World Routes: Mexican Festival @ Harbourfront Centre

As part of the World Routes festivals that Harbourfront Centre is putting on this summer, we celebrated the 200th Anniversary of Mexican independence and the 100th Anniversary of the Mexican revolution with some really damn good food!

We ate:

Cactus salad:

Tasty, but not the type of thing you can gorge on, so the small portion they gave us was just right.

Guacamole and nacho chips:

I LOVE guac. When making it at home I usually cut the onions and tomatoes in bigger pieces but, that aside, it tasted almost exactly the way I like my guac and the nacho chips were really crispy with just the right amount of salt.

Chipotle chicken quesadilla:

Simple and delicious, this quesadilla didn't need any frills. It was just cheese and chipotle chicken and, with the complex flavours of the guacamole and cactus salad it came with, that's all it needed to be. Yum!

Cactus burrito (el burro):

This one was MUCH better than I expected. I was envisioning it to be all cactus and maybe a little sauce, but it actually had rice, beans, cheese, and other veggies in there, and it was very satisfying and filling for being a vegetarian dish. This was actually Mark's sister's dinner but we couldn't help stealing a few bites! Thanks Marie!

Churros:

"Rico's Churros" is a staple at every major Harbourfront festival, Mexican or not, but at least this time they didn't run out of the awesome milky caramel they fill them with; at Luminato's closing ceremonies they didn't have any filling left so I had a plain one and have been longing eversince to have a filled one. The place is forgiven though, because NOTHING tops how satisfying a filled churro from that booth is. Be careful eating it though or you'll be like me: wiping all the icing sugar off your clothes while your boyfriend and his sister laugh hysterically!

Fresh coconut:

I believe the guy who runs the fresh coconut booth is also at every major festival. We bought a young coconut - kind of expensive at $5, but less expensive than fully ripened coconuts at $7 - and he hacked it open and we stuck a straw in it and drank the juice. You can go back to him when you're done and ask him to hack it open again so you can get the meat, but you don't get much meat from a young coconut - and it's more like jelly than actual coconut. For the price, I don't think I'd get it again; the juice in the young one was a bit watery and probably less flavourful than what you'd find in a fully-ripened coconut. Next time I'll try the older one for $2 more.

Unfortunately we missed the lucha libre wrestling show (from what we could tell there was only one show each day of the festival), but the food more than made up for that. There was also a good mix of music, some traditional and some modern, coming from the stages so we weren't without entertainment.

I'm looking forward to doing a couple more of these World Routes festivals - they have different ones running right up until September at Harbourfront Centre.

Yours in food,
Stacey