Ant eggs, anyone? Photo by Tyler Gourley (my very good friend)
This post is written by Joe. (And posted by me.)
When it comes to Mexico, our chef Telmo is a great traveling companion. While I say stupid things like “foamo” when asking for frothed milk for my coffee (it made sense to me), he speaks impeccable Spanish and never gets stumped when ordering from a menu. Well, almost never.
So last week—on my second research trip down to Mexico this month—Telmo and I were in Mexico City for a few nights. Like almost every country outside of the U.S., innards are par for the course at street food stands and more. Personally, I could care less about the offal craze that has been blazing through the restaurant industry these past few years. I don’t have a taste for tripe and was turned off by glands at the young age of 12 (remember that day trip to from Amsterdam to Paris, Mom?). A well made lengua taco is great and I’ve destroyed many a beef cheek, but that’s about as crazy as I get when it comes to unusual foods. At least by American standards.
Andrew Zimmerman would think I’m a pussy.
So one evening, Telmo and I had the pleasure of dining at Fonda El Refugio in Zona Rosa, in Mexico City a restaurant reccomended to me by Rick Bayless that I’d always wanted to try but never had the chance. At a glance, the menu was pretty standard: Tacos, check. Tostadas, yep. All of the cuts of meat typical of a nice Mexican restaurant. And then, Telmo spotted something. He flagged our waiter with excitement and asked “Que son escamoles?” The waiter replied “Huevos de Hormiga.”
Telmo smiled and blurted out “HELL YES, ANT EGGS!”
Despite my true feelings about this, I surely wasn’t going to let him out-foodie me—not in public anyway. I could put down ant larva probably with less grimacing than tripe. A few minutes later, our waiter set down a plate of what looked like mini Rice Krispies that had been sauteed with onions, chile and epazote. The dish was neatly flanked by the most beautiful bright green dice of nopales mixed with queso fresco. It was all served with a side of warm tortillas and a spicy tomatillo-serrano salsa—essentially the fixings for ant-egg tacos.
Maybe it was the perfectly-made margarita that kept me from identifying any flavor in the eggs. That, or possibly that I was in awe of the bright, perfect little nopales salad along side. I didn’t get anything from the dish but the flavor of epazote, onions and chile. Meanwhile, Telmo was raving. He described them as having a nutty, sesame-seed oil, caviar flavor.
Taking another bite, all I could think was, ‘They do?’
I want to give Telmo credit for being a super-taster—some sort of culinary genius. (After all, this is a blog about our restaurant.) But between you and me, when it comes to chefs, I think the thrill of the uncharted ingredient often heightens the experience. But then I saw this really interesting YouTube video below about escamoles—which are a prehispanic delicacy harvested from the roots of the agave plant—and found out that they’re an aphrodisiac. Now I understand why Telmo got so hot and bothered.
We’re gearing up to put some Mexico City-inspired specials on the menu. I know I’m letting down half of San Francisco when I say this, but we are not going to be putting ant egg tacos on the menu. However, that nopales salad? You’ll be seeing that soon.