Yesterday was the big annual (I think I overheard 7th annual) Mexican community in Buenos Aires open air cultural and gastronomic festival. Held in the Bosques de Palermo, the semi-wooded area of the 3 de Febrero park, it was a fun-filled afternoon of music and food, a bit of sun giving way to looming clouds and a bit of wind. I met a lovely young man from the Mexican embassy who saw me taking lots of pictures and eating way too much and came over to introduce himself. (Was he flirting? I’m not sure.) He promised to check-out the blog and come by Casa S one night soon. There were a dozen stands serving up different kinds of classic Mexican street fare – I gobbled my way through tacos from four of them and a heaping plate of chilaquiles from a fifth. One interesting note, all of the stands were run by caterers here in town – who knew there were a dozen offering Mexican food? And why were none of the Mexican restaurants in town participating? (Actually, I’d guess it’s that for the most part, few or none are owned, run by, or staffed by, members of the Mexican community.)

In hindsight I should have stayed and gorged my way through at least a couple more stands – the food was delicious, all around – instead I headed off for the Brazilian street festival up near the Casa Rosada which unfortunately turned out to be more of a generic street fair, with booth selling souvenirs and refrigerator magnets, and the food options, for the most part seemed to be hot dogs, hamburgers, and lots of cakes and tarts. Several licuado stands were whipping up frothy fruit beverages, a few people were offering coxinhas – little croquettes of mashed yuca filled with one meat or another, but only two spots were offering any real food – both serving up the classic feijoada, but given that they were the only ones, the lines were 40-50 people long. I didn’t wait. The weather started to turn nasty so I headed home rather than back to the fun folk celebrating Mexico in the park.

Enjoy!