Great Gorditas to Fill Your Stomach

Every time we go to the Soriana shopping center near Pitillal we always stop to order gorditas at Gorditas Dona Tota.

If you are not familiar with gorditas, they are thick disks made from corn meal that are split open and filled with an infinite variety of stews and shredded meats. You can find them throughout Mexico.

Gorditas Dona Tota is a franchised chain that was founded in Ciudad Victoria in the state of Taumalipas. The chain operates in almost every state in Mexico and has recently begun expansion into the U.S. Currently, they have six locations in Texas. Puerto Vallarta has only one location.

My three favorite gorditas from Dona Tota: picadillo (ground beef), carnitas en salsa verde (pork in green salsa), and rajas con queso (Poblano chile and cheese). I’m stuffed after just three.

Prices are very reasonable. Each gordita costs between $7.00 and $8.00 pesos which is about $.55 US at the current exchange rate.

The mall, where you will find Gorditas Dona Tota, is located just south of Pitillal on Francisco Villa. The mall is also home to Cinepolis, a great multiplex movie theatre that plays first-run movies in English.

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More Mexican Fast Food You Might Like:

Best Tacos in Puerto Vallarta

Good Street Tacos

Famous Tamales

Charred Tomatillo Salsa

I love making salsa and one of my favorites is a charred tomatillo salsa that is really simple to make. It’s a perfect match for chips and beer on a hot humid Puerto Vallarta afternoon.

The recipe requires few ingredients and it should take you about 20 minutes from start to finish.

Salsa Ingredients:

• 1 pound of tomatillos
• 2 Serrano or jalapeno chiles with the seeds removed cut into strips
• 1 cup of coarsely chopped onions
• 1 cup of loosely packed cilantro
• 1 lime for juice
• Salt to taste
• Variation: add 2 charred cloves of garlic

The measurements are not really set in stone. You can add more chiles or onions to taste. Some extra lime juice will give the salsa a brighter sharper taste.

To make the salsa:

Place the tomatillos, chopped onions, chile strips in a preheated oiled pan to char the vegetables. Keep the heat medium high and turn the vegetables continually until they are blackened all over. Charring the vegetables really adds to the flavor.

After you have charred the vegetables, add them to the blender with the cilantro, lime juice, and salt to taste.

Blend the salsa coarsely. The salsa should have some body. You want to be able to see flecks of cilantro and bits of onion.

The finished salsa. Great stuff. I usually just make the salsa to eat with a big bowl of chips. When I am feeling more ambitious I put the salsa over a sauteed fish filet.

Two tomatillo salsa recipes you might like:

My Mexican Table Salsa Recipe

Chicken Breasts With Tomatillo Salsa Recipe Provided by Mexican Foodie

Tomatillo Salsa Recipe

A Typical Mexican Restaurant in Olas Altas / Los Muertos

One of the most traditional restaurants in Puerto Vallarta is El Querreque in Olas Altas.

The food is what you find in a small town lunch room or what you might be served in someone’s home. It’s simple, filling, and very tasty.

At El Querreque they serve breakfast and lunch. For some unknown reason, I have never gone for lunch. My favorite dish is Huevos a la Mexicana with a slice of ham. Prices are very fair. My eggs and a cup of coffee cost $45 pesos.

I like the old-time feel of the restaurant with it’s anti-chain restaurant decor. The pace unhurried, although service is quick and friendly.

The owner is a poet. The walls are covered in poems he has written over the years. If you know some Spanish, you will find some of them a little risque and very funny. Look for the poem about the worn out horse.

The poem above is one of the more serious poems and translated into English.

El Querreque is located on the corner of Francisca Rodriguez and Olas Altas street not far from the Los Arcos hotel.

When you are in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle be sure to go for some tacos at the Taqueria “Los Amigos,” located in front of the main plaza. The tacos are really good and the prices are reasonable. Tacos cost $9.00 pesos each. Sodas cost $10 pesos. We ate really well and our bill came to $75 pesos which is about $7.50 US.

We are ordered carne asada tacos, al pastor tacos, arrechera tacos, and a volcan (Volcano) which is melted cheese, meat, and beans on top of a crispy tortilla.

Taqueria “Los Amigos” is a typical taco stand, small and unassuming. For some unknown reason, the fancier a taco place is the worse the tacos are. It’s as if they wasted the flavor on decor.

Salsa is a critical ingredient to any good taco. My wife is a green salsa person. I’m a red salsa person. Green or red is always a heated debate when discussing tacos.

Nothing satisfies like a good taco. Tacos should be small and full of flavor not jumbo sized and sloppy like you find back home.

After you finish your tacos you can buy some candy or elote desgranado (corn kernals in a cup) from the vendor next door.

Other taco stands you might like:

Tizok Takos in Versalles

Best Tacos in Puerto Vallarta

Get the Delicious Revolution Cookbook Click Here!

My Great Mexican Salsa Recipe

I make great salsa. No modesty here. My salsa rocks. I’ll give you the basic ingredients and techniques for making a typical table salsa.

Try it for yourself. Even though the ingredients are similar in most salsas no two cook’s salsas every taste the same. I learned how to make this salsa by watching our next door neighbor, Lucy.

Doing everything the same as she did, my salsa never tasted anything like hers which was phenomenal. At first, I was disappointed because I was unable to replicate her version but I stuck with it and realized that I was making great salsa, just totally different.

Once you start making your own salsa you’ll never be able to go back to store bought.

