Dining Adventure! Tu y Yo

Last Updated on Thursday, 24 September 2009 09:29 Written by Elise Thursday, 24 September 2009 00:00

First off, a special thanks to my friend The Red Menace for organizing this group outing and providing the motivation for me to finally do one of those things I kept saying I would do!
Tu y Yo is an authentic Mexican restaurant not far from my home. And by authentic, I mean this is food you would find in a Oaxacan grandmother's house. And one thing that Mexicans love to eat, are chapulines (grasshoppers).

When we got to the restaurant, we noticed the the chapulines were listed as "when available" on the menu. We all held our breath as we placed the order, this after all was the whole inspiration for the outing. Happily (or trepidatiously) they were available.

As a bit of background, I am afraid of bugs. I mean I really dislike them, so thankfully, in the tacos de chapulines that we ordered, they were wrapped up.

grasshoppertaco1

That said, I wanted to be sure you knew I was being truthful, so here's a picture were you can see some thorax and leg. They were very tasty, but I have to admit, the texture thing freaked me a bit, you knew there was a large bug in your mouth.

grasshoppertaco2

Another thing we tried was the "corn smut" (cuitlocoche) crepe. This is a black fungus that grows on corn and tastes like mushroom, or truffles, very earthy and very good! I really enjoyed this!

cornsmut

My main dish was Indio Vestido- cactus paddle stuffed with cheese with guajillo and tomatillo sauce. The presentation of this dish was quiet nice, like a flag, or a country divided. And it tasted even better. I think the tomatillo sauce was my favorite, it's sourness going great with the saltiness of the cheese. The cactus was firm and slightly green tasting (sorry the color in the picture is a little off, the resturant was very mood lit, making picture taking a challenge).

cactus