After our Food Tour of Santa Tere, we headed on back to the hotel and had a short nap time. After waking and freshening up, we decided to head on out for dinner. I had a place in mind, one that had been recommended to me, by no less than three folks with Tapatio heritage. In case you didn't know, a Tapatio is what you call a person from the city of Guadalajara. In trying to figure out why; well, I came across several different "stories", but thought that this article was the most informative.
It was still early, so in spite of the hot weather, we decided to take the "long way" to dinner, strolling thru Centro Historico. We had a private walking tour of the city scheduled for the next morning, but thought it might be fun to get a preview.
Being that the city was established in 1532 and founded in 1542, declared as the capital of Nueva Galicia, there's a lot of history here. And the diverse architecture illustrates the changes. We heard that Guadalajara is called the "Florence of Mexico" from several sources during our stay.
Instead of heading straight down Avenida Juarez, the main drag, we strolled down Calle José María Morelos and of course we passed a couple of churches. This one caught our attention because it was open for visitors, so we decided to take a look.
According to the signage, this is Parroquia Santa Teresa de Jesús, which started it's existence as a convent. Construction on the structure was started in 1690 and completed in 1720. At the time of it's completion, this was considered the edge of the city!
According to Wikipedia, the convent was converted and sold to the Archdiocese of Guadalajara in 1977 and is now in service as a Catholic Church.
Just a few blocks down is the bustling Plaza Guadalajara, one of the four plazas that surround the Cathedral.
There are also several fountains in the plazas. This one is Fuente de Guadalajara, in other words, "Guadalajara Fountain".
It's really popular with the kids!
We knew that the Cathedral would be part of the tour the following day so we took a left and quickly noticed a Rotunda.
Looking at my Google Maps, I identified this as the Rotonda de los Jaliscienses Ilustres (Rotunda of the Illustrious Jaliscienses). The actual name I saw in my Google Maps was Rotonda de los Hombres Ilustres which is literally translated to "Rotunda of Illustrious Men". Which is a monument to those who have made Jalisco what it is today. There are 98 niches to house urns of those prominent figures. And 22 statues surround the monument. I quickly saw a statue of a woman, and would find out that the addition of Rita Perez de Moreno and Irene Robledo García would hasten a name change from our guide Diego the next day.
Past the Rotunda, we saw a nice walkway and after a couple of blocks came across this charming looking Carousel.
Guadalajara, at least what we saw of it seemed like a nice family friendly city. This is the Carrusel Monumental de Guadalajara.
And right past the carousel was yet another temple.
This is the Temple San José de Gracia, which was completed in 1890. It has an interesting story which you can read by clicking on the link.
By now, we were getting hungry, and our destination for dinner meant another 15-20 minute walk south. Past the plazas and the lively streets.
We strolled past a very busy location of Liverpool, a popular department store chain, before finding ourselves in a nice plaza.
This is Plaza De Las 9 Esquinas. It is surrounded by restaurants, including several birria shops. You know us and birria de chivo, right? Well, like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there was one restaurant that came highly recommended. And the name was easy to remember as it is the namesake restaurant here; Las 9 Esquinas.
We had arrived at about 530 and the place wasn't too busy. It would eventually fill up with families.
The service was very warm and friendly and we could watch the women making tortillas, salsas, and guac.
Well, of course we were going to get Birria de Chivo; we got a small order and the Missus wanted to try the Quesadillas and got one each of the Huitlacoche, Champinones, and Flor de Calabasa.
Loved the salsas. The salsa rojo to the left was super smoky and spicy!
And the beans were lovely; earthy – nutty, with just the right amount of salt.
Nice a creamy as well.
The Quesadillas were fine. The huitlacoche (corn smut) was fabulous, mushroomy-earthy-sweet, with a touch of "truffleishisness".
After tasting that, the mushroom version seemed quite weak, though the flor de calabasa (squash blossom) had a mild earthy-nutty-sweetness. The cheese was so stringy and paired well with the huitlacoche adding a mild milkiness.
And of course the Birria de Chivo.
What to say about this? The meat was on the toothsome side, but the goat was oh so gamy; flavor of the pasture indeed. There was a nice goaty-smokiness to the broth which had a lightly rich tongue feel without being greasy at all. For some reason, those pickled onions were just amazing with this. The freshly made tortillas were hardy and up to the task. By far the best birria de chivo we've ever had.
We really enjoyed our meal here.
Funny thing, when I got back to the office, I spoke to one of the managers of another group who asked me where we travelled to. I told him CDMX, Guadalajara, and Tequila. He told me his family is from Guadalajara and I should have asked him for some recommendations. He said there's a birria place they always go to when visiting family….guess where it was? Yep, Las 9 Esquinas! I guess we made a good choice!
Birriería Las 9 Esquinas
Calle Colón 384
Zona Centro, 44100 Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
It was still pretty darn hot as we walked back to the hotel. I went and got my phone out and took a look at the temperature. Sheesh!
Still, having that birria de chivo made it worth dealing with the heat!
Thanks for stopping by!
As I figured it was typical "LA Kalbi" – flanken/cross cut ribs. First thing I hit up was the mac salad. It was quite plain , with a few strands of carrots. It needed some salt and pepper and was kind of "watery" as the mayo hadn't really coated the macaroni well.
At most places, the chicken would be tenderized to an even thickness, but this was not, thus some bites were pretty thick and tough.
On this visit, it seemed like the gentleman who I believe is the owner was working the kitchen, so I was interested to see how my food would turn out. The first good sign was the mac salad, which while still in need of more salt and pepper was evenly coated and the mayo not runny like on my last visit.
Man, these were a lot more hefty than I recalled. The venison, which was done medium-well, we weren't asked for a preference. had a mild gamey flavor, the Havarti was kind of wiped out by the bacon and onion jam, which added a nice sweet-pungent touch to this. I enjoyed this, but it was a bit much for the Missus.
Overall, this was quite disappointing. I was looking forward to Izola reopening. I'm thinking I'll try the place in a couple of months and am hoping that this was just an off day. And at seven bucks a croissant….man, how would Parisians react to a six Euro croissant? I can only imagine!
Wayfarer tends to over bake their croissants; but this wasn't bad, quite flaky and crisp, the interior a bit on the dry side, but light and fluffy with a decent butter-salt ratio.
The bread was again nicely toasted, the cucumbers again refreshing, I wish it had more tomatoes and I appreciated the mint. There was a generous of labneh slathered on the toast, but it was just too puckery and sour for me to enjoy, the sour Zaatar just piled on, I'd have appreciated perhaps touch of sweetness and savory to balance things out a bit? As a whole, much too sour for me. My salivary glands are puckering up just looking at the photo!
Love the tortillas here, full of maize goodness, heated on the comal with drippings, it is always up to the task. The tripas have a nice mild crunch with beefy goodness. I bet you'd never figure out what it was if you were served one of these.
My goodness; this was even better than we thought! Fried to a light crispness, the interior was light, creamy, and almost fluffy. There have been times when we've had a iodine like aftertaste when having mollejas, but this was mild with a slight offal-nutty-buttery-sweetness. We actually didn't need salsa, lime, or heck, even the wonderful tortillas.
