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e state of quintana roo about two hours south of cancun this stretch of coast has been dubbed the mayan riviera by the mexican tourism industry formerly fishermen s villages the coast was developed into a major resort area in the 1970s starting with cancun now playa del carmen between cancun and tulum is the most glamorous of the resort areas tulum is less developed without the crass all inclusives that dominate the other beaches it was formerly the beach favored by backpackers and you still see several places announcing yoga classes but prices have gone up considerably and it s hard to find budget accommodations at the beach these days what the beach areas all share are miles of pristine white sand and the sea as blue as paul newman s eyes tulum is also the site of an ancient mayan ruin though a minor one in terms of its importance in the mayan world as well as the quality of its architecture and preservation still it s one of the most visited due to easy access from the beach resorts in my hour at the ruins i saw more tourists than the much more spectacular uxmal ruins close to merida probably sees in a month the one thing that sets the tulum ruins apart from other mayan sites is the dramatic seaside setting the third tulum is tulum pueblo the town just a bit inland from the beach where hotels cater to budget travelers and where many of the folks who work at the beach hotels tend to live i stayed in tulum pueblo at a decent enough little hotel called maison tulum which was marred only by an annoying clueless manager who reminded me of something out of fawlty towers what tulum pueblo does offer the tourist even those staying at the beaches is a strip of interesting international restaurants i ate at an argentine steak house and a surprisingly good vietnamese restaurant i visited the ruins the morning after i arrived in town and shared my time at the site with hundreds of others many coming in large tour groups led by men and women with those silly flags the ruins are perhaps worth visiting as long as you re in the area but unless you re a mayan ruin completist you wouldn t be missing much if you skipped it afterwards i took a cab a bit down the coast to one of the main stretches of beach where i had lunch and drinks at la zebra a beach hotel that also rents cabanas for day use after lunch i took a long romantic walk on the beach with that certain someone me i had two of la zebra s fabulous house special pineapple margaritas for lunch i had some excellent grilled fish tacos the night before after i had arrived in tulum pueblo i had a nice steak dinner at el pequeno buenos aires one of the pueblo s two argentine steak houses happily they offered half orders of meat just enough after my spicy beef empanada and along with my order of frites with parsley garlic and olive oil they offer a number of cuts of steak and i went with the vacio an argentine cut of flank steak that s not common outside of argentina but my real find in tulum pueblo was el canto de buda a 3 month old vietnamese restaurant i scouted it out after i finished my argentine dinner and after looking at the menu and seeing the vietnamese proprietress greeting customers i decided it might very well be the real thing and decided to dine there the following evening not only was it the real thing it was better than most vietnamese restaurants in new york for 135 pesos under 11 i had a three course dinner juice or tea included that consisted of fabulous spring rolls a crab souffle made with crabmeat egg chopped pork glass noodles and mushrooms a side of fried rice and a dessert of tapioca pudding with sweet potato i told the owner that her food was excellent and she replied that she was lucky to have found a very good cook mexican or vietnamese i asked mexican then i told her that in new york no matter what type of restaurant you were dining at odds were pretty good that the guys doing the actual cooking were mexican or central american posted by peter cherches at 3 45 pm 1 comments thursday december 08 2011 24 hours in valladolid no i m not trying to write one of those pieces for the new york times travel section but i did spend literally 24 hours in valladolid valladolid is yucatan state s second city but it s really just a little town pop 45 000 compared to merida s nearly one million population like merida valladolid was named for a city in spain the town is located about halfway between merida and the beaches of the mayan riviera in the neighboring state of quintana roo i took a bus from merida that got me in around 3 30 in the afternoon and took the same bus the following day onward to tulum valladolid s a pleasant place to spend a day life is taken at a slower pace than in the big city and you get the feeling that not much has changed in the past fifty years it s a convenient base for the mayan ruins of chichen itza and ek balam but for me it was a nice way to break up the bus ride the town s main plaza is usually referred to simply as el centro on one side is the cathedral and on another is the hotel el meson del marques where i stayed i m a sucker for a good cloud formation and i shot this near el centro i noticed many congregations of crows in both merida and valladolid and they re capable of a cacophonous hitchcockian racket there aren t many real sights in valladolid and one wouldn t make a special trip to see them one of them is the convento de san bernardino which was actually a franciscan monastery valladolid has a cenote right in the heart of town cenote zaci cenotes are sinkholes that collect rainwater and some are popular for swimming in mayan times cenotes were the main source of fresh water in areas without lakes or rivers zaci is not as visually spectacular as some are considered to be but one still gets the feel of one with stalactites and stalagmites overlooking the pool valladolid s biggest surprise is that it s now in its own small way a true foodie destination up until a couple of years ago the restaurant at el meson del marques was considered the town s best eatery their menu features a number of valladolid specialties for an appetizer i had the valladolid style longaniza a semi dry smoked sausage delectably charred i followed that with queso relleno one of the yucatan s most interesting dishes literally stuffed cheese it normally consists of an edam cheese rind yes dutch cheese in the new world stuffed with chopped meat steamed until the cheese gets runny apparently the hacienda owners would eat the center of the cheese and leave the rinds for the servants and i guess one of them figured out this nice way of utilizing the rind the version at el meson del marques however is a variation sort of a deconstructed queso relleno served in a broth along with turkey meat this nice piece from food and wine features a discussion of queso relleno el meson del marques was dethroned as the king of valladolid eateries only two years ago when taberna de los frailes the friars tavern opened