Authentic Mexican table salsa is easy to make and tastes far superior to anything from the supermarket. Mexican cooks use ingredients on hand to make vibrant, flavorful, and healthy salsas.

To make the salsa you can mix and match the following ingredients to suit your taste:

• Tomatoes preferably Roma but regular tomatoes work fine
• Tomatillos
• Onion
• Bell peppers
• Jalapeno chiles
• Serrano chiles
• Poblano chiles
• Garlic
• Cilantro
• Lime juice

The most important step for making a great salsa is charring the vegetables as shown in the picture below. You really want to char the vegetables. Make sure they are good and burnt all the way around.

To char the vegetables hold them over an open flame on a gas stove. If your stove is electric, preheat a large frying pan on high and char the vegetables in the pan turning often.

Many Mexican recipes have you peel the chiles. In this case, the charred bits give the salsa a deeper smokier flavor so you want to leave the skins on.

Recipe for a Typical Version of the Mexican Table Salsa

Ingredients:

• 6 Roma tomatoes or 3 large regular tomatoes
• 1 Medium white onion chopped
• 3 Jalapeno or serrano chiles (add more or reduce quantity to taste)
• 1 Garlic clove
• 1 Cup loosely packed cilantro
• 2 limes (the smaller Mexican limes are the best)
• Salt
• Makes 5 to 6 cups of salsa

Char the tomatoes, onion, garlic and chiles. Remove from heat and let cool. Remove the tops of the tomatoes and chiles. Put all ingredients in a blender including the cilantro and the juice from two limes. I like to add two tablespoons of olive oil which gives the salsa a richer flavor. Add salt to taste. Blend until coarsely ground. Do not over blend. The finished salsa. Nothing beats homemade.

More Mexican Salsa Recipes You Might Like:

My Tomatillo Salsa Recipe

Authentic Mexican Salsa

For more great Mexican Recipes visit MexicanFoodie.com

Great Tacos in Puerto Vallarta

One of the taco places we frequent is Tizok Takos in Versalles. It’s easy to get to. It’s a half a block south of the HSBC bank on the corner of Francisco Medina Ascencio and Francia street. If you are not sure where that is, it’s directly in front of the big Coppel store.

When you walk by there is always a big cloud of smoke coming off the grill. The smell pulls you right into the restaurant.

They grill the onions which I really like. The beans for garnish I don’t much like. These are tacos de asada (grilled beef tacos). Tacos cost about $12 pesos each.

The salsas are good and the chips never-ending.

To drink, they serve horchata and jamaica in the old-fashioned clay mugs, which is a cool touch. Both drinks are traditionally prepared. Unfortunately, many restaurants that serve these drinks have switched over to liquid or powder concentrates for convenience. The taste just isn’t the same.

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Another Puerto Vallarta taco stand you will like
Puerto Vallarta’s Best Tacos – El Carboncito

Estudio Cafe Restaurant – Nuevo Vallarta Marina

****UPDATE – Cafe Estudio which is featured in this review is shutting down until October 2009. I was unaware that they are only open during High Season when I posted the review. By chance, we returned on their last day of the season. As we were finishing breakfast the thanked us for coming and said that they will be closed until October. What a bummer. We really like the place. Now we’ll have to wait.****

Last week, I needed a great breakfast place to take a relative who was staying at Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta. I was wracking my brain trying to come up some place close to the hotel so we didn’t have to drive into PV or out to Bucerias. It took me a couple of days, but I finally remembered a place that I had seen when I went to an art show in Nuevo Vallarta. It’s called Estudio Cafe which is part of Federico Leon de la Vega’s art studio and gallery.

All tables at Estudio Cafe are outdoors and overlook the Nuevo Vallarta Marina. It’s an idyllic setting for a restaurant. The building is quaint and the view is beautiful. I’d only recently come across Estudio Cafe, but many others have already discovered it. I found the studio/cafe difficult to find the first time I went looking so it surprised me that they had some many customers. People always have a way of finding good food.

Our breakfast was great – made from scratch and made with care. Estudio Cafe made it to my list of favorites after just one visit. To get to the cafe, go to the first entrance (south entrance) into Nuevo Vallarta. Head all of the way in until you come to the hotel and condos on the beach. The Nuevo Vallarta boardwalk will be on your right. Take a right on the boardwalk and the cafe is about block up the boardwalk.

Below are the details and great photos of the restaurant and marina: Restaurant: Estudio Cafe  Type of Food: Mexican Cafe Fare Price: Inexpensive Location: Nuevo Vallarta on the Marina. Paseo de la Marina #31 Hours: Monday to Wednesday  8:30am to 8:00pm Thursday to Saturday 8:30am to 3:00pm What we ate: 1 Huevos Rancheros $50 1 Huevos con Chilaquiles $55 What we drank: 1 Coffee $20 1 Orange juice $20 Total cost: $145 Pesos

Huevos rancheros: two fried eggs on a crispy fried tortillas smothered in a homemade salsa. The salsa had tomotoes, onions, nopalitos (cactus), and jalapenos. The side dishes are chunks of queso fresco (fresh cheese) and black beans.

Huevos con chilaquiles: The meal includes fried tortilla strips covered in a tomatillo salsa garnished with cream and onions, fluffy scrambled eggs and black beans.

The Estudio Cafe kitchen.

The menu at the Estudio Cafe is very simple but the food is very good.

The view from our table on a perfect Puerto Vallarta morning.

Another breakfast place you might like – The Palma de Leon Restaurant in Puerto Vallarta