Time for another guided food tour, this time out in the suburb of Tlaquepaque, a surprisingly quaint and artsy town where we walked on cobblestone roads. The first stop was the Mercado Benito Juarez, where a variety of items were on sale, including chili peppers, tortillas, and the stiff local bread that they use in the torta ahogada sandwich below. I tried a bit of cactus while I was here too; there wasn't much taste, but the texture was pretty much what you'd imagine it to be...without the spines of course.
We then went to a quite a few places to eat, all using taster-sized portions. For instance, that portion of chiles en nogada above should actually use two much larger peppers, but this was good enough to get a taste of this stuffed chili covered in walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. Unfortunately, I wasn't a huge fan of the sweet filling; they put minced meat and fruit inside, which was an unfamiliar combination. But I loved the birria that I got earlier. It wasn't the broth version that I was used to, but instead was a taco version, which again helped keep stomach space available. One actually drizzles the broth over the taco so that it's soaking wet.
Yes, soaking wet is how a lot of food is done here, like that sandwich above, which is apparently obligatory to eat when one comes to Guadalajara. I dipped my mini-sized one into a tomato-based sauce, kinda like a French Dip (or even an Italian Beef from Chicago), except you could really make this one spicy by mixing in a few scoops of the hot sauce. Other highlights of the afternoon included cazuela, a local sangria-meets-margarita in a bowl, as well as a thick fermented corn drink called tejuino. We also hit up some candy and tequila shops, the latter of whose ceramics were beautiful.
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