I missed last week, which means I’m already running behind! But fear not because I’m back to put things back on track and continue our culinary journey, back to Europe. This time, we travel to a small territory tucked between Spain and France to discover: Andorra!
Time doesn’t stop, and if I don’t want to take an eternity to finish this challenge, I really have to keep cooking as often as possible. For this one, we travel from Europe to the big Africa!
Let’s cook something from Algeria.
The clock keeps ticking, and it’s time to continue with the second country on the list; we now go from the Middle East to Southeast Europe: let’s explore Albania!
The challenge is set, and after considering the possible ways to choose the countries, in order to avoid taste fatigue and have a better control over which country goes next and which one I’ve already done, I decided to go with the simple alphabetical order. That brings us to the first country on the list — and the challenge: Afghanistan.
I'm lucky to be able to visit NYC🍎 at least twice a year, and since these are business trips, most of the expenses are covered by my company — including meals. So of course I take this opportunity to go out and explore restaurants and try as much food as possible (as allowed by budget 😜). Thanks to this I've had the classic hot dogs in Central Park, burgers, burritos, NY-style pizza (ooooooobviously), sweet treats (might actually do a post about one of my favs 🤔), sandwiches, Chinese… and I'm waiting patiently for next trip to keep on trying more — and maybe repeat a couple favs.
It seems like I write in here once every few years. At this point, I will not deny it; it’s been ages since the last entry! Will this change? Maybe. Maybe not.
But this time, I felt the need to write for a while about my experience and some delicious food I’ve tried recently.
Context: I’m in São Paulo, Brazil. My company sent me for training/learning/meeting the team. To be honest, I don’t really know why they sent me as I didn’t have a specific task or agenda. But who cares? It’s an all-paid 1-week trip to another country! Who says no to that? Not me, definitely.
This is my first trip to South America, and also my first long-haul flight. Everything’s fine, as I mentioned, all-paid for, and I’m excited and ready to get to know this new country and culture.
One thing though… I don’t speak Portuguese beyond “obrigado” (thank you) and “tudo bem” (everything alright). How am I going to survive? I have one week to discover that.
My flight arrived on Saturday at 7 a.m. The initial shock is that the airport signs and ads are all in Portuguese, but being a tourist site, of course, it has English translations. Not that bad… yet.
When I got to customs, the officer never spoke to me or raised his sight to see me; he just took my passport, stamped it, and let me through.
Once I stepped outside the terminal and to the street, things started to get a bit more complicated; now I had to hail an Uber to get to my hotel. And for added security, I had this option for the driver to request a PIN number to verify my identity. Luckily, before the flight, I quickly reviewed how to pronounce numbers, and thankfully, they’re similar to Spanish; but then he proceeded to say something I can only assume it was the address to confirm it was correct, because of the whole sentence he said, I only caught one word, and it was the name of the street; so after a shy “sí”, I was on my way to the hotel.
After an hour of car travel and being amazed by everything surrounding me, I got to the hotel where somebody spoke Spanish, kind of broken, but Spanish. The problem is that it was 9 a.m. and my room was still not ready. And worse, after a 9-hour flight and a 1-hour drive, I was starving! But also scared because I honestly don’t know how to communicate.
But hunger is stronger than any other feeling.
After a quick Google Maps search, I decided to leave my luggage in storage and head to a small local place a couple of blocks away and try my luck… and local cuisine.
The place
It’s called “Novo Sabor 2 Lanchonete” (New Flavour 2 Cafeteria). Located in Av. Santo Amaro, 341 - Vila Nova Conceição, São Paulo - SP, 04505-000
I was drawn to it by the pictures I saw online, and honestly, I was kind of disappointed when I saw the menu and nothing that I had seen online was in there. However, I was hungry and already there. I could not understand more than half of the menu, but still.
The dish
It took me over ten minutes to decide and constantly checking Google Translate and Google Lens, but at the end I found something I wanted to try: a “beirute com presunto, queijo e ovo” (beirute with jam, cheese and egg). And to drink, a traditional zuco de açai (açai juice).
What is a beirute? I discovered it in that moment.
