One Day in Oaxaca

Pati's Mexican Table

Published on Dec 1, 2017

Pati shows us how to get the most out of one day in the city of Oaxaca. In 24 hours, she takes in the top sights, meets up with a local guide, goes to the market for lunch, and gives us a taste of the vibrant restaurant scene in one of the top culinary destinations in all of Mexico. In her kitchen, she recreates some of the things she had at the market and gives them some new uses. For more information on Pati's Mexican Table and to find more episodes, please visit https://patijinich.com/show/

Oaxaca City: Where to Drink, Eat, and Crash in the Mezcal Capital of the World GQ Magazine It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There's a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it's quiet energy reverberating off of the valley's surrounding purple ...

Oaxaca City: Where to Drink, Eat, and Crash in the Mezcal Capital of the World GQ Magazine It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There's a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it's quiet energy reverberating off of the valley's surrounding purple ...

Travel & Eats

Oaxaca City: Where to Drink, Eat, and Crash in the Mezcal Capital of the World

BY 

NATALIE B. COMPTON

PHOTOGRAPHS BY 

ALANNA HALE

2 days ago

Here, a typical weeknight can easily become the party of the year.

It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There’s a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it’s quiet energy reverberating off of the valley’s surrounding purple mountains. Maybe it’s just all the mezcal you’ve been drinking (sipping, not shooting—you're an adult and it's delicious). It's probably a combination of the two.

Whatever is responsible for the electric tingle of the place, it’s just one of the many reasons that keep visitors returning to Oaxaca—and why you should expand your Mexican vacation search radar past Tulum and Mexico City. “There’s a deep sense of history everywhere you go, and also a feeling that just about anything could happen. The food, of course, is arguably the best in Mexico,” says Clayton Szczech, a Mexican spirits specialist and founder of Experience Mezcal. “While the current mezcal boom has pros and cons, it has inarguably improved the nightlife in Oaxaca city. There is now real cocktail culture [here], thanks to places like Sabina Sabe and Mezcalogia. What makes Oaxacan nights truly special though, is drinking, chatting, and dancing into the night with a mix of locals, international tourists, hotshot foreign bartenders, and indigenous maestros mezcaleros in from the countryside to sell their mezcal. A typical weeknight in Oaxaca City can easily become the party of the year.” Here's how to spend that perfect night.

Before you get to drinking, you should eat something. For dinner recs, we asked Sabina Sabe bartender Aleks Medina : “I have two places in Oaxaca that I think are the best. The first is Criollo. Seriously this guy is a genius in my opinion. It’s amazing. They don’t have a permanent menu, they change things day by day. This is something new for Oaxaca,” Medina says of the new tasting menu spot backed by super-famous chef Enrique Olvera, chef Luis Arellano, and architect Javier Sánchez. His second pick is Origen: “It’s very simple and unpretentious—less is more.”

Ultimately, you’ll want to wind up at the Quinta Real, a centrally-located treasure of a hotel that was once a convent. Today you won’t find any nuns milling about the pink-painted oasis, just supremely comfortable guests enjoying the historic property. In the morning, make your way down to the sunny courtyard for the hotel’s famed breakfast spread, melodiously complemented by a live quartet.

And now for the drinking. You’re going to want to be sampling mezcal while you’re in mezcal Mecca. Man about town Vicente Reyes Cervantes is the guy to see about Oaxaca drink destinations. As a Oaxaca native and the head of operations for Gem & Bolt mezcal, Cervantes knows the city’s drink scene in and out. Here are his picks for mezcal drinking and more.

Here, a typical weeknight can easily become the party of the year.

It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There’s a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it’s quiet energy reverberating off of the valley’s surrounding purple mountains. Maybe it’s just all the mezcal you’ve been drinking (sipping, not shooting—you're an adult and it's delicious). It's probably a combination of the two.

