Sunday, Sunday in Merida

Finally Street Festival Sunday arrives. From the map above I can tell you that the majority of the action is centered around the main square at the bottom of the map. It's nuts. They were setting up tents starting the night before beginning before ten pm. I was prone to thinking, "Isn't it lucky we were here this weekend for all this?" But was corrected that they do this street closure, live band, outdoor shopping, food vending extravaganza EVERY SUNDAY.

There were numerous stalls of local handicrafts.

This one was a sweet crepe that got rolled up, then filled with Parmesan cheese. The cheese melted and the crepe got hard. It tasted like a sweet waffle cone filled with salty cheese. Super yummy.

I'm not one to eat off the street. Or even in the street. But this really did seem to be the place to go for it. And we did.

Fruit for sale.

Corn on the cob, slathered with mayonnaise then a spicy chili sauce, Parmesan cheese and topped with a squeeze of fresh lime to take the chili sting out.

This has a specific name that I can't recall. I dubbed it Pig & Pineapple. Instead of a lamb kebab being spit roasted, this is all pork. Above it is a whole pineapple that is being slow roasted and dripping down through the pork. The pork is shaved off then made into tacos with a little piece of the pineapple thrown on for flavor.Instead of washing dishes (this is a stall in the middle of the street with no running water), they place a plastic sack over them and throw away the plastic to reuse the plates again and again. These are panuchos because as you can see the corn tortilla is filled with black beans and deep fried.
Lyle said he was ordering 4 tacos. I thought we'd each have 2. Then they came and we had 4 each. Then Lyle ordered 2 more. Yeah they were tasty. Oh, and though I cut out about 6 other logos from the photo do you get the feeling COCA-COLA may be sponsoring this picture? Lyle said he normally doesn't drink Coke in the states, but in Mexico it is stilled made with real sugar (not corn syrup) and it actually tastes good.
That evening we dined at El Convento, a restaurant in a hotel called La Mision de Fray Diego. Since it was street festival Sunday we were the ONLY people in the restaurant. We had great service and great food.

Lyle had the Palella and we all helped him finish it.