Cheap eats in San Cristobal de las Casas

When I travel, I am not interested in fine dining, so I typically avoid all the places suggested by tour books or magazines, and seek out instead the more interesting and inexpensive local dining places. I love to eat at places where the locals eat, so I ask around to find out which places serve good, authentic foods at reasonable prices. Of course, in Mexico, my Canadian dollar gets me almost 10 pesos, so something that costs 11 pesos, for example, a capuccino moka, would only be $1.10.

So here’s my review of a few good restaurants that we’ve sampled in San Cristobal, but be warned that there are no “fine dining” restaurants in this list, though we’ve dined quite finely in most of these places. So for dining snobs, you can stop right here and find some other review. This is only for those interested in unique dining experiences at low costs. Tthe parenthesized # indicates the number of times we ate (or had beverages) at the restaurant, which is like a star-rating system in a way. I am not  bothering to use stars because, well, tastes vary and it’s all very individual. I’ll just describe our experiences and leave the rest up to you. Sometimes the reviews might include the people involved in our dining experiences.

1. El Punto on Avenida Comitan (1X) – a small pizzeria with a one page menu. Cheap, with prices ranging from 65 to 110 pesos. Their walls are covered with signatures and notes left by travellers from all over the world who had eaten there. Tasty pizza; they baked in a wood oven. I ordered a Quatro and got a pizza with four different toppings (artichokes, ham, mushrooms & cheese), each on a separate quarter of the pizza. Only reason we didn’t go back was because we never felt like having pizza again.
2. La Salsa Verde on Avenida Miguel Hidalgo (8X, maybe more) – probably the best good eat for Mexican food. Here I learnt how to make the best quesadilla (see method in a previous posting). Food is served with generous quantities of fresh tomato salsa with cilantro, fresh chooped sweet onion, and a green jalapeno sauce which is sometimes really fiery hot. They have the usual 8 types of soft tacos, quesadillas, quesos, and a variety of a la carte meat orders. Plus a page of Especiales which are different combinations of meats and veggies essentially stir-fried on a griddle and typically topped with cheese and served with fresh tortillas. Very tasty foods. Dishes range from 25 t0 70 pesos. They also serve breakfast. A no-nonsense place.
3. Arez (1X) on Calle Guadalupe- a Lebanese place that we stopped by for lunch one day. We chose wraps as we were not very hungry and only wanted a snack.  I ordered the Lamb Shwarma, which was 40 pesos, and my partner ordered the Chicken on Skewer wrap (also 40 pesos). The lamb was a little dry, but the chicken was delicious. Both were served with a pita, lettuce, tomato & tzatziki. I also had the best chicken soup – it was flavored with chopped vegetables and Mexican oregano, which gave the soup the most amazing taste and aroma. Of course, every restaurant serves cervesa (beer), and prices range from 20 – 30 pesos.
4. Spezzo Cafe & Restaurante (3X) on Avenida Miguel Hildago – a lovely little cafe situated on the main drag, which is a car-free street where people casually stroll, eat, shop, buy or sell goods. Their moka was delicious, but they also serve some creative crepas (crepes, Mexican style). For about 40 pesos, you can get a Crepa Poblano (with chicken, onions, poblano chilli, served with a poblano sauce) or Crepa Italian (proscuitto with gouda, served with a creamy tomato-cheese sauce). I must also say that this place had the best, cleanest, most well-equipped baño (bathroom) we’ve encountered so far in any place in this city, with an electric paper towel dispenser, a hand soap dispenser that wasn’t empty or broken, and….a toilet seat!!!
5. Restaurante Maya on Avenida 20 de Noviembre (3X) – lovely courtyard with tables in and around it. The first time we were there, we ordered altogether too much food for two – guacamole, a chicken mole served with rice, and a sizzling platter of caramelized onions and green peppers with 3 pieces of seasoned, grilled chicken breast. The mole sauce was tasty and the chicken in both dishes tender. Prices ranged from 30 pesos for starters to 80 pesos for the main dishes. Live music in the evenings.
6. Tratorria Italiano (3X) on Calle Bellasario Dominguez - a family-run affair, with Mama cooking in the small kitchenette making hand-made pasta and original sauces, and daughter Frederika hosting.  The family hails from Sicily originally.  The prices are higher than most of the restaurants on this list, but only very slightly so, and for a quality of food that’s definitely in the category of “fine dining” but without the associated high prices. There is no printed menu – it’s all in the heads of the servers and hosts. They have starters and salads, and only about 5 or 6 main dishes. Most days they serve hand-made raviolli, and on Thursdays they make lasagna. We’ve sampled 3 of their ravioli dishes – with vegetable filling, with salmon, and with shrimp & avocado. The first and third came in a light tomato sauce, while the salmon came with a richer, buttery sauce. The prices for these entres were between 85 and 95 pesos. Warm bread and chopped fresh tomato with olive oil came free with the meals.
