Everyone will tell you to eat here when in Merida, Mexico. Everyone, that is, but us.

Pretty much everyone will give you the same restaurant recommendation for Merida, Mexico. It didn’t matter whether we consulted independent blogs, Tripadvisor, or our hotel staff. Almost everyone told us to eat at La Chaya Maya. Everyone but one guy, who we’ll get to in a minute.

But we’re not going to tell you to eat at La Chaya Maya. And not because it is bad, far from it. If you want solid Mayan / Mexican food served in a large Mexican-themed restaurant by people wearing traditional Mayan clothing at tourist-appropriate prices, then La Chaya Maya may be your best bet in town. It is good food and good service at still affordable prices. But once you’ve had your fill of sipping margaritas and being serenaded by roving minstrels strumming versions of La Bamba, you may hunger for something a bit different. Plus, you don’t need us to tell you what everyone else probably will.

Our general recommendations for Merida are the same as everywhere we’ve traveled. If you want good and inexpensive local food, go where the locals eat. That usually means taking a flyer on a crowded place just a bit away from the tourist trail that doesn’t specifically cater to English-speaking patrons.

If, on the other had, you’re looking for good western style food and are a bit less concerned about price, go to where the expats eat. That may be in the tourist section of town, or it may be in a different expat hood altogether. In Merida, it’s the latter.

We sought out both options because regardless of how great the local food is, as the late, great Wes Nations once said, sometimes you just want a friggin’ burger. Here’s where we found both.

El Trapiche – Best Value

This is what you’re looking for

We would never have eaten here if we hadn’t struck up a conversation with a random local professor we met on the street. After chatting for a bit we asked him for restaurant recommendations, making sure to first mention that we already ate at the local Santa Ana market so he’d know we were comfortable navigating local dives. After wrinkling his nose at the mention of the market (an assessment we agree with) he told us about El Trapiche.

We’re glad he did because otherwise we’d have walked right by. It’s only a block away from Plaza de la Independence, one of Merida’s main tourist attractions, and on the surface it didn’t look like our kind of place. But that’s because we’d have overlooked the chalkboard handwritten in Spanish that leans just beneath their laminated English language menu. That chalkboard is the Menu del Dia (menu of the day), and it’s the secret to why this otherwise tourist-friendly restaurant is packed with locals at lunchtime.

For 55 pesos (about $3.00) the Menu del Dia came with chips, three salsas, a big bowl of soup, a choice of three or four main course meat dishes with rice and beans, corn tortillas, and a choice between two terrific local fruit infused waters to drink.

As you’d guess from the name, the menu of the day changes daily so it’s a place you can go back to again and again and we did. The food is solid but not extravagant. What you’ll find here is simple Mayan cuisine at eye popping prices.

El Trapiche serves menu del dia sometime after 12:30 – the exact time seems to change with the menu.

Where to find El Trapiche: Just north of Plaza de la Independence on Calle 62 between Calle 59 and Calle 61.

Loncheria Maricela – Best food

It doesn’t look like much, but this is where we had our best meal in Merida

We discovered Loncheria Maricela after being told by El Trapiche that we couldn’t order off the menu del dia until an hour after we had eaten it the previous day. What started as a disappointment ended as a blessing.

You won’t find English language menus here or necessarily even English-speaking staff. There’s an erasable board out front that we think advertises specials, but it also seemed like they serve other dishes that aren’t printed anywhere.

This is a time to practice your Spanish and your taste for adventure. If you don’t speak any Spanish you really don’t need to know much. You can simply point at something someone else is eating that looks good and, as apologetically sounding as you can muster, say “Uno, por favor” (One please). A better (in my view) approach is to ask, “Lo que es bueno?” (What is good?) After the first reply that sounds like it might be food say, “Si. Uno, por favor.” (Yes. One please.) And then wait for your mystery meal to arrive.

We ended up getting huge plates overflowing with chicken enchiladas smothered in mole. It was probably the best meal either of us had eaten in Mexico so far. The chicken was moist and clearly slow-roasted. I’m typically not a fan of mole, but this was rich and not too sweet with just a hint of chocolate. Delicious.

Two plates of enchiladas and one Coke Light cost us 102 pesos or about $5.70. Even at what were probably Gringo prices we felt like we got a good deal.

Where to find Loncheria Maricela: On Cale 64 between Cale 59 and Cale 61.

