Fresh shrimp and seafood isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of bustling land-locked Mexico City.
In fact, it’s probably the last thing you would think of when you think of the food on offer there.
And yet, one name kept appearing on blog posts, Chowhound and Rick Bayless’ website – El Caguamo Mexico City on Ayuntamiento street in the city centre, apparently known for having excellent shrimp cocktail and delicious seafood empanadas.
The words shrimp and empanada together got me hot-footing it down to the subway to try and find this well-known street stand on a hot and sticky Saturday afternoon.
It was pretty difficult to find, mainly because there are at least three restaurants in the surrounding area called “El-Cag” or “El-Kag” and all selling seafood with a similar logo. Whether they are all part of the same company, I have no idea, but I was looking for the original street stand – the one that has been pumping out fish cocktail for years. We walked past it several times, convinced it couldn’t be the right place.
But the number of people who were milling around and slurping seafood on the high stools made us think that perhaps we had found what we were looking for. Once we spotted the logo on the overcoat of the owner, our suspicions were confirmed.
Scott and I both started off by ordering a plain shrimp empanada. These were a sort of puff-pustry case hiding a cold filling of shrimp and onion and then cut open before serving to add some slices of avocado (see photo above). They were absolutely delicious.
So much so that we decided to get a bit more adventurous and order another one each, this time the Hawaiian version, which was similar to the first, but with the addition of cheese, mayonnaise and pineapple. These ones came hot (I assume they were heated simply to melt the cheese) and although tasty, I have to say that the plain empanadas were better. The cheese and mayo didn’t really add anything to the original flavour, except to fill us up even more.
As we’d been scarfing down our emapanadas, we had been watching the owner creating seafood cocktails in tall glasses with a flair which only a bartender could relate to. Even though we were pretty full, we decided to order a small shrimp cocktail to share.
It wasn’t very small.
I’m not a big fan of shrimp (or prawn, as we call it in the UK) cocktail. As a starter for a meal I don’t mind it, but I tend to find cold shrimp a little chewy and when it’s accompanied with lettuce and/or tomato sauce, it can be a little uninspiring.
This cocktail just blew all of those previous conceptions out of the water.
It contained tomato sauce, hot sauce, chopped white onions, fresh lime juice, olive oil, a dash of sauce from the tubs of both the shrimp and the octopus, cilantro and a couple of slices of avocado.
It was spicy, sweet, tangy, sour and refreshing all in one go. The shrimp were fat and juicy. It made me want to eat ten shrimp cocktails in one go.
If we’d had the money (or the room in our stomachs), we probably would have done.
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