Tag Archives: bread

Casual Restaurant Critic at El Globo

Casual Restaurant Critic, , , , , , ,

What is all the fuss about El Globo, the Critic wonders. And so, in he goes to see what’s there; at the Prolongacion Montejo location. There he is “greeted” by somewhat indifferent employees who look just a tad bored. Orders a cappuccino which is alright.

And the bread? Picked up 3 different pastries and only one was really edible; a thick, bready ‘chocolatin’ which is a poor imitation of a ‘pain au chocolate’ which is so, so much better at Petite Delice, where a French-trained pastry chef makes them flaky and perfectly.

Overall impression? Meh.

Don’t understand what the fuss is about. You can safely never go here and won’t be damaged for life.

The Casual Restaurant Critic VS Bisquets Bisquets Obregon

Casual Restaurant Critic, , ,

The mediocre food you can overpay for at Sanborns and Vips has some competition; the new Bisquets Bisquets de Obregon in Merida’s Monte Cristos neighborhood. If you are fan of lackluster, clueless service, food that is both bland and ridiculously overpriced, along with tasteless Mexico-City style bread that is presented in a basket for you to choose from as if it was boulangerie quality flown in fresh from Paris this morning, then you will love the new Bisquets Bisquets restaurant.

Among other things to intensely dislike: the very bright fluorescent lighting that highlights the garish colors and hard surfaces that even McDonalds would be hard-pressed to match; the clueless servers who seem to have been selected based on their lack of inherent waiting ability, the hard, understuffed, vinyl coated benches that take uncomfortable seating to a new low and of course the afore mentioned bread. Also the entire property surrounding the building has been tree-cleaned making the Bisquets Bisquets brand an important contributor to the continuing warming of the formerly white city.

 

Comforting Rituals – and a Dilemma

Casual Restaurant Critic, Inspired, Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , , ,

Of all the comforting rituals that us humans take part in, a great proportion of them involve food, I would guess.

Here’s mine.

I come home hungry and without too many ‘ganas‘ to cook anything (rare, but it happens) and my eyes, scanning like the Terminator through the offerings visible in my fridge, rest upon a Ziploc bag containing brown kraft paper that is coddling a quarter of a chunk of Monique’s fabulous sourdough bread, made right here in the formerly white city of Merida. This is what I am craving.

Removing the spongy, dark crusted bread from it’s hiding place I slice thick chunks (I have been known to simply tear at the loaf) and pop them into the toaster, pushing the slices down since they are so thick that the toaster is gagging.

While the aroma of freshly baked bread wafts into my kitchen, I take a soup bowl and pour myself a healthy portion of olive oil. There are plenty of olive oils now available in Merida, some Spanish, others Italian and even others still of the gourmet variety from God knows where. For my purposes, however, I need the Costco jug, since it is the only one that can keep up with my consumption and still offer more the next day.

The bread is toasty and warm and my fingers burn as I move the slices to a plate.

Ripping off chunks of warm bread, I plop them into the bowl and push down hard to get all the oil I can into the pores of the sourdough. Then I pop the dripping mess into my mouth. Nirvana!

The dilemma comes when I no longer have any olive oil in the bowl into which to stick my dwindling bread stock. So I pour in some more and you know what happens; the bread runs out and I still have olive oil to soak up! So back to the remainder of the loaf, slicing and heating until a critical moment when both bread and oil are depleted and my craving is sated.

Here’s to the olive pressers but here’s even more to Monique, who bakes this stuff and offers it to the public every Saturday morning at the Slow Food market right here in Merida. Go this weekend; you’ll be so glad you did!