La Reina de Montejo – More Cheap Eats

Nothing fancy, just good cheap eats

La Reina de Montejo is another local establishment with rickety red and white plastic tables, matching chairs, and good cheap food. There is a small menu with a couple of options for tacos and other bite-sized snacks. They also serve a couple of main dishes with rice, beans, tortillas, and the all-important salsa picante. A meal here with drinks would typically run us about 110 pesos for two ($6.00).

Where to find La Reina de Montejo: Paseo de Montejo between Calle 35 and Calle 37.

La Negrita Cantina – Best Place to Salsa with Some Locals

La Negrita Cantina at about 6:30 PM

The food off the menu here is awful, but they make up for that by serving draft beer and even mixed drinks in liter sized mason jars. And if you’re only a little peckish, waiters continuously deposit baskets of free chips, popcorn and other snacks at your table to have with your bucket ‘o beverage. 

None of which is why La Negrita Cantina made our list. No, we included it because the place is absolutely jammed with locals who crowd into its big bar to shake their booties to live Latin music. Even if you don’t dance, it’s a great place to mingle with people who clearly love to.

Where to find La Negrita Cantina: On the corner of Calle 49 and Calle 62.

Hennessy’s Irish Pub – Best Bet for Burgers and Beer

Boo-Yah! Mexican beers that don’t blow!

Huge tasty burgers, crispy and deliciously seasoned fries, and some pretty terrific Mexican craft brews are all good reasons to stop by this expat bar on the mansion-lined Paseo de Montejo.

Where to find Hennessy’s Irish Pub: Paseo de Montejo between Calle 41 and Calle 43.

Oliva Enoteca – Where to Wine and Dine

If you’re in the mood for something a bit more formal, Oliva serves up some pretty innovative Italian fare and pairs it with the best wines we’ve had in Mexico. Not everything we ate at Oliva’s blew us away. The fresh pasta was occasionally overcooked (I prefer al dente) and the pesto lacked the signature basil and Parmesan flavor I expect. But Oliva’s smoked provolone appetizer, with its incredible crème-brulee-like caramelized casing, is reason enough to go. As are their terrific tempranillos poured by the glass, great goat cheese ravioli, and good basic pasta marinara.

Where to find Oliva Enoteca: The corner of Calle 54 and Calle 47.

Mmmm, salbutes

After nearly three weeks in Mexico we’ve still only just scratched the surface of the country’s cuisine. And having only traveled in the Yucatan we haven’t yet had the opportunity to explore its regional nuances. But first impressions still matter. So here are some of ours about this foreign cuisine that we Americans know so well.

U.S. Mexican food is really quite excellent

Several years ago I was inspired to write a post asking “Is Regional Cuisine Still Relevant” after traveling the U.S.  and discovering that no region had a monopoly on its signature cuisine. We found, for example, that legendary Texas barbeque was routinely better in other states and that Southern Fried chicken was done just as well in the north.

Since then we’ve also discovered that Italy doesn’t have a hammerlock on great Italian food, especially pasta, or Thailand on Thai (the U.S. has yet to master Vietnamese cuisine, though, but that’s probably for lack of really trying).

So it’s no surprise to report that U.S. Mexican food can be every bit as delicious and “authentic” as what’s served south of the border. We really do have some terrific Mexican cooking in the U.S. (Taco Bell notwithstanding.) 

What’s more, we’re starting to come to the conclusion that the U.S. is the single best destination in all the world for food. That’s not to say we invented great cuisine. Most of the stuff we invented is crap (corn dog, anyone?). But we copy other cuisines brilliantly, and we probably copy more of them better than anyone anywhere else on the planet. Mexican food is no exception.

Mexican food is relatively healthful in Mexico

One of the things U.S. cooks do to Mexican food that isn’t an improvement is load dishes with tons of grease, cheese, and rice. So far we’ve encountered very little of that in actual Mexican cooking. And while many of the dishes and flavors are similar to the ones we’ve eaten in the U.S., they tend not to be the huge calorie bombs that are so common up north.

But where did all the vegetables go?

This is a pretty typical produce section. What you see here is pretty much what you get.

The lack of vegetables here in the Yucatan is both a shock and a disappointment. We wrongfully assumed that this tropical region would overflow with an abundance of unique and wonderful produce. Instead we discovered that it’s not unusual to get served a dish with almost no vegetables at all.  

