat should be cooked perfectly,
and then the exterior crunchy.
[21:10] Cheers.
That is special.
[21:11] It's not a big list of ingredients.
[21:13] Just like the quality and the technique.
[21:15] It's still keeping that tradition
of simple but delicious intact.
[21:19] But it's also creative because simply
the way that they're making it.
[21:22] He could just break down the shrimp,
wrap it in a tortilla, and fry it,
[21:25] but leaving it whole and making it
look nice and presenting it this way.
[21:28] Great example.
Onto the next dish.
[21:30] So this is his suadero taco.
[21:31] This one's a little bit more traditional.
[21:33] This is my favorite taco from all Maizajo.
[21:36] Wow.
[21:37] It tastes like the heart and
soul of a proper suadero taco.
[21:39] But then he has all these
sort of atypical toppings,
[21:42] like the pickled onion and chili,
which I'll put on
[21:45] that slight bit of elevation.
The chefiness.
[21:47] Mexico City, baby.
[21:48] We're not quite at the
highest level of fine dining.
[21:50] We are at where haute cuisine
meets the ultra traditionality.
[21:54] Next up, the New York strip taco.
[21:56] The tortilla is made by hand.
[21:58] New York strip, the best quality meat,
sliced ultra thin,
[22:01] plated really beautifully.
[22:02] Amazing.
Doesn't need anything else.
[22:04] Nailed it.
Absolutely incredible.
[22:06] The meat is cooked perfectly.
[22:08] It's exactly like I like it,
sliced ultra thin,
[22:10] but it has a lot of intramuscular
fat so it doesn't go dry,
[22:13] and it's just kissed on the grill.
[22:14] It's full of moisture, full of juice.
[22:16] Seasoned perfectly.
[22:17] Needs absolutely nothing.
[22:18] Truly perfection.
[22:20] We started at the absolute baseline,
the foundation of what makes Mexico City,
[22:24] Mexico City.
[22:25] With a simple taco that's
been around a long time,
[22:28] and now we're seeing it.
[22:29] Young chefs reinventing the classics.
[22:31] But before we end this video with
the number one restaurant in
[22:35] the entire country of Mexico,
[22:37] we first are visiting a restaurant
that goes by the name of Gaba.
[22:41] A place that's supposedly pushing
the boundaries of what you can
[22:44] actually eat every single day...
[22:46] We started out with a
delicious hamachi crudo,
[22:48] a tomato salad,
[22:49] and a dish that finally made
chayote squash interesting to me.
[22:52] But the next dish tops them all.
[22:54] I cannot eat anymore.
[22:55] You're doing so good.
[22:56] I've been eating seven days in a row.
[22:58] Now we have a tartare.
[22:59] They're lightly smoking it and curing it.
[23:01] Now we're stepping it up.
[23:03] Now we're feeling the Mexico
City of it all on tostada.
[23:06] It's the best tartare I've ever had.
[23:09] This is made with a cut of beef
that has a shitload of flavor,
[23:12] and it's cured and it's aged,
[23:14] so all that flavor is super
compacted and maximized...
[23:16] And guess what?
The salt level's perfect.
[23:18] I know we're not rating,
but this is like a 9.8.
[23:21] 9.9, maybe a 10.
[23:23] In the world of tartares, frankly,
it doesn't get much better than that.
[23:25] And somehow when I thought
that they hit the ceiling,
[23:28] an unlikely dish challenged
my mindset even further.
[23:34] I have never been a huge fan of tripe.
[23:36] This is amazing.
[23:37] This chef is a baller.
[23:38] He's risky because not a lot
of people will get you tripe
[23:41] in this kind of restaurant,
you know,
[23:43] but it still has the flavor
that we know from a taco,
[23:46] that he's the source of his creativity.
[23:48] This is a place I will spend all my money.
[23:50] I also will spend all your money here.
[23:52] It's the best tripe I've ever had,
and I really don't like tripe.
[23:54] And I went in for a second, third bite.
[23:56] This is how all tripes should be served.
[23:58] And now for the star of the show,
[24:00] the pork chop al pastor
reimagined for the modern world.
[24:03] Arguably the largest and craziest
al pastor you'll ever see.
[24:07] So how does it compare
to our favorite top taco?
[24:09] This is the next level.
[24:11] Al pastor taco has been
around for a long time,
[24:13] but now we have al pastor inspiring a
full-on unique dish in and of itself.
[24:18] A beautiful grilled pork chop,
bruleed pineapple.
[24:20] Instead of a taco,
you have this beautifully dressed lettuce.
[24:24] This is the marriage
that makes Mexico City,
[24:26] Mexico City.
It is its own dish now,
[24:28] but it's still equally
delicious in a new way,
[24:31] while still respecting what makes a
traditional al pastor taco amazing,
[24:35] but also new.
Also a different experience.
[24:38] Beautifully done.
Bravo.
[24:39] It is modern cuisine perfectly done.
[24:42] And by that,
I mean it is deliciousness first,
[24:44] beauty second.
[24:45] And I'm not saying the
dishes aren't beautiful.
[24:47] They're stunning, but they're not,
like,
[24:49] so lost in making it beautiful that
they forget about making it delicious.
[24:52] Some of the bites here have been
some of the best bites I've ever had.
[24:55] But where do they fit in the
best Mexican food in the world?
[24:58] So we move on to our final location,
[25:00] the number three restaurant on earth
and the number one restaurant in Mexico,
[25:06] Quintonil.
[25:06] So you want to talk about
innovation meets tradition.
[25:09] This is the highest form of innovation.
[25:10] We have a lot of courses coming.
