This pollo asado stand is very popular in La Manzanilla!
One of the things many travelers love about Mexico is the delicious food. For us, the street food is the most fun. We have enjoyed many a meal of fish tacos or carne asada (grilled beef) tacos from a street cart.
Sometimes we’re lucky and find a fabulous pollo asado (grilled chicken) dinner made right in front of us on the sidewalk over coals in a metal half-barrel turned on its side.
This kind of food is pretty low risk in terms of knowing what we’re getting. If there is a large crowd of local patrons eating enthusiastically, and a long line of eager customers waiting to be served, the food has to be good. Even better, we can see what the meal is before it lands on our plates!
It’s nice to know what will be on your plate!
Going to a sit-down restaurant and ordering off the menu is a whole different story, though. If the restaurant caters strictly to the locals, we’ve found the menu is often indecipherable without a Spanish/English dictionary.
There is an awful lot of unfamiliar vocabulary packed into Mexican restaurant menus! To make things even harder, many dishes have names that don’t show up in a standard dictionary.
Tasty carne asada tacos.
Usually we end up ordering something recommended by the waiter, and we find out what it really is only after it arrives at the table.
In the restaurants in the tourist areas, however, there is usually an English version of the menu, or at least an English translation appearing near each item. Thank goodness!
Once in a while, though, there is something on the menu — on the English side — that sounds just a little funky in translation.
The first few times we went out for a big breakfast at a nice place, I found myself scratching my head when I reviewed the various options for eggs.
Everything was okay at the top of the menu where there were descriptions of fried eggs, scrambled eggs and omelets.
Two fried eggs split by the the color of sauce they wear (plus beans)!
But lower down they had this strange sounding one: “Divorced Eggs.”
Checking the Spanish side of the menu didn’t help: “Huevos Divorciados.”
Divorced eggs??? I didn’t know eggs got married!!!
It turns out that this very popular dish consists of two fried eggs, each covered with a different hot sauce: a green sauce on one egg and a red sauce on the other.
Aha! So this is what eggs do when they decide they have irreconcilable differences. If only human divorce were so easy!
Have these eggs filed for Divorce due to “Irreconcilable Differences”
or is it just a Trial Separation so they can think things over?
I looked up the word “divorciado” in my Spanish/English dictionary and found that its meaning is slightly closer to the word “separated.”
Hmmm. So it appears these unfortunate eggs may actually be undergoing something that is more like a Trial Separation.
Perhaps they are not Divorced at all. Perhaps they just want a little space and some time apart to think things over!
Whatever the exact marital status of the eggs happens to be, the dish is very flavorful, and it is usually complemented with a big serving of delicious refried beans and some tortillas.
It is very Mexican and it is muy rico (very yummy).