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I've eaten street food all over the world, but something keeps bringing me back to Mexico. Every time I go, it competes with the likes of Japan, Thailand, America. So I'm eating across Mexico to find the singular best bite. One country, three important cities, and only one. singular winner. And it all starts in Sinaloa. And our first stop is somewhere that most people never knew existed. It is Los Mochis, Sinaloa. We have a local guide, Irma, who's walking us through it all. At our first spot, we're at 70-year-old Don Chuy.
Almost like a Japanese sushi master. They specialize in only one taco. A base layer of rich beans topped with slow-cooked, fatty beef head and crispy pork chicharrón. Two meats in one. Let's give it a rip. God. This taco, I think it's the perfect balance for me, and it's such a simple thing. It's just three layers in the taco: the beans, the head, and the chicharrón. We're getting tacos and a show. I don't want to leave.
I want to stay here. The corn tortilla is wonderful, but really the focus is this incredible pork. It is beautifully clean, pure pork flavor type of a taco. You're getting the crispy, salty, porky deliciousness, and then the beef cheeks, the head, et cetera. There's so much collagen. It's kind of like a genius invention. And I don't think you can find this anywhere else in the world. It is God-tier level of just the food world, period.
I'm giving Don Chuy a massive 9.6. Whoa! This is a rarity. And we're starting out insanely strong for our first item. Now the upset has begun. We're gonna need a nearly perfect score to take this bad boy down. So let's see how Sinaloa fares against some of the best food cities in Mexico. We're now at Tacos Rosales. It's one of my favorite too, and a lot of people. love having breakfast here. We have pork meat that's marinated in a lot of dried peppers, and then it's cooked in more pork fat.
We eat it with cabbage, red onion, and some green salsa. You can have soft tortilla or a bit crunchier tortilla. Look at the size of this container in comparison to this. Yeah, that's on the side. This is like- optional- if you want it, but this is not optional. This is the first time I've seen a shallow six pan on a table. So now I know- that people- must really love this salsa. Yeah, you drown the taco in it if you want. My personal favorite is semi-dorado, which is between soft and tostada. Okay, so should we start with the soft one then?
Yeah. The pork fat is like soaked into the tortilla, soaked into the meat by chopping it in the fashion that they're chopping it. Really, you're getting two types of pork into one. You're getting the lean sort of nice toothsome pork a little chewier, but you're also getting that really soft melt-in-your-mouth fatty pork. And they're evenly mixed together. Really, really nice. This is a semi-crispy tortilla. Semi-crispy, okay. Oh, yeah. This one is like a texture wonderland.
Big, big emphasis on different textures. You can even see in here this big chunk of lean pork shrouded in the gelatinous fatty pork. The flavor of the corn comes through so much more. It's like three times more like corn flavor because they got that little bit of extra toast- on the tortilla. That's why I like it. Phenomenal taco. Moving on. That earns Tacos Rosales' pork adobada taco. A solid. 9.0. Good placement, but not our winner.
Next up, a major wildcard. The whole reason that I came to Sinaloa was because of Luis. And we met a couple months ago and he said, "You have to come to my hometown." I'm here with the man, Luis. Where are we?. What are we eating? We now stay in Mariscos Del Chichi. The trick for this place is, all is simple. So no put a sauce. It's gonna be very clean, the food. And the most important here is the product. I think 10 years ago is in this corner in the street. Es como una carreta. Oh, like a cart! A cart in the, in the street. For me, it's the best seafood in Mexico country.
Wow! And now, order ceviche tostada, cocktail with octopus and shrimp, and crab tostada. You see how he convinced me to go here? He's a very convincing man. The secret of this place: all things cooked in the moment. He don't have a mise en place. Beautiful though. The knife cuts. Everything's cut very evenly. The crab for me is crazy good. We're on a date now. We're on a date? Yeah, date. Like. Ah, date! That's a trick from this man, here with the knife, take out the seeds.
The seeds come out. The little, the small details. Exacto. Try first the tostada. It's sweet. It's creamy. It's amazing. Amazing, and so fresh. This is a fish tostada. A little bit of lime. Oh, so fresh. And this is the soup. Wow. It's so fresh. It's unadulterated, meaning he didn't fuck with it. He just lets it be what it is. It's ice cold, like a salad, but. pure seafood.
It's also seasoned really nicely. I like the salinity in this. It's briny. The liquid that's in it is not just salty. It's not just shrimpy. It's cold. You're getting the brine from the oyster, you're getting the brine from the shrimp. It's like all seafoods in one. I would have never thought of something like this. Visually, I think for the untrained eye, you would see it's just a big bowl of seafood. Who cares, right? But then when you eat it, it's like the flavor, the refreshment. But this is the most basic, most beautiful, most unadulterated version.
I think it's a perfect example of a lot of how the food in Sinaloa is. It's very focused on the quