Une fête mexicaine!
First day in Geneva and thanks to my friend’ C’s excellent ‘food-planning’ and ‘table-booking’ skills, we were able to rock up at ‘El Catrín’ for a Mexican lunch and some very mild day drinking. I was very excited.
This place sends pretty vibrant feels, with Mexican music on an endless loop, all at a pleasant volume not interfearing with your conversation too much. Decor and interior are right in your face with bright colors and something new to discover wherever your eyes turn. Unfortunately I totally missed to take a proper shot of all this, but if you see the table cloth you do get the drift.
We had a bunch of starters to kick things off, going together with absolutely tongue smacking passionfruit margaritas. Not too heavy on the mezcal, just nice. ‘Guacamole’ was on spot so everybody kept shoveling it into their pie holes, with what seemed like an endless flow of homemade nachos. The ‘Taquitos Dorados’ were equally crisp, covered with a guac salsa, iceberg lettuce and some pickled onions. A real fun-eat.
On to the mains. I skipped the taco ‘Al Pastor’ as there was a more intriguing quesadilla variation (the ‘Gringe’) including the distinct spiced pork tucked in between two cheese-layered flour tortillas, together with pineapple, onions and cilantro. A beautiful hearty combination with the acids from the pineapple nicely cutting right through the richness and the spices of the meat.
The selection of tacos we ordered included the ‘Baja Fish’ with its crunchily breaded, beautifully moist fish, equally crunchy red cabbage, pico de gallo and that wonderful creamy signature chipotle mayo. A great classic. Most interesting for me must have been the ‘Pibli El Catrin’. The spice mix of the mayan marinade and the red onion and habanero sauce had something unique and special about them. There were some hints of cinnamon too, at least in my head they were. The safe bet, however absolutely delightful, was the ‘Suadero CDMX’, a corn tortilla, stuffed with slow cooked, melt-in-my-mouth beef confit.
Okay, so food was amazing, atmosphere and interior were something else, slightly intense but in a good way and on top of that service and the level of friendliness at this place were right up there. Solely the price tag was a bit overwhelming in the end but with such an allround enjoyable experience, I have no regrets.
Before I forget, if you’re there, take full of advantage of the extra bottles of spicy habanero and smoked pepper sauce, liquid gold, trust me.
Get Your Grub On!
El Catrín
Rue du Richemont 7
1202 Genève
Switzerland
tacos.
After many missed opportunities to try their food before, I finally managed to be in Freiburg at the right time for their weekly appearance at the Rieselfeld Market on Saturday. We went fairly early, as apparently their food sometimes sells out rather quickly and I wanted to have free choice. So here I was, ordering my first round of Classic Tacos – a set of three – with all the meats from the menu, chicken chipotle, beef brisket and my secret passion, the carnitas, medium spicy with some extra mango salsa on the side. They use their homemade corn tortillas, made from maíz azul (a black purple-ish type of corn) that have a bit more to them than the regular corn tortillas. It might be just the colour but I thought they were pretty great. Now on to the inner values and I must say that all of the meats were exceptionally delicious. The beef was super nice and tender like it was slow cooked for ages (which it probably was) and the chicken, which I expected to be either a bit on the dry side or drowning in sauce, I liked even more, just so juicy and fantastic. My other expectation though proved to be right; the carnitas are still my absolute favourite. They were wonderful moist with a good char on the edges that had touched the hot plate, an insanely good combination of meat and fats. The homemade medium salsa was just right, not too spicy but still gave me a kick on my tongue and the mango version for an extra €1 was the perfect companion and totally worth it. Fruity, slightly sour and refreshing in between the flavour party going on around here.
I wasn’t actually planning on having tacos again but then they had a new special one on the menu that changed my mind. The ‘Taco de Callo de Hacha‘ had some nicely pan charred fresh scallops with a great texture, pickled onions and grilled corn which gave it all an oddly interesting and crunchy texture. Nicely done guys, nicely done.
I went to Circular Road for lunch to meet two of my friends and to check out a new Mexican restaurant – ‘El Rocho’s’ – which just opened here not long time ago.
The second round I ordered the ‘Chorizo Taco‘ which besides the sausage used the same ingredients as the beefy version – cilantro, chimichurri mayo, lime and veggies but tasted much better. I liked the freshness of the herbs and the seasoning and saltiness of the chorizo. This one worked for me and was much more satisfying.
Unfortunately the ‘Fish Ceviche‘ we ordered for sharing was also rather a disappointment.The portion was big and the taste wasn’t bad really. I also liked the crispy corn and crunchy jicama sticks (mexican turnip) in it but the dressing was quite viscous and the fish cut in way too big pieces for my liking.
This was on nearly every Singaporean based foodblog the last couple of weeks and since a friend asked me to go and I had never been on one of those events we went early Saturday to start with an early lunch.
With the pork sandwich half way down we strolled a few stalls further for the ‘Tacos‘ from ‘Tacombi’ (USA). First disappointment was they didn’t offer the ‘Beef Tacos‘ anymore as they apparently didn’t turn out right in this climate. Second disappointment was that the ‘Fish Tacos‘ weren’t really that good. The battered and fried fish was super dry and so was the tortilla they used. Even though the chipotle sauce was quite tasty and the red cabbage was nice and crunchy I felt unsatisfied.
Now it was time for some Asian food and so we head for one of the longest queues all the way at the end ‘Phan Rang’ (Vietnam) with their ‘Banh Xeo & Banh Khot‘ combo. ‘Banh Xeo‘ I already had before in Vietnam and these ones were really tasty filled with crunchy sprouts and vegetables and fried crispy on the outside. The ‘Banh Khot‘ were like little egg tarts with prawns and I wished they would’ve been a bit longer on the heat as some of them were quite raw inside tasting like undercooked omelette but overall still not bad but I didn’t envy the chef, assembly-line-frying both dishes without a break.
Switching back to western cuisine we opted for the ‘Soft Shell Crab Burger‘ from ‘Euro Trash Food Cart’ (USA) and yet another dissapointment – they ran out of their beef paddies so we had to go for the plain crab option. This slowly started to seem like a pretty “incomplete” event. Luckily even without the beef paddy this was a pretty awesome burger once I did get over the fact that I ate a whole crab with everything in and outside, I’m weird like that. The crab was crispy and still moist inside and the thousand island like dressing gave it a nice fresh touch. Just the bun was more the sweeter kind which I found slightly odd.
Next up was ‘Soto Tangkar‘ by ‘Pak Haji Diding’ (Indonesia). The soup was quite rich and a tad spicy but the beef didn’t really cut it as it was too chunky and tough for my preference.
Now this was one of my highlights of the day, the ‘Seafood Tostada‘ from ‘La Guerrerense’ (Mexico). On their sign they offered two different kinds but our crispy corn tostadas came with everything on it they had in stock. The seafood topping was a cevice of fish, crab, shrimp, tender octopus and delicious sweet scallops that must have just hopped out of the sea. This was then finished off with a big cajun style marinated shrimp big chunks of avocado and a spicy shrimp lemon juice with peanuts. So delicious complex simplicity.
Until now we had stayed away from the Indian stalls as many of them seemed to sell quite filling stuff but this one looked pretty interesting and so we tried the ‘Litti Chokha‘, little charcoal baked buns with a mix of tomatos, potatos and eggplants as well as some mint sauce to go with it. The buns were harder on the outside and crumbling on the inside and soaked up the condiments pretty good. I really liked the vegetarian chokha as it was nicely light and suited the buns well.
As they had both, beef as well as pork jerky we ordered the ‘Hainan Fen‘ from ‘Hai Ya’ next. Apparently a very common dish from the Hainan province in China but I had never heard about it here. Thick eggs noodles were topped with a multitude of ingredients – beef and pork jerky, cilantro, chives, peanuts, sprouts, little shrimp, squid and a soya based gravy. I realy liked it, especially the jerkies and peanuts and even the tiny shrimp weren’t as fishy as I thought. One thing I would have loved to have missed though was the squid which was also some kind of jerky, pretty strong in taste and hard to pick out as it camouflaged itself as noodles.
Enough of the filling dishes we went back to India and tried the ‘Chicken 65‘ from ‘Abhishek’. This fried chicken was covered in a wondeful spice mix with a citrusy fragrance and the sweet spiced dipping powder took it all to the next level. That was awesome and I just wished lean chicken breast was more popular in Asia as that would have made this even better.
After all those hearty dishes it was time to check out the dessert corners of the fairground and so we started with ‘Kue Pancong‘ (Indonesia) that were lightly baked coconut cakes in a special shape topped with white sugar. I love coconut so this was right up my alley, maybe just a little dry.
The next sweet affair again came from India and was offered by a Singaporean stall named ‘Heaven’s Indian Curry’. They offered a dish called ‘Putu Mayam‘ or ‘String Hoppers‘ which was basically freshly pressed and steamed rice noodles topped with bright orange sugar and grated coconut (also available with chicken curry). This was great and tasted quite light cause of the steamed noodles and the dessicated fluffy coconut with a sweet cover of orange caramelized sugar. If you missed the fair their shop is at #01-15 Ghim Hoh Market and Food Center, 20 Ghim Moh Road.
Before washing all that wonderful stuffing down with the one or other Warsteiner we had one last sinful dish, the ‘Sticky Rice Banana‘ from ‘Nam Bo’ (Vietnam). I was lucky queueing up at the right time as the staff on the fairground told me this is by far the most popular stall and waiting can be rather long during peaks. I really like Thai ‘Mango Sticky Rice‘ and thought this might be similar but here they wrapped banana chunks in glutinous rice before grilling it over coales wrapped in bana leaf and finishing it with a thick sweet coconut sauce and sesame seeds. Eventhough I would have wished for more banana this was a lovely closer to an endless seeming feast and so seven hours and fourteen dishes later (I didn’t count the seconds of ‘Porchetta Sandwiches‘) we finally capitulated and didn’t move too much for a while.
My second choice fell on one of their monthly specials, the ‘Baja Fish Taco‘. The fish was red snapper, fried in a thin but super crispy beer batter and still lovely moist on the inside. The salsa was mixed together of hot chilis, fresh mint and ripe and nicely sweet mango and worked just great with the fish.
I then finished my three course taco sample menu with their ‘Taco de Chorizo Con Res‘. This one had a chunky mix of chorizo sausage and slow braised beef that tasted amazing and was heated up by some chopped red onions and a pretty fiery sauce. 
Finishing all these plus some sides I obviously wasn’t hungry anymore. Regardless I ordered the ‘Elotes‘, a Mexican style grilled corn cob which I always wanted to try. This was super good and filling too. It seemed that after grilling they dipped it into some spicy melted cheese and if this wasn’t enough, rolled the sticky cob in cotija cheese after. Goodness and so much better and spicier than I thought.
Get Your Grub On! 