As you can see in the picture, it is not a complicated dish. The beirute is a Brazilian sandwich hailing from São Paulo and it’s influenced by Levantine cuisine. It is made with “pão sírio” (Syrian bread or pita bread), and the filling always goes in between two pieces of the bread, not into the pocket.
Originally, it was stuffed with roast beef and vegetables, but nowadays it is prepared with various other fillings, like mine.
In this case, it has lots of ham, cheese, a fried egg, homemade mayonnaise, and a herb and spices mixture.
For breakfast, it tastes great, and it’s not complicated to either prepare or find to order.
The flavours that stood out for me were the mayo and the ham. At this point, I don’t know if Brazilian food tends to be more salty and spiced, but at least these two ingredients were. And not salty in a bad way, that I couldn’t enjoy them. No, I mean it in a way that it’s a flavour not as light or tending to be more sweet like Mexican mayo.
This contrast of flavours made me even more aware I was far away from home and ready to try more food!
Now, you can’t have breakfast without something to drink! And what better than a zuco de açai (açai juice)?
Pronounced ah-sigh-EE, they are berries that look a lot like grapes, and their flesh and skin are packed with plenty of vitamins and other nutrients. They’re in fact known as a superfood because of all its benefits.
Not a bad start for a whole week ahead of me.
After a nice, warm, and filling breakfast, I went back to my hotel and was able to finally check in, get a room, and sleep for a while before heading out for more food and adventures. But those are stories for a new entry!
September is an important month in Mexico because it’s when Mexican Independence is celebrated, and while this happens only on September 16th, the whole month is full of typical food and dishes available only in this period. For example the famous “Chile en Nogada”.
What is a chile en nogada?
Yeah… it’s no secret that we, Mexican love chiles, and this one is amazing.
It basically is a poblano chile stuffed with picadillo topped with a walnut-based creamy sauce called nogada (hence the name) and pomegranate seeds.
What is picadillo? Another Spanish word for another dish, made of shredded meat, aromatics, fruits and spices.
All this together make up the perfect chile en nogada.
This is in general words what it is, you can always search for a recipe online to see what exactly has, and maybe try to prepare one.
Or… you can search for a place that prepares chiles en nogada just like I did this weekend.
The Place
Searching online we found this place called “Casa Tijuana Project” near Tijuana’s soccer stadium.
It is a small place, which feels more like a home because of how small it is and the cozy decoration.
I liked how every table was different from one another.
The menu is not too big. It is actually simple, but creative and from what I read, it keeps changing through the seasons.
This time we were seated on the newly renovated second floor.
The Dish
Obviously, I had chile en nogada as the main dish, but before I get to that, I first got a soup I’ve been craving for a while.
I ordered a Mexican noodle soup or sopa de fideos in Spanish.
This is also a classic Mexican dish and every Abuela knows how to make it. It’s just the pasta in a tomato and chipotle broth, and this version also had northern potatoes and a piece of dry meat.
It did not disappoint me.
And the star of the evening:
Like I mentioned at the beginning of the post, this recipe is not hard, but it’s tricky due to the ingredients for the picadillo inside the chile, and those to make the sauce.
It also takes skill to prepare the inside of the chile so it is not spicy.
I can confidently say this Chile was perfect. It wasn't spicy at all, the stuffing had the right ingredients, the sauce on top was sweet and not too liquid. And the best, the size was more than perfect, in fact, it was bigger than expected.
While I arrived at this place because I was searching specifically for a chile en nogada, my experience was great and delicious that it left me wanting to come back and try something else, because sadly the chile en nogada was a season special dish and last Sunday was the last day available in the menu for this year.
But the rest of the menu certainly looks amazing…
Fun fact: this dish is tied to the independence of Mexico since it is said they were prepared for the first time to entertain the future emperor Agustín de Iturbide when he arrived to Puebla after the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba.
When it is mentioned that someone is jumping the border the first image that comes to mind is somebody trying to cross from Mexico to the US, but not in this case, it is the opposite.
I lived in San Diego for almost a decade, and I loved every moment of it. But life changes and I had to go back to Mexico… luckily I didn't have to go far. I simply crossed the border and I am now in Tijuana.
