Culinary tourism: Guadalajara

On our way back to Mexico City, we made a stop in Guadalajara to have a look around and spend some time with a friend who used to live in Vancouver.  There are a few expressions that keep popping up with reference to Guadalajara - one is that to know Guadalajara is to know Mexico.  This isn't as arrogant as it sounds, rather a case of wholesome pride in your hometown - politically, Guadalajara has figured very prominently throughout Mexico's history, and culturally, Guadalajara has produced some of those things that have come to symbolize Mexico to the rest of the world - sombreros, mariachis, the Mexican hat dance, and the almighty tequila.  This leads to the other expression, which is that if you go to Guadalajara, you MUST listen to mariachis, drink tequila, and eat a torta ahogada (more on that to come) - well, if I have to I guess I will, I don't want anyone to get upset.

As for eating in general in Guadalajara, it seems pretty clear to me that you might need a year or two to really find all the gems here.  The good news is that if you are only here for a short stay, the odds of you stumbling upon a great meal are outstanding.  There are countless restaurants and cafes set up in beautiful colonial buildings - as a big fan of architecture, this is a giant bonus to a nice meal.

Of course, to sample the street food is to really get into it.  From a Canadian background, I've always been impressed at the variety of meats that you'll find offered as tacos in Mexico (lending to my theory that tacos, chapatis, pitas and all forms of flatbread worldwide are possibly the most perfect food).  Guadalajara seems to have taken things even further.  I've had tacos of cheeks, tripe, tendon, tongue, eyeball, heart, crickets, brain, and other more common cuts.  What first caught my eye in Guadalajara was a stand offering tacos de labio - lips!  By now it seems kind of obvious, but at that point I had never come across it in all my visits to Mexico.  We were actually doing quite a bit of eating while sightseeing, and I kept seeing these lip tacos offered after I had just eaten.  It became a mission that before we left the city, I had to leave room for one.  Finally, on our last night, our friend Ismael took us to his local guy, and lip tacos was only getting started!  I had my lip tacos (tender, juicy, and a bit deliciously fatty) and one of what translates to "the back of the tongue" (as you might expect, very similar to tongue and no less tasty).  Along with the usual large variety of meats on the menu were also tacos of ear, tail, nose, udder, lung and horn - horn!  How do you even do that?  I was fighting a bit of a cold, so I had to be satisfied that I completed my quest for the lips, but cudos buddy!  All these chefs up north bragging about "nose to tail" cooking still have a bit to learn.  Go Guadalajara!  Viva!