I love to eat. The extra weight I´ve piled on since moving here is a testimony to my love of eating. My problem is that I love Mexican street food. Tacos, tortas, tostadas, oh my! I love them all. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for my not so summer-ready body, Playa del Carmen has a plethora of street food available, and now it´s moving off the street and into the kitchens of some of the world-class chefs in the Riviera Maya.
On Saturday, March 11, I went with a couple of friends to the Riviera Maya Beer & Street Food Festival held at El Pueblito Mayakoba. Although this was the second edition of the festival, it was my first, and I didn’t know what to expect.
The event drew over 1,000 people and was designed to showcase the best ¨street¨ food the top chefs from the best resorts and restaurants in the Riviera Maya have to offer. There were over a dozen chefs who presented their best street-inspired menus. Armed with my food and beverage tickets, I walked through the event, eyeing all the delicious creations laid out before me.
First up, was the grill of Nadine Waechter-Moreno from Grand Hyatt Playa del Carmen. Her menu included grilled chicken and green onion, asparagus wrapped in bacon, yuzu koshu, and Japanese coleslaw, all inspired by Nadine´s time spent living and working in Japan. The chicken and green onions were served on a skewer, as were the asparagus and were so tasty, but the show stopper for me was her Japanese coleslaw. With finely sliced carrot and cabbage soaked in a vinegar/sugar mixture and seasoned with a Japanese mayonnaise, the coleslaw was so incredibly flavorful and light. It’s not often a coleslaw stands out in a meal, but this one did!
Next up was the memela yaca en mole amarillo from Juan Pablo Loza of Rosewood Mayakoba. Memela is like a flattened cake made with masa and topped with a variety of different ingredients. Typically served in the state of Oaxaca, picture memela as kind of a thick tortilla. The topping Juan Pablo chose was shredded yaca (jackfruit) in a mole amarillo. They asked what I wanted for toppings, and I said ¨everything¨ – including chapulines (grasshoppers)! Wow! I found heaven, and it was served on a memela! The yaca was so perfectly flavored with the mole that I kept asking if it was pork. And yes, the chapulines added just the right amount of salty crunch!
Last, but certainly not least, was the shrimp burger by Carlos Zamora from Viceroy Riviera Maya. All night people had been telling me that I needed to try this burger. Well, I love burgers, and I love shrimp, so it wasn’t much of a hard sell. To say this was the best burger I have had is probably not an exaggeration. No, it wasn´t a burger in a traditional sense with ground meat. It was a large shrimp served with just the right mix of flavoring and condiments. Truly, one of the highlights of the night!
Washing down our meals with a blonde ale from Pescadores, my friends and I commented how fortunate we are that we have such incredible food in our region. Whether you’re sitting on a plastic stool next to a taco cart eating cecina Yecapixtla or a shrimp burger surrounded by the region’s world-class chefs, the Riviera Maya has something to offer everyone who loves good street food!
