ten days in Mexico city
At the start of the year I was working in Mexico City. I spent ten days there in total, seven days for work and three days to explore, document, and eat my way around the incredible city. Here’s a selection of images from the trip. All photos were taken on the Fujifilm XE-2 with either the Fuji 18mm F2 or Fuji 35mm F1.4.
Florence - The Sights, The Sounds, and The Foods
Last year I spent a week travelling in and around Florence with my dad. The following video and photo write up are from this trip - focusing on the sights, the sounds, and the foods of the region. The photos and video do most of the talking, but I wanted to go in-depth on a couple of areas below, namely the foods.
Il Latini and the Bistecca alla Fiorentina
Il Latini is a family run restaurant that my dad recommended from when he came here decades ago. Hidden down a cobbled side street, it’s a great restaurant to get a taste of Florentine culture and culinary heritage. If the ceiling lined with cured meats doesn’t convince you then I don’t know what will.
The menu is made of simple yet flavorful dishes of the region, with the star of the show being the Bistecca alla Fiorentina, the region's powerhouse of a dish.
Bistecca alla Fiorentina, Fagioli Bianchi, Verdure Grigliate
Patate Arrosto, Verdure Grigliate
Bistecca alla Fiorentina is a thick, dry aged, T-bone steak sourced from a local cattle breed - the Chianina. Chianina cattle are one of the world's oldest breeds and the world's biggest breed. They also come from the Chiana Valley, which is where Chianti wine is made. The grass-fed, healthy, muscly and happy animal provides a meat that is very lean and marbled. Sadly we didn’t see any of these beasts on the trip so here’s a photo from google.
Chianina Cattle, and man.
As the steak is so thick they can cook it over a very hot open flame, giving it a beautiful charred crust on the outside, but a juicy tender inside. Pairing it with a Chianti wine completes the whole experience, eating and drinking produce that comes from the same ground. Molto buono.
Lampredotto and Tripperia Pollini
Lampredotto is an offal dish made from the fourth stomach of a cow. A traditional staple on the streets of Florence, a common way to eat the stomach is the “Panino Trippa”, a tripe sandwich. The slow cooked meat is placed in a crusty roll with salt, pepper, and a spicy red sauce or a fresh salsa verde. The top half of the roll is then usually dipped quickly into the lampredotto broth for extra flavour.
In terms of cooking the stomach, it’s slowly simmered in a vegetable stock to break down the tough muscle fibres, giving a tender and succulent meat. Once the stomach is cooked it's sliced into thin strips (how they do this is impressive, you can see it in the video) and then served.
Pollini Lampredotto, a father-son run stall, is one of the well known places to get the sandwich.
“For 23 years we have been in the square waiting, not for customers, but for friends.”
Here’s a great video of the owner, Sergio Pollini, explaining the story behind the cart.
Fishing Lab Alle Murate
Going from old and traditional to modern, innovative, and very unique, Fishing Lab is a restaurant come museum serving up all different forms of seafood, traditional and contemporary.
Firstly, it's built inside an old 14th century palace. With three levels, you can either sit among the gods with the ceiling’s frescoes, sit at the bar, or head downstairs to something special - excavated 1st century Roman ruins. They market the restaurant as a “carefree museum”.
Secondly, they don’t really cater to any specific clientele:
“Our clients cannot be categorised in terms of classic age or social status considerations. Our target cuts across all these, encompassing people with precise consumer attitudes and preferences”
The restaurant blends street food culture with fresh high quality ingredients into an informal but classy atmosphere.
The Menu
Mixed Fried Fish
Clam Risotto
Sandwich with “Sea Lampredotto”
The prices are low, the quality is high, and you can have either a light finger food snack or a full blown meal. The Fishing Lab world is your oyster.
Jamaica Market, Mexico City
Mercado Jamaica is a vibrant and eclectic market located in the eastern neighborhood of Jamaica. The market is a hub of hustle and bustle, with vendors selling everything from fresh produce and flowers to clothing and electronics.
The market is a feast for the senses. As soon as you step in you’re in for a treat. From the colours of fruits, flowers and shop signs, to the smells dancing through the air, and then the sounds eminating from every corner of the market, whether it be a music system or a shopkeeper touting or just general atmosphere is incredible.
One of the highlights of the Jamaica Market is the flower section. This is what the market is mostly know for, and the area is filled with vibrant bouquets as far as the eye can see.
Have you ever seen so many vibrant fruit and veg in one place? The amount of fresh produce is incredible.
A few blocks from the fruit and veg market is the food market. You can just imagine the sounds and smells of all the grills and friers going on, not to mention the fresh chillis, onions, and herbs being chopped up.
I was on the search for a dish called “Huaraches”, and got sent to an area of the market. When I asked the vendor of a restaurant if they served them, they not only told me where I could find them, but also gave me a free taco. The lovely couple below invited me to come and sit with them, saving me from struggling to eat it standing up. They showed me how to build a taco. Onion, coriander, and a little bit of lime (Not too much as it get’s too soggy and breaks apart…as I found out) and red or green salsa.
The place above is where I landed on my Huarache hunt. Again, I got given a free taco when sitting down. This should be a thing everywhere.
So what is a Huarache? Not the Nike shoe, though the food shares its name with a Mexican sandal. Huaraches are a type of street food that originated in Mexico City.
They’re a fried corn dough that’s topped with a variety of toppings, not too dissimilar to a taco. Things like refried beans, crumbled queso fresco or cotija cheese, onion, coriander, and a choice of meats, such as grilled beef, chorizo, or chicken al pastor. Some places offer vegetarian options like grilled cactus or mushrooms.
I went for carne asada (Grilled beef) and the works. It also came with fries, like you needed them. All washed down with a horchata. Muy bien.
After eating that I had to walk it off, so enjoy these photos I took as I aimlessly wandered to try and burn off the calories I just consumed.
This guy was blasting his music out on an old school sound system, perfect.
Parkway Bakery & Tavern, New Orleans
One of New Orleans’ most iconic food spots lies just outside of the hustle and bustle of the city centre and French Quarter : Parkway Bakery And Tavern.
Located in the Mid-City neighborhood, Parkway Tavern has a rich history of over 100 years, initially opening its doors as a local neighborhood bakery in 1911.
Why are they iconic? Parkway Tavern is the birthplace of the famous “PoBoy” Sandwich, a sandwich that came to be out of a social dilemma over 100 years ago.
In 1929, 18 years after opening, over 1,000 streetcar drivers went on strike for more than 4 months. Food establishments would serve free sandwiches to the “Po’ boys” on strike, giving the sandwich the name Po Boy.
Now serving over 1000 people a day, there's no sign of this tradition stopping.
"At the heart of Parkway’s story is our customers’ lives – generations of stories that add to the rich tapestry of New Orleans’ history, all filtered through the memories they’ve shared inside Parkway Bakery and Tavern. Half the memorabilia on the walls was donated by customers, and people happily share their photos online from their experience at Parkway"
Shrimp Po Boy