[25:12] Let's see what they look like.
[25:13] Can fine dining really deliver the
same satisfaction or what they argue,
[25:17] a better meal than all of the
original dishes that we tried?
[25:21] First up, the snack course.
[25:22] They started us off with pescadilla,
which contains tuna from Baja, caviar,
[25:27] Thai chilies, and a grasshopper salsa.
[25:30] A lot of flavor.
Just one bite.
[25:31] It's funny,
after eating everything we've eaten, like,
[25:33] yeah, I know those flavors.
[25:35] Not too dissimilar to many of the
things that we ate in Sinaloa.
[25:38] She's joining cultures in small bites.
[25:41] In big dishes,
it's not only the taste of a region,
[25:44] it's like a bomba.
[25:45] Like a what?
[25:46] Bomba.
[25:47] Bomba!
Oh!
[25:48] Next snack.
[25:49] Mussel tostada, pickled mussel,
grilled and glazed.
[25:53] Cheers.
[25:56] These are the kind of moments
I'm looking for in this meal.
[25:58] Explosion of flavor.
[26:00] So deeply flavorful, super layered,
but also simple.
[26:03] That's a bite.
I could eat probably 30 or 40 of those.
[26:05] Okay, we're rolling well so far,
[26:08] but could I really eat 30
or 40 of this next dish?
[26:11] Fried escamoles, ant larva.
[26:13] They call it the Mexican caviar.
[26:14] That's a better angle...
[26:16] It's like an aged cheese flavor.
[26:17] A little fried donut.
[26:18] This reminds me a lot of my grandmother.
[26:21] She used to do, like,
a pasta like this en tomate, very simple.
[26:24] And then she will add cotija cheese.
[26:25] I think it's like a ratatouille, like,
effect.
[26:27] You know,
[26:28] ratatouille or I don't
know how to pronounce it.
[26:30] Pulling the emotion out of you.
[26:32] It's a beautiful thing.
Snack time is over.
[26:34] Now it's on to our first
main course of the night.
[26:36] Butternut squash salad,
a foam of horchata, brown butter,
[26:39] and rice vinegar dressing,
[26:40] and then what looks like
toasted pumpkin seed...
[26:43] The more you eat it, the better it gets,
honestly.
[26:46] It's like a perfect salad.
[26:47] Perfectly balanced, creamy.
[26:49] Salt level's amazing.
[26:50] It's still the same mentality, though,
which is super simple, done really,
[26:53] really well.
[26:54] We've seen tlayuda in Oaxaca,
and it was phenomenal.
[26:56] But in front of me,
we have the fine dining version,
[26:59] completed with a crab salad,
a sauce made of pipián and galangal.
[27:02] Very Asian inspired.
[27:04] Yeah, that is impressive.
[27:06] This is where they're really
starting to blur the line and
[27:08] create their own cuisine here.
[27:10] You can taste the inspiration of,
you know, Mexican flavors in there,
[27:13] but it also...
Thai flavors, these Asian flavors.
[27:16] This is where the innovation is now,
creating its own cuisine.
[27:20] Now we have reached a course
that is touching tradition.
[27:23] Pork tamale with an onion ash.
Wow.
[27:26] This feels like an iconic
reinterpretation of a classic.
[27:29] But speaking of classics,
the mole has arrived, and I'll be honest,
[27:33] I'm nervous for Tía Elvia back in Oaxaca.
[27:36] Will this be the best
mole I had in Mexico?
[27:38] Wow.
What a dish.
[27:42] It is probably the best
mole I've ever had.
[27:44] It's absurd.
I want, like, a big fucking cup.
[27:47] This mole, take home with me.
[27:49] Quintonil's was absolutely delicious,
but so was Tía Elvia's,
[27:52] so I gotta give it to Tía.
Come on.
[27:54] I feel that we're
reaching a crescendo here.
[27:56] We've come all the way back
to traditional flavors,
[27:59] and they're really hitting heavy now.
[28:01] I'm full.
[28:02] The final dish of the entire evening.
[28:04] This is where it all comes together.
[28:06] A cornbread base with a passion
fruit foam and a burnt corn leaf ash.
[28:11] Oh my.
[28:12] That is a 10 out of 10 dessert.
[28:14] That is a banger of an
ending to an incredible meal.
[28:18] A beautiful crescendo by Quintonil.
[28:20] But we have to ask,
[28:21] what is the best Mexican
food in the world?
[28:24] On one end,
[28:25] I'd say the burrito and the seafood
in Los Mochis was probably at
[28:27] the top of my list. But wait,
[28:29] wait wait,
wait wait.
[28:30] So was Gaba kind of at the same level.
[28:32] And also, so was the cantina,
[28:33] and so was the incredible
breakfast made by hand.
[28:36] So how are we supposed
to pick a winner here?
[28:38] I think what I'm realizing is these
were all equally great in their own way.
[28:42] And this isn't a cop out.
[28:43] It doesn't matter how much money
you spend or how fancy your meal is.
[28:46] Sure,
[28:47] you can have great on
both ends of the spectrum,
[28:49] but really,
it comes down to making it the right way.
[28:51] Taking the ingredients that they
have that are already around them
[28:55] locally and just treating them
with respect and actually giving a
[28:58] when they make the food.
[29:00] And Tía Elvia cared just
as much as Quintonil cared.
[29:03] Quintonil cared just as
much as the cantina cared.
[29:06] And everybody in those individual
restaurants seated next to each
[29:08] other were having a great time.
[29:09] And that is what the best
Mexican food is all about...
[29:12] Love you.
Subscribe.
[29:13] Bye.