Puebla is widely considered one of the great food cities in all of Mexico. The dish Puebla is best known for is (chicken) Mole Poblano and the version served at the restaurant at our hotel (Boutique Casa Reyna) is an award winning recipe requiring an incredible 34 ingredients. While we frequently find moles we have eaten in the U.S. as overly rich concoctions that often as not produce heartburn, we came away from our Mole Poblano dinner considering it the best mole we had ever eaten anywhere.
In fact, while I’m sure our friends in Oaxaca will find this blasphemous, this dish confirmed our impression from our previous visits to Puebla and Oaxaca that we actually prefer the best mole we’ve eaten in Puebla to the best we’ve eaten in Oaxaca. Not there is anything wrong with the best moles we’ve enjoyed in Oaxaca, its just that we like the Puebla version better.
This visit to Puebla was in August 2019 and August and September are when local pomegranates and walnuts are in season. These are important ingredients in another regional specialty: Chiles en Nogada. And as with Mole Poblano, the restaurant at Hotel Boutique Casa Reyna serves a very popular version of this dish as well.
We saw restaurants all over the city offering specials on this seasonal dish but were amazed to find the Casa Reyna restaurant proper as well as the entire inner courtyard of the hotel complex filled with long tables of mostly local people enjoying Chiles en Nogada for both lunch and dinner over the entire 4-days we spent there. In fact the restaurant was so busy serving Chiles en Nogada that on the evening we wanted to eat Mole Poblano, even as hotel guests, we weren’t able to get a table and ended up ordering room service.
Another of the unique dishes originating in Puebla is a sandwich on a sesame seeded bun known as Cemita. The bread is a key component and typically has a soft center and slightly crusty surface. Despite our best intentions we didn’t get the chance to try a cemita on our first visit to Puebla in 2018 but after getting a primer on how to order a proper Poblano Cemita during our city walking tour we weren’t going to make that mistake again. So when we were walking near the Barrio del Artista around lunch time and saw a good crowd of locals eating at Cemitas y Tacos Los Pinos, we dove in.
Based on its faded green exterior, narrow dark interior, metal chairs and Formica tabletops, the appearance of this place was nothing to write home about but the cemitas were great. We ordered one with a chicken cutlet and another with pork and got both with shredded cheese, avocado, onions, pickled jalapeños and herbs. It was so good (and inexpensive) after we each finished one we shared another.
A third unique dish that originated in Puebla is a pork taco known as Tacos Árabes, a dish with its basis in Lebanon. While pork is not often associated with anything “Arab”, the story goes that the recipe was changed from lamb to pork to accommodate local sources and local taste preferences but the spice profile is reminiscent of Mediterranean cuisines and the wrapping is more similar to pita than tortilla.
When we were searching for a good place to try Tacos Árabes we were told one of the better choices was Taquería y Juguería Los Ángeles. There are several locations of this business around the city including one about a 5-minute walk from our hotel so that’s where we chose to go.
And as you might have guessed from the name of the place; not only do they serve a mean taco but this place also offers a huge selection at their juice and fruit bar. You can go purist and order a single juice, make up your own combination of juices or simply order one of the themed juice combinations or smoothie.
In addition to the Tacos Árabes there are tacos of all kinds: al pastor, sausage, head, chicken, lamb, rib, chop, etc. and all the above can also be served as a cemita.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention just how dedicated Taquería y Juguerías Los Ángeles is towards presenting their offerings in a spotlessly clean environment. The place was squeaky white clean when we got there and we saw someone cleaning the entire time we were there.
In our limited experience there, we liked everything we tried including the juices.
On our last evening in Puebla we returned to El Mural de los Poblanos, another favorite restaurant from our prior trip. It was an excellent meal with superb service in an interesting space. After the meal we walked the few blocks to the Zócalo to take in the color of the night and the space before walking back to the hotel.