right next to the convento de san bernardino and upped the culinary ante with their elegant fusion of local ingredients and haute cuisine techniques this turned out to be the culinary highlight of my most recent trip to mexico i started with a fabulous fish soup that was accented with a local liqueur even better was the tsi ik a kind of ceviche of pulled smoked pork that had a perfect balance of flavors and my dessert a lemon cake that tasted similar to key lime pie was fantastic too i think 24 hours in valladolid is just about right unless you re using the town as a base to visit some of the mayan antiquities my only regret was that i only had one opportunity to eat at taberna de los frailes posted by peter cherches at 8 07 pm 6 comments saturday november 26 2011 eating in veracruz seafood of course except for breakfast on thursday i had lunch at one of the beachfront palapas on the rather shabby beach next to the aquarium i m not a beach person so i didn t seek out the good one further out in the adjacent town of boca del rio a separate municipality but for practical purposes an extension of veracruz these restaurants all have similar menus so i chose the most crowded one i had a crab cocktail and pulpo octopus a la veracruzana both respectable though unspectacular i always find mexican cocktail sauces much too sweet so lime and chile sauce were added liberally any seafood dish called a la veracruzana which you can find at many mexican restaurants in the u s features a sauce of chopped tomatoes and onions one of veracruz s most famous seafood restaurants villa rica has a branch at the gran hotel diligencias right on the zocalo main square where i happened to be staying i started with an order of shrimp empanadas which may well have been the best empanadas i ve ever tasted for my main course i chose the fish filet stuffed with mixed seafood this too was quite good except for the fact that it had a white sauce which seemed to be mayo based which is really not my cuppa or even my copa in veracruz you can get many things stuffed with seafood fish filet crab shells pineapples and coconuts i washed my dinner down with a dark bohemia beer and finished with a herradura anejo anejos are the cognac of tequila this was my thanksgiving dinner i d save the turkey for yucatan where it s a staple of the local cuisine the next day i had lunch at a food court that s full of stalls selling seafood dishes of all sorts at one of the stalls i had camaron enchipotlado shrimp in a chipotle sauce picante y muy delicioso for dinner i tried a place that i had scouted out earlier but which turned out to be somewhat disappointing i ordered the stuffed crab not realizing that it would be pretty much the same stuffing i had the night before only not as good still the owner waiter was really nice and after dinner he brought me several small alcoholic batidas shakes on the house a guanabana and a mango posted by peter cherches at 8 20 pm 3 comments friday november 25 2011 veracruz the malecon i spent thanksgiving and the day after in veracruz before heading off to the yucatan and i ll tell you what i ate next time but now it s time to share some photos of the city regular readers of word of mouth may have noticed that the pickings have been slim for a while well i ve pretty much decided that for the time being at least i ll only be blogging when i travel or to announce new creative publications online i ve been curious about veracruz for some time as a major port on the gulf of mexico it s got a somewhat different character from other parts of mexico a certain cosmopolitanism and an embrace of other cultures especially caribbean i was particularly interested in the music of the region much of which incorporates afro caribbean rhythms especially cuban so i was rather disappointed that two music clubs i d read about el rincon de la trova and kachamba were no longer in operation still in the evening there s really non stop music around the zocalo the main square the heart of veracruz cafe culture roving musicians play marimba often augmented by a drum kit featuring a timbal while other groups play the local son jarocho la bamba is the most famous song in this style and occasionally mariachi in truth while pleasant enough and laid back veracruz is nothing special by day but at night it really comes to life both on the zocalo and the malecon waterfront veracruz has lots of statues this one which i found rather cute is in honor of the spanish immigrants who arrived through the port of veracruz veracruz also has lots of porticoes which provide shade in a city that can get pretty hot this feature along with a distinctive local cuisine are qualities it shares with bologna the top of the cathedral supposedly it s not a particularly interesting one and i didn t go inside a marimba plays for diners on the zocalo posted by peter cherches at 6 05 pm 14 comments about me name peter cherches called one of the innovators of the short short story by publishers weekly peter cherches is a writer singer and lyricist over the past 40 years his work fiction nonfiction and poetry has appeared in scores of magazines anthologies and websites including transatlantic review bomb harper s north american review semiotext e and poetry 180 poet billy collins wrote to gödel escher and bach we might consider adding peter cherches whistler s mother s son is his most recent short prose collection from pelekinesis view my complete profile first time here please read why am i doing this the discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity than the discovery of a new star brillat savarin the gourmet savors much in a cheese he would not abide in a mate cherches enter your email powered by feedblitz cherches links cherches publications online cherches books amazon downtown music research guide condensed book cherches sings food links menupages chowhound eat this not that the food section roadfood the greatest food memoir ever steve don t eat it deep end dining eating in translation eater nyc restaurant buzz eating chinese feeding america other links the greatest blog ever guys read the downtown collection jean shepherd the stan freberg show bob and ray old time radio mr fairfield noir of the week six sentences recent posts peter cherches new words old songs san juan chamula chiapas mexico notes from the ol factory catalogs adieu bbs hydra for fans of the color blue condensed book is back word of mouth evolution or devolution cartagena and the delights of new world colonial c butch morris superconductor 1947 2013 selected earlier posts back to di fara support your local small business my quest for non alcoholic gin celiac friendly new york without compromise downtown made me the energy rethinking the cuban sandwich a memorable menu turkey words pide party dieting on menu scouting ice cream jottings what s a shmendrik holy shit shatnez i was culinarily transgendered rolled beef an endangered deli meat a kiss to the 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