Although I am not new to the region, I don't know much in Tijuana, even when I lived that close for years. But something I know for a fact is that Tijuana is the city where you can find the best food in all of Mexico. The mission now is to find it ;).
The Place
I'm starting with a recommendation. It arrived to me through TikTok and a co-worker mentioned the place. I saw part of the menu and it got me intrigued.
This place is called "El Rooster - Tijuana Food Joint" and as you'd expect they serve mainly chicken. Well, dishes with chicken as the main ingredient… but I'll go into that in a sec.
It is located in a new plaza next to the airport in the Otay area. There is plenty of parking, so no problem there, but the place per se is small.
It has 4 small tables on the inside, and one large shared table on the outside.
Upon arriving they'll ask you if you want to wait for an indoor table, and they'll give you a call as soon as one is available, or if you prefer the outdoor bar. This time, we were sat at the outdoor table.
The Menu
As I mentioned a couple lines above, the main ingredient is chicken. You can find wings, chicken strips, nuggets, boneless, and three kinds of burgers: regular breaded chicken, spicy, and cordon bleu.
There is also a waffle sandwich, which is a chicken breast with cheese, an egg and bacon in the middle of two waffles.
If you want something else other than chicken you can find a pulled pork BQQ sandwich, or the classic beef burger, single or double.
Obviously, they have fries. Cheese fries or BBQ fries.
No place is complete without fries <3.
The menu also offers a burger box, which is a box with one burger of each available in the menu. And a sampler box which includes a bit of everything.
As complements, they have mac and cheese with bacon, and flaming balls, which are mac and cheese balls, but breaded with flaming hot Cheetos… yeah, I'm coming to this.
And to drink, you can order a soda or the special pink lemonade they prepare there.
I strongly suggest you get the lemonade. Personally, I loved it.
What I ordered
I love spicy food, and I love Cheetos. I don't think anyone is surprised to know I ordered a spicy chicken burger and the flaming balls.
The burger, oh yeah it's spicy, the chicken is tender and juicy, comes with pickles, cheese and cabbage salad. And if it wasn't spicy enough, it also includes spicy sauce. Be warned, this burger while delicious, is very spicy 🔥🔥.
Coming back to the flaming balls, again, as I mentioned they are fried mac and cheese balls. If you haven't tried them or seen them, it's literally a fried ball, and when you bite it's all mac and cheese. It's a simple dish.
What makes them different is the fried outside which is done with Cheetos flaming hot. Not much to explain here, better if you take a look:
Warning, they're also spicy, but as spicy as the Cheetos are. And, as you can see they're served with Cheetos.
The order has 5 balls which make it perfect to share with at least two people.
My girl ordered the cordon bleu burger which is not complex either, it's a cordon bleu chicken breast between bread, pickles and cabbage salad.
A nice touch we didn't expect is that they throw two chicken wings as sides.
And finally the lemonade, pink lemonade. I can't express enough how much I loved it. We both loved it. It has the perfect combination of sweetness and sourness. It's made in the restaurant ensuring it is not a regular Minute Maid beverage, and it's always fresh.
I'm seriously thinking of going back with my half-gallon bottle to get it filled with lemonade before I head to work 🤔.
Experience
The food was great and fresh. It's vast and well-served, with great quality overall. But I also need to mention the service.
You go to the bar to order and pay, and go back to your table, but the waiters around the place are incredible.
As you'd expect they're asking if you need something else if the food is tasty and ready to help if you require it, but the difference is felt with their attitude, and little details when talking to you or bringing your order, how they make you feel. They even threw an order of mac and cheese with bacon as a courtesy.
A curious thing is that they do not accept tips, they tell you it's their job to make you feel welcome and comfortable, and instead, encourage you to drop a like in their Facebook Page or a follow in their Instagram account.
That's why I make this distinction, great food, great service. What else can you ask for?
Oh, and one more thing to take into account: I don't know if that's how they work regularly or their machine wasn't working, but take cash with you! They don't accept cards… or at least this weekend I went they weren't accepting cards.