Even markets have a woeful selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. Mostly we’ve seen tomatoes, onions, limes, avocados, bananas, cucumbers that look like zucchinis, and a few assorted other things. That’s about it. We’re not quite at the point of worrying we’ll contract scurvy, but it’s not completely out of the question either.

Habaneros, heat with flavor

One of the many varieties of habanero sauce we’ve encountered. Fiery and super addictive.

In the U.S. the jalapeno, a mostly tasteless pepper who’s overwhelming virtue is its mouth warming properties, reigns supreme. In the Yucatan, however, the habanero is the go-to pepper for adding that flavor-enhancing heat. It is a far, far superior choice. Not only are habaneros hotter than lowly jalapenos, they also pop with a savory toasted flavor that just makes everything wonderful.

The many different kinds of habanero “salsa picante” we’ve tried here are all truly works of art. There are green ones and brown ones and red ones, too. They come in chunky salsas and thin sauces. We even encountered one that looked exactly like stone ground mustard. The only thing they all had in common is their universal awesomeness. 

Fresh corn tortillas kick ass

I hate soft corn tortillas. Those dry, brittle, grainy rounds of dirty-sock tasting wrappers that destroy whatever food has the misfortune of being imprisoned inside are an affront to everything that is good and holy. They’re an abomination . . . in the U.S., that is, where they’ve undoubtedly sat on a shelf for weeks after being “enhanced” with preservatives for “freshness.”

Here, and I’m guessing throughout all of Mexico, you actually watch as goops of fresh dough get pressed either by hand or by a contraption into little discs of deliciousness. You can then watch as those discs get cooked on a grill minutes before they’re handed to you for consumption. They’re everything U.S. tortillas are not – soft, flavorful, even nuanced. And they’re a revelation.

We’ve visited ancient Mayan cities from Mexico’s Chichen Itza to Guatemala’s Tikal along with a slew of others in between. And while some of those sites are larger, more historically important, or were more fun to get to, none impressed us as much as Uxmal.

Throne of the Jaguar

Located in Yucatan, Mexico, about an hour’s drive south of Merida, Uxmal is considered one of the best preserved Mayan sites anywhere. It certainly seemed that way to us.  

Quadrangle of the Nuns

Many of the detailed frescos that other Mayan ruins have lost to time remain intact at Uxmal.

I also found the site topography more visually pleasing than anywhere else we visited. With many of the structures situated high on hilltops you get good ruin views from nearly everywhere in the park.

On the plus side, we got to see flamingos. It was a first for us, and we are delighted to have had the opportunity. Unfortunately, we got to spend a total of twelve minutes with them. I know it was only twelve minutes because that is the amount of time stamped between my first flamingo photo and my last.

As our boat started motoring away from the flock after such a short visit I thought surely we were heading to another area to spy on more of these rare and beautiful birds. But no. After twelve whole minutes – just 2.3% of the roughly eight and a half hours we spent with Mayan Ecotours that day – we were done with the birds. 

We were lucky enough to spot one, and only one, flying flamingo in the short amount of time we had with the flock. If I’d have blinked I would have missed it. Probably about half our boat did.

Instead of stalking more flamingos we went to tour mangroves, some of which were pretty cool. But most of our time, a whopping two and a half hours, we spent at the beachfront restaurant they took us to for lunch. For those keeping track, that means we spent about thirteen times as long at lunch as we did doing the thing we joined the tour specifically to do. 

We admit, that seeing mangroves growing out of crystal clear, wine-red, water was pretty cool

In the spirit of charity I revisited Mayan Ecotours’ promotional material to see if I had simply misunderstood what the tour involved. Did they really promote this as primarily a trip to the beach? No, not at all. In their printed copy they don’t actually mention the beach once, although it is shown in a single photo on their site. 

The two minute video on their website probably does a better job of representing the content of the trip we took, but it still misleads about how long the tour devotes to each activity. The video spends 15% of its running time showcasing the flamingos which, if applied to the nearly six hours of our trip not spent in transit, would have given us about an hour with the birds. And had they done that, I wouldn’t be bitching about Mayan Ecotours right now.

Instead we spent two and a half hours at a restaurant and only twelve fucking minutes seeing flamingos, so I am.

This guy wasn’t advertised either so maybe I should just stop being a whiny bitch about the whole thing. Nah.

