February 15th, 2010
Palapas Team Culinary Expedition
Muy Sabroso! Tres Arbolitos
Over the past three years and previous to opening our restaurant, Johnny K – our general manager – made a number of culinary excursions to the tropics of the Americas; some self directed and some with culinary professionals such as Elizabeth Baird, Rick Bayless and Josefina Santacruz. This year he decided to take our kitchen team down to Mexico on such an excursion both to inspire and reward. We took five members of the kitchen and three of the front of house managers. For our first annual Culinary Expedition we chose Puerto Vallarta as our destination. It is a wonderful resort area with many districts and surrounding towns offering a varied experience and lots of exciting recreational activities for time off from our pursuit of excellence. It is also an easy and comfortable access to Mexico for those who have not done much travelling. It was the first time in Mexico for four of our group which added to the excitement.
We planned the trip for eight months having meetings discussing what we really wanted to learn and see and what we would be cooking while we were there. We planned to rent a villa on the ocean and visit the markets and cook up a number of dishes we weren’t as familiar with using fresh local ingredients. We managed to rent a villa for five nights – Casa de Las Palapas – our namesake- which also had a wonderful Mexican cook on staff.
We pre-ordered some supplies for the villa to have on hand for us and then the first morning there we went out to the local markets and shops and purchased supplies. We spent the first afternoon cooking and prepping to have the basics we needed for the week and then supplemented daily with the center of the plate items from fresh beef cuts, some marinated and some not, to different styles of chorizo and birria and carnitas, to fresh red snapper and shrimp. Everyone was very excited at the bounty of fresh and exciting foods – especially the wonderful Mexican cheeses – Oaxacan , Chihuauan and Manchego and Asadero. We had the Mexican cook on staff at the villa – Marisela - assist us in making some traditional authentic local dishes con mucho flavour. We also purchased fresh ground masa and made tamales – both pork rib tamales and Tamales del Istmo de Tehuantepec with chicken mole stuffing. The actual fresh masa is so much better than the reconstituted masa harina de tamalaria which we use in Saskatoon. So Marisela convinced us to go to the market and purchase an “el Molino” grinder so we can grind our own field corn at home and hopefully make our own fresh masa for the restaurant. We are looking forward to working through the steps of preparing our own nixtamal.
We also visited local restaurants off the beaten track and recommended by our new Mexican friends, including Tres Arbolitos and the best taco stand in Puerto Vallarta – a well kept secret – where we ate outdoors on the street at night in front of a swollen and raging Rio Cuale in Colonia Buenos Aires. The staff voted that meal the best meal of the expedition. We had tacos and quesadillas and volcans all prepared fresh for us with four amazing salsas to choose from. A definite favourite was the Torta Ahogado – a Guadalajara specialty sandwich with refried beans and barbecued pork on a bolillo and smothered in a sauce of pure arbol chiles.
We have all returned inspired and excited to add to the experience at our restaurant – to make it even more authentic and flavourful. As I said we are now developing our own nixtamal recipe for fresh masa as well as our own fresh chorizo recipe. Some of the features we are working on at present include different sides such as arroz rojo and arroz verde as well as fresh nopale salad and fried chorizo nopale mix. Mole chicken tamales and chorizo tamales are also in the works along with a wonderful queso fundido recipe we ran into and some exciting local salsas from PV. We will also be serving Gorditas on the weekends and Conchas Chinas Ceviche will be on this summer – a wonderful dorado molido ceviche on tostadas. The staff took lots of photos as well with ideas for interior and exterior design and decorative accessories. We managed to pick up a couple Huichole yarn paintings for the restaurant this trip and have already hung them in the dining room.
We had a couple beautiful sunny days and two days of rain including a crazy tropical storm which they tell us is very rare. We returned somewhat sunburnt and seasick;) but truly inspired. The staff who had not visited Mexico before have fallen in love with its charms and are excited to return and explore other areas in the future. Que milagro!
