December 23, 2021
Poc Chuc Roundup
Since our Poc Chuc pursuit got cut short by about 1/2, we did not end up sampling all that many Poc Chucs. However since Poc Chuc is really a Yucatan dish, the part of our tour that would have been in the eastern Quintana Roo probably would not have yielded a lot of Poc Chuc tasting anyway.
Two main things attracted us to Poc Chuc in the first place. The first, of course, was the flavour of meat marinated in sour orange and then charcoal grilled. But the second was the array of "sides" that come, or should come, on the plate. These include refried beans, pickled pink onions, toasted tortillas (in addition to the mandatory stack of fresh tortillas), avocado, lettuce and tomato, rice, limes, and tomato salsa.
Our image of the perfect Poc Chuc came from one that we found at a food court in Valladolid, in 2018. We showed it early in this blog, and it was like this:
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This time around we might have had to reluctantly concede was that it may be sort of legitimate to have thinner beans and salsa presented with the dish in a small bowl, rather than on the plate.
However the example from Los Divas also lacks presentation appeal, and was fried not grilled.
The much more upscale (and at least double priced) La Chaya Maya in Merida, did also have the beans in a bowl, the onions in a bowl, and some cabbage in a bowl:
The presentation here was pretty good, but the meat was not. It could have been our error, for choosing chicken and not pork.
A billboard about 135 km east of Merida described one Poc Chuc graphically. and presumably the artist might have been a little free to present an ideal image. But looking at it:
...we see salsa and beans in bowls, no avocado or toasted tortillas, but lots of salad. The free bathrooms mentioned would also have been a plus! and hey, how about that Yin and Yang travelling foodie logo:
Probably the most honest example was prepared by grandma, at our hotel in Coba, It looked like this:
We do see rice, salad, lime, toasted tortillas, lots of meat, but all generally pretty sparse. Ok, you know what, we probably need to go back to Yucatan for another shot at this.
On the other hand, just focusing on Poc Chuc is quite limited in itself. Look at this statement from Leslie and Rob Cooke, on their recent foray out of Merida: "We love Mexican food - panuchos, salbutes, mole, albondigas, tacos etc, etc." And they did not even mention Poc Chuc, let alone Cochinita Pibil, Chilaquiles, Papadzules, Chilaquiles, or maybe versions of Sopa de Lima. We found a couple of Youtubes where people run around, usually Merida, trying to sample a bunch of these in a single day.
Maybe next time out we'll broaden our approach. It could require some extra packets of Tums, but we'll see...
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