All tagged salt and pepper
After a long day on a fluorescent boat at Xochimilco, the vestigial canal system just south of Mexico City, we stopped by the famous "El Lago de los Cisnes" in Chapultepec for tacos. Tired and sunburned, we wanted something quick and satisfying. Mexico City, as it turns out, has the perfect solution: tacos al pastor.
The restaurant seemed to combine the flavor of street food without the street; it was a comfortable sit-down place. Despite the pork rotisserie and roaring fire pit by the door, the ambience inside was quiet and tranquil full of tables able to accomodate large groups of people. Our waiter served as the mediator between the chaos and the calm.
A visit to Montreal would be incomplete without a smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz's. On Saturdays the line -- at times half an hour or more -- can be pretty intimidating, but it's worth it. There are few ways to fight off the Canadian winter as effective as a hot smoked meat sandwich on an icy-cold day. It's time to step into Schwartz's, the tiny but immensly popular deli on Montreal's Boulevard Saint-Laurent.
This is undoubtedly the juiciest smoked meat sandwich I've ever tasted. Unlike corned beef, the meat is smoked. It's similar to pastrami but the spice blend is unique. The meat here is so moist I wanted to squeeze out the juice like a sponge dipped in gravy. The smoked meat sandwich, Schwartz's house speciality, is a generous mound of warm meat resting between two fat slices of rye each swiped with a thin layer of French's yellow mustard. The mustard's light acidity and short-lived spice cuts right through the meat's fatty mouthfeel leaving behind a really pleasant texture.