Whatever is responsible for the electric tingle of the place, it’s just one of the many reasons that keep visitors returning to Oaxaca—and why you should expand your Mexican vacation search radar past Tulum and Mexico City. “There’s a deep sense of history everywhere you go, and also a feeling that just about anything could happen. The food, of course, is arguably the best in Mexico,” says Clayton Szczech, a Mexican spirits specialist and founder of Experience Mezcal. “While the current mezcal boom has pros and cons, it has inarguably improved the nightlife in Oaxaca city. There is now real cocktail culture [here], thanks to places like Sabina Sabe and Mezcalogia. What makes Oaxacan nights truly special though, is drinking, chatting, and dancing into the night with a mix of locals, international tourists, hotshot foreign bartenders, and indigenous maestros mezcaleros in from the countryside to sell their mezcal. A typical weeknight in Oaxaca City can easily become the party of the year.” Here's how to spend that perfect night.

Before you get to drinking, you should eat something. For dinner recs, we asked Sabina Sabe bartender Aleks Medina : “I have two places in Oaxaca that I think are the best. The first is Criollo. Seriously this guy is a genius in my opinion. It’s amazing. They don’t have a permanent menu, they change things day by day. This is something new for Oaxaca,” Medina says of the new tasting menu spot backed by super-famous chef Enrique Olvera, chef Luis Arellano, and architect Javier Sánchez. His second pick is Origen: “It’s very simple and unpretentious—less is more.”

Ultimately, you’ll want to wind up at the Quinta Real, a centrally-located treasure of a hotel that was once a convent. Today you won’t find any nuns milling about the pink-painted oasis, just supremely comfortable guests enjoying the historic property. In the morning, make your way down to the sunny courtyard for the hotel’s famed breakfast spread, melodiously complemented by a live quartet.

And now for the drinking. You’re going to want to be sampling mezcal while you’re in mezcal Mecca. Man about town Vicente Reyes Cervantes is the guy to see about Oaxaca drink destinations. As a Oaxaca native and the head of operations for Gem & Bolt mezcal, Cervantes knows the city’s drink scene in and out. Here are his picks for mezcal drinking and more.

Casa Oaxaca
“Even though the cocktails [here] are not super sophisticated, they’re very well made with natural ingredients and local ingredients. Obviously the terrace is excellent to eat [on], but I actually go to the downstairs bar only. I don’t go anywhere else. There are only four tables—maybe three—it’s beautiful. It’s kind of the only place you don’t need to make a reservation. They have a little menu for the bar and they can also bring you food from the restaurant in a lighter way. I would recommend the Xoconoxtle Mezcalini cocktail which is made with a very specific local fruit. It’s this red fruit we call tuna (prickly pear), but it’s a little bit sour. I think it It captures the whole Oaxacan gastronomy with mezcal.”

Mezcaloteca
“A place I really love that’s more of a purist place is Mezcaloteca. I really recommend it for people who are really into mezcal and really want to learn. It’s always amazing to go there and discover a rare mezcal, amazing producers, a different technique combined with a different variety of agave in a bottle that is super limited—maybe sometimes 100 liters production. It’s kind of a library for mezcal and more of a learning place. You have to make a reservation and they take you on a personal mezcal and agave journey. It’s a proper mezcal tasting room. It’s really nice and the aesthetics are really beautiful as well.”

Los Danzantes
“This is personal, but I love the Los Danzantes lounge. That’s where I go on Sundays. Not the restaurant, but the lounge off to the side. They do have cocktails but I think it’s a better place to drink straight mezcal. They have a good selection of mezcal including the Danzantes mezcal Alipús but they do carry most of the good mezcals. Sometimes I drink wine there. They have a really good Mexican wine selection, not expensive which I really enjoy when I’m not drinking mezcal. They have a really good selection of wines from Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California. The place is awesome and they have very comfortable seats. I love it.”

