In Guanajuato, we had an excellent meal at Las Mercedes restaurant, which describes itself as “Cocina Mexicana Artesanal”. We had spent the morning walking in the historic centre, seeing museums, and wandering through the tunnels that carry a good amount of vehicular traffic underground. The oldest tunnels were once riverbeds. Antonio Ojeda from Cacomixtle Group told us that the first tunnels were built with many arched bridges over the rivers that once ran through the city. I’ll be posting about our trip with Antonio soon.

After walking around getting lost in the crooked little streets, we took a cab to Las Mercedes, which I had read about on Chowhound, and also on Rachel Laudan’s website. Rachel’s knowledge of the area and Mexican culture, her generous and unromantic view of people, food and economics make great reading.

But back to our meal at Las Mercedes. We ate at 3:30 PM, which Cristina on Chowhound has said is during the traditional time for Mexicans to have their main meal, and the best time to experience a restaurant’s “A-team” of chefs. Cristina is currently based in Morelia, and knows a lot about Mexican food. Her blog includes food, daily life in Mexico and recipes.

We discovered that others hadn’t read Cristina’s blog - we were the only guests at Las Mercedes for the next two hours.

In our travels in Mexico and the USA, we have cooked many meals on our own, and ate at the mercado or at carnitas stalls. I like to shop in the local stores, to feel like I’m participating in the community. Down the block from our apartment in Guanajuato, I bought eggs and milk at the corner store. When I’d see the shopkeeper at other times, she would recognize me and call out a greeting. After months on the road, being recognized was special. Guess I’m not so keen being a stranger everywhere I go. Cooking our own meals also gives me more control over my carbs. The dinner at Las Mercedes contained more than my usual, but I didn’t have the handmade tortillas. I explained my needs, and Jesus, the owner, helped me choose from the menu. I didn’t ask for any other special accommodation.

I’ve written about our meal on tripadvisor.com. I’ve been using TripAdvisor reviews to plan our trip, and decided it was time to contribute, both for fellow travellers, and also for the restaurant’s benefit. Here’s what I said:

We dined at Las Mercedes at the beginning of January 2010. As others have said, the dining room is in the front room of the owner’s house, in a lovely part of Guanajuato, overlooking the city. A taxi from downtown was 30p (less than $3).

The complimentary amuse-bouches came with a delicious pasilla sauce that I wanted to put on subsequent dishes. My favourite course was my starter with layers of very young nopale (cactus pad), smoked salmon and goat cheese. My husband enjoyed his baked panela cheese, with a delicious oil infused with garlic and pasilla. I tried the soup with black cuitlacoche (corn smut, a kind of fungus), just because it’s a Mexican specialty.

There were other mushrooms and vegetables in it, which resulted in a mushroom soup effect with texture. The pork shank main was a lot of meat - should have split an order with my husband, although he had room for dessert, ice cream, dressed with a little sauce and pecan, and a pretty fried garnish that was there for dramatic height, not flavour. With an award-winning but modestly priced bottle of 2004 L.A. Cetto, Nebbiolo, from Baja California (poured through an aerator), and two specialty cocktails, our bill was around 1200 pesos before tip (less than $100, at 12.8 pesos to the USD).

In sum, we concur with the many reviewers who found Las Mercedes’ food and service very agreeable.

Las Mercedes
Calle de Arriba 6
Fracc. San Javier
Guanajuato, Guanajuato
tel: 473-732-7375/ 733-9059