We don’t normally participate in group tours, and this is a good reminder of the reason why. We often find that prepackaged itineraries don’t fit us very well. They spend a lot of time on things we don’t care about and scrimp on those we do. That was certainly true in this case.

We decided to join this tour simply because it was the path of least resistance. To do it on our own would have required negotiating a collectivo from Merida to Celustun. Once there, we’d also have to negotiate a boat to take us out to see the birds.

More of this, please

None of that is particularly difficult on its own. The problem for us is that we tend to get going long before other travelers which means we end up waiting forever for the shared collectivos to fill up and depart. We figured we’d have the same problem in Celestun where we would have to wait for other travelers to fill the eight person boats.

So we took a tour instead, which ended up being a huge mistake.

Disclaimer: We don’t go on comped tours or accept free press trips so we can write shit like this. All opinions are our own because we pay our own way. Suck it Mayan Ecotours.

Once one of the largest cities in the Mayan world and quite possibly one of the seven mythical locations of human origin, the ruins of Chichen Itza lies within a totally day-tripable 2 hour bus ride from Cancun. That proximity to cruise-ship central also makes it one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico.

With that in mind, we planned our visit with the intention of arriving early enough to beat the hordes. So we booked a room at the Villas Arqueologicas Chichen Itza; a hotel located within walking distance of the less-utilized southern entrance to the park.

We found the hacienda-style hotel quaint, comfortable and clean. The only downside is that dining options in the area are limited to the handful of similar resorts located on this side of the park. We checked out a few other options but ended up eating every meal in the hotel’s poolside courtyard where the food was adequate if not inspiring.

The “El Caracol” observatory temple as seen prior to entering the park’s southern gate.

But we didn’t come to Chichen Itza for the food. We came to explore the ruins. So the following morning we made our way to the entrance gate just before opening at 8:00 AM. At that hour we stood second in a line of about six people and waited to pay the two separate admission fees of 65 pesos (US $3.60) and 132 pesos (US $7.30) per person.

Shortly after scanning our tickets we were in the park walking past still empty checkpoints and vendors who were only just starting to set up their stalls. We were among only a handful of other tourists in the park.

And in this one instance, I’m not quite sure how much beating the crowds really mattered.

We’re always glad to have places to ourselves, and Chichen Itza is no exception. But this is a place structured in a way to absorb crowds better than most of the other popular sites we’ve visited.

Pretty much just us and the iguanas at this hour

First of all there is tons of open space. The field surrounding the Kukulcán Pyramid, Chichen Itza’s signature attraction, would take several thousand people to fill. Elsewhere, choke-points and bottlenecks are limited to just a couple of roads connecting separate archaeological clusters. It’s not impossible to imagine the place getting overwhelmed by crowds in the late-afternoon, but it would require tons of people visiting all at once to accomplish that feat.

Serpent heads are a recurring theme throughout Chichen Itza

The other thing that probably keeps Chichen Itza from becoming too annoying is a fairly recent development. The park no longer lets visitors climb on or through the ruins. That has the downside of giving the site a museum quality, look but don’t touch, please stand behind the velvet rope, kind of feel. But the benefit is that Chichen Itza’s monuments stay completely clear of the hordes.  Even at its most crowded, the structures still look like Mayan ruins rather than a collection hills crawling with ants.

El Caracol from inside the park

Even though we took our time at the site we still only spent about two, maybe two and half, hours visiting and sometimes revisiting the ruins. So it really is a place you can do on a day trip. And even by late morning after the first of the Cancun buses started to roll in, the park wasn’t terribly crowded. 

Most of the delicate stonework that once adorned the temple facades has been lost, but some still remains to give us a glimpse of what Chichen Itza once looked like in its prime

If we were to visit Chichen Itza again we’d probably skip the overnight stay and instead daytrip in from near-by Valladolid (pronounced Bay-yah-doh-LEED). Second-class buses leave from Valladolid’s ADO bus station every hour on the quarter hour starting at 7:15 am. ADO doesn’t publish schedules for its second class service on the internet so you’ll have to go to the bus station to confirm departure times.

Las Monjas, or “The Nunnery”

The ride to Chichen Itza takes about 50 minutes from Valladolid, so it’s possible to take a public bus and still get to the front gate at opening, not much later than when we arrived. Even day-tripping in, you can still have plenty of time in relative solitude at one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico.

A final look at the Kukulcán Pyramid on our way out