7. Casa del Pan (6X) on Calle Dr. Navarro – came highly recommended as the local vegetarian & organic restaurant and did not disappoint. Their chocolate (hot chocolate was the best we had in SCDLC), made with Mexican chocolate, Mexican style with milk and cream, spiced with cinnamon and vanilla. We’ve enjoyed their enchila con mole, fajita with tofu, and a dish I do not recall the name of but it had wheat puffies, chanterelle mushrooms, broccolli, carrots and cauliflowers on top of a bed of brown rice. I’ve had that three times.  And their black bean soup was impressive, nicely spiced with aromatic cumin. They also had yellow corn tortillas, which was my favourite kind. Prices are reasonable, ranging from 35 pesos for starters and soups to 70 pesos for entres. The waiter there has been correcting my Spanish, so now I know how to say “La cuenta, por favor” (Check please) perfectly.
8. Las Molcajetto on Avenida Miguel Hildago (2X)- a tiny place, with only about 5 or 6 small tables. Our main reason for going there was because we were looking for pazoles or pozoles, which is a Mexican soup/stew made with a pork stock, flavored with ancho chilli peppers, garlic and dried oregano. You can get it with chicken, pork or beef, and it comes served with a variety of garnishes like sliced radishes, lime wedges, chopped sweet onion, shredded lettuce and corn tortilla chips. They were only 30 pesos a bowl, and the servings were generous. that was perhaps the cheapest meal we’ve had in SCDLC. We had been strolling along the street and looked curiously in when a Mexican man eating with his family came out to greet us, saying in English “Come in, come in..food very good and cheap.” I thought he was the owner, but it turned out he was just a friendly guy who wanted to help us.
9. Yik Cafe – there are two of these, one in the main town square and one on Avenida 20 de Noviembre. Our favourite cafe to hang out in, with the best beverage prices. A capucinno moka was only 11 pesos, and they also served breakfast. Their desaynos were interesting, about 45 pesos on average.  We’ve had their Chiapeneca Special – which consisted of 2 types of tamales (one salty with pork and one salty-sweet, also with pork) and their Huevos Mexicana (scrambled egg with chorizo). Both breakfasts came with refried black beans, toast, jam, tea or coffee and a generous serving of fresh fruit salad.  Because they have a coffee roaster on site, you sometimes come out smelling like burnt coffee beans. Hey, it could be worse. The coffee is great, and that’s a price worth paying. Live music in the evenings. And the bonus – little Mayan children come in and try to sell you bracelets and belts; the two most entertaining and persistent were look-alikes Angelina and Marta (who surely are sisters, if not twins, and may be trying to fool naive visitors by playing each other). I’ve bought probably a dozen and a half odd things from one or both of them. I haven’t been co-erced; I’ve quite enjoyed them and marvel at how hard they work. Now, all my friends are going to be given bracelets or belts.
10. The Italian Coffee Company on Calle Real de Guadalupe – which we came upon by chance one rainy night awhen we were a little OD’d on Mexican food. The chocalate was rich and tasty, but not made Mexican style with the spices. We were glad to get ham and cheese croissant sandwiches for a change, and they were only 30-35 pesos.
11. Restaurant Alameda (1X) on Ave. General Utrilla – another courtyarded restaurant, charming in decor with flower pots all around. We had the beef fajitas and some kind of chicken with creamy tomato sauce and veggies. Not the best tasting food, but prices in the same range as the ones described above. Served with hot tortillas.
12. Revolucion Cafe & Bar (1X) – on Ave. 20 de Noviembre, with dishes and drinks named afer famous revolutionaries, rebels (or dictators) like Greenpeace, Zapata, Quijote, Hendrix, Bjork (?)Mao, Napoleon. I had the Mangoleon, which was 3 chicken brochettes drizzled with mango sauce and coconut cream for 47 pesos, while my partner had the Tulum, which was their chicken, ham and apple brochettes drizzled with coconut cream for the same price. Their mango shake was 19 pesos, and beer was 30 pesos. Both dishes came with pan (bread). We had lunch there today (tried to eat dinner there last week, but it was jam-packed that evening and terribly smoky, which at once made us de-select it as a dinner choice). While eating our lunches, we noticed this little boy shining the shoes of a lady at the table next to us. We watched him work, and he was meticulous, spending probably 15 or 20 minutes per shoe. We guessed that he probably made no more than 10 pesos for his hard work. As we paid our bill, I got the impulse to buy  him lunch so I asked the waiter, who fortunately spoke some English, to ask the boy if he wanted a baguette or something.  The waiter went over the menu with him, and he chose something. I invited the boy to come sit with us, but we had to leave before his food came. He looked pleased, and I was pleased to act on impulse to do something small for him.
13. Dada Jazz Club (1X) on Ave. Insurgentes – live jazz nightly. We only had drinks, but their mojito was the best I’ve ever had, for only 38 pesos. A huge problem for us is that niether of us are smokers, and the place was so smoky you could hardly breathe. A new friend we made here was playing with the local band the night we were there, but we couldn’t even stay long enough to hear him play out his set. Otherwise, the ambience was fine.
14. Hotel Cocodrillo Bar (2X) in the main plaza downtown – nice decor, with nightly live music. The night we were there, we heard this amazing 4-piece band with percussion and string instruments accompanying a couple of fantastic vocalists. Only had capuccino mokas (which had become our standard caffeinated drink here), so we don’t know about the food, but the menu looked good – they had an interesting mix of starters and light meals.