As real as it gets… a great taco tour in Puerto Vallarta.

My plane landed around 2pm giving me just enough time to get settled into my hotel and figure out that I was starving!. Lucky for me I had booked a taco tour. I mean what a better way to see a city than eat your way through it. So I hopped in a taxi and headed into old town Puerto Vallarta. Our meeting spot was also our first stop. Seafood el Guero. While waiting I had the opportunity to meet the other guests and was not so surprised to see we were all from North America. Puerto Vallarta is an oasis from the bitter cold in the states and Canada. We all headed inside and met our guide Manuel. With an easy smile and a charismatic presence I liked him immediately. He let us know that he is a private chef while also doing the food tours for Vallarta food tours. I will put his info at the bottom of this post  , for any of you high rollers that might be in the market for a personal chef, along with the info for Vallarta Food tours. I can’t recommend this tour enough. Its a great way to see the city at night and be safe in a group. And then the tour began… we started with an amazing fish taco. It was fresh and hot with a crisp outer coating and sweet delicious fish inside. I only tried the avocado sauce but many of the others tried the spicier ones. A couple from Canada had been here before and said they always take the house picante back with them and use it all year. A little goes a long way when using super hot spices. As we ate Manuel told us about the restaurant. It’s a family owned business with only family employees. Everything is made fresh daily. The hottest of the sauces is their top seller and they run out quickly so get it early.  We then headed down the street to the next of our stops. Manuel introduced us to Guillermo. He has a taco cart that he sets up daily. The carts are regulated by the city and have regular inspections so for those of you who might be hesitant to eat from them they go through the same scrutiny as a restaurant. Guillermo is making beef tacos tonight with fresh tortillas. For those of you who would like to try your hand at tortilla the key is masa harina. A type of corn flour, its mixed with hot water and allowed to sit for 15 to 20 minutes then pressed and fried making super yummy tortillas. If anyone has been watching Top Chef , feeling very Cheffy and want to try your hand at making tortillas here’s a link to tell you how .https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-corn-tortillas-from-scratch-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-85904. We move further down the street to the Cabeza tacos… yes that does mean head. Here they use every part of the head including the eyes and the brains. We opted for beef cheek but almost every part of the head can be made into taco meat. They even have a taco that is made from all the left over… the whole head taco. The head is steamed all day then the parts are removed and put in different containers and continued to steam while being seasoned. While the thought of eating brains kinda makes me queasy I do respect the fact that they use every part of the cow. No waste here and that I can respect. Next we headed over to a seafood restaurant. Due to my need not to eat shellfish I skipped this taco and settled on a stuffed avocado. Avocado is used so much here but it grows EVERYWHERE. It’s also a cheap way to add healthy fat to a diet. I had mine with lettuce tomato and a unbelievable sauce. Yum. We walked some more down the hauntingly beautiful streets of Puerto Vallarta to a small Jazz bar where we tried some of the local Mezcal. Mezcal and tequila are often mistaken for being the same thing but they are but they aren’t. Tequila , the national drink of Mexico is made from a very specific plant can only be made in the Jalisco region on mexico. Tequila is a form of Mezcal . Mezcal is made from one of the 28 different types of agave plant, while tequila can only be made from the blue agave. The one we tried was Union Mezcal and it was smooth with a very smokey aftertaste. We each took a shot with a slice of lemon with some interesting salt on it. We had what was called Sal de Gusano or in english worm salt. Used as far back as prehistoric times the worms in the Agave plant were prized for their protein. Often sautéed and put in tortillas or eaten raw they are also ground with sea salt and served with Mezcal or as flavoring in food. The worm in the bottle was a marketing technique started years ago. Sal de Gusano was the original worm served with tequila.  We headed out into the night and took a pleasant walk past the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The church is adorned with the most beautiful crown. We stopped for a few pictures then we hopped a bus to the other side of town. There we had another great taco , pork this time. The meat is great but the toppings can’t be overlooked. The fresh vegetables and cheeses with the fabulous sauces are really what brings the whole thing together. We then head to a Puerto Vallarta classic the Al Pastor taco. It was originally brought to Mexico by the Lebanese who settled there. The meat is on a spit like a Shawarma but instead of lamb its pork and its served with a chunk of pineapple. The pineapple was not original to the Al pastor taco, they were used to hold the meat on the spit but the flavors go so well together and the servers are so inventive with their service that it quickly became a staple to the area. Our final stop was probably my favorite. Freshly made Churros.Lets face it I have a sweet tooth and extra padding to prove it.  Churros can be made many different ways with many different ingredients but I have to say fresh hot dough rolled in cinnamon in sugar will always be my favorite. Tonight we had the freshest , straight from the oil churros and they were heavenly. We all said our goodbyes and headed back to our respective hotels with full bellies and smiles on our faces. I want to say thank you again to Manuel for such a wonderful tour. I was the best welcome I could’ve had to the wonderful town of Puerto Vallarta.

Special thanks to Manuel Zuloaga , personal chef and food tour guide extraordinaire. Instagram @manuzuloga or E-mail adobocuisine@gmail.com for a wonderful and knowledgable private chef. 

I would also like to thank Vallarta food tours for providing me with such a great guide and experience in Puerto Vallarta. http://vallartafoodtours.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvuDvqKjM2AIV17rACh38ZAr_EAAYASAAEgIqmvD_BwE