Salón de la Fama
“There is a little place, I don’t know if you even want to publish it but it’s really cool, Salón de la Fama, the hall of fame. It’s a little cantina and I like to go there sometimes to have a beer or mezcal. Many years ago the founder, his nickname is El Chato, worked there. He’s a celebrity. It’s kind of the typical cantina that we have, but it’s really well located and anyone can go. It’s been taken over by new generations and shifted a little bit, but they kept the essence of the cantina that El Chato founded. For me, it’s a place to drink and cure a hangover. I have anything with beer—they have an excellent michelada and clamato.”

Sabina Sabe
“The bar has an extremely good selection of mezcal, I would say the most complete selection of mezcals. Cocktails go from negronis to experimentations, but they’re very well done. They know what they’re doing and they’re very focused on mixology. The owner is an amazing young guy. he treats everyone with such a personal touch. He makes you feel like you’re home. It’s a really good local bar. It’s open late, you can stay there until 2, 3:30. I think legally they’re open until 3 but you can stay later.”

Cena de Año nuevo!

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• TIME Sun Dec 31 2017 at 09:00 pm 
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• VENUE Ocean Huatulco, Playa el arrocito, 

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CENA DE AÑO NUEVO!

 

Ven a celebrar ? el final de año y el comienzo del 2018! 
Un fabuloso bufete 
como cada año, fuegos artificiales, copa de brindis, 12 uvas, 
Dj, Decoracion para celebrar!

Zipolite on the Pacific

La Llamada del Chaman - Espiritu Ancestral_Fin de Año 2016 Zipolite

Zipolite Mexico

Zipolite 43- Sunsets, Waves & the Moon

Zipolite 42

Healing, Meditation & Sleep Music by Omul Nou

Richard Newman Presents Teen Beat The 70s Album by Richard Newma

Chase & Sanborn Hour Christmas 1939

Big-wave surfer killed in truck-car collision Internationally known surfer Óscar Moncada and two friends died on the weekend

http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/big-wave-surfer-killed-in-truck-car-collision/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Daily&utm_campaign=86fad6916d-november+28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-86fad6916d-348153685

Big-wave surfer killed in truck-car collision

Internationally known surfer Óscar Moncada and two friends died on the weekend

Mexico News Daily | Monday, November 27, 2017

Renowned big-wave surfer Óscar Moncada died in hospital early yesterday from injuries sustained in a two-vehicle collision Saturday in his home state of Oaxaca. Two other occupants of the car he was traveling in were also killed.

Moncada, a native of Puerto Escondido —Mexico’s most famous big-wave destination— was 34.

The crash occurred on a section of federal highway 200 about 35 kilometers south of Puerto Escondido in the municipality of Santa María Tonameca. The Mercedes convertible in which the surfer and two of his friends were traveling was crushed when it collided with an Isuzu truck at around 4:00pm Saturday.

The car burst into flames following the collision while the truck overturned before coming to a halt across the two-lane highway, blocking traffic in both directions. The truck driver was also injured in the incident and taken to hospital in a serious condition.

The two other victims have been identified as Diego Oropeza, also a Puerto Escondido surfer, and tattoo artist Walter Rendón.

Municipal, state and federal police attended the scene of the accident along with firefighters from Puerto Escondido. Federal and state police are investigating the cause.

Moncada gained international fame for his skill at surfing the large waves at his home break at Zicatela Beach, nicknamed the Mexican Pipeline. He competed in big-wave surfing competitions around the world and was sponsored by the United States company Volcom.

The governing body for professional surfers, the World Surf League, described Moncada as “a big-wave legend” and said that he had been “a pillar of the Puerto Escondido surfing community for more than two decades.”

In July, he placed ninth in the Puerto Escondido Challenge and was currently ranked 19th on the Big Wave Tour. In 2006 he gained a wildcard into an elite championship tour event featuring the world’s best surfers.

News of the surfer’s death has further rattled the worldwide surfing community that was already reeling from the death of another pro-surfer, Brazilian Jean da Silva.

Just hours before he was killed, Moncada posted a heartfelt tribute and farewell to Silva, who is believed to have taken his own life.

Now, the tributes are flowing for Moncada, who apart from being a world-class big-wave surfer, was also a well-loved member of both the local and international surfing community.