A Little Taste of Mexico

I am 12,973 kilometres (8,061 miles) away from Mexico City which means finding true Mexican cuisine in Sydney is hard to come by. Sure they have a series of chain taco and burrito joints (not ideal) but I have yet to come across an authentic Mexican meal. I am still searching. There has to be something! 

After a bit of web surfing, I have not found a single source that can supply me with a precise number of Mexicans that reside in Australia. I did read somewhere that in 2006 there were 1800 Mexicans living in the entirety of Australia (but it’s not a reliable source). Even the Wikipedia demographics of Sydney does not include Mexico. The point I am trying to make is that Mexican food is hard to come by…

To make it worse, Mexican just happens to be one of my favorite food types. I mean, I grew up in LA and went to college in San Francisco. This year we visited Mexico City which was an amazing experience (best guacamole I have ever eaten). These experiences spoiled me. When I first moved to NYC, I found it tough to find a good Mexican meal but over the years we did happen to discover several good places (just thinking about tacos al pastor, mole and enchiladas makes my mouth water).

On one of our last nights in the US, our friends Tom, Lesley, and their gorgeous daughter, Milla, cooked us Mexican food knowing it was my favorite. Lesley has made me her acclaimed (in my eyes) Chili Verde before. Kate and I made sure to pay close attention so that we could try and replicate it but we were convinced that finding the key ingredient to make the salsa verde- tomatillos- would be impossible in Australia. 

It only took a couple of days to find a little gourmet market in Blues Point called Delicado Wines (Thanks to Anya and Lisa) that was able to provide a solution: while tomatillos would have been a better find, we were able to get our hands on Goya’s Salsa Verde. All we would need now is a shoulder of pork (please forgive me, for I have sinned), some onion, garlic, tomatoes, and a slow cooker (which we are very excited to finally own).

We browned the meat, threw it into the slow cooker and poured everything on top. We just let it sit for 8 hours and ran to the store to purchase some sides (avocado, beans, tortillas, etc.), which unfortunately had to be selected from the range of Old El Paso products available at the supermarket (the only Mexican options). Voila, a spectacular Mexican feast! There was so much food that we now have enough leftovers to last us a couple of weeks. Bon appétit! Or should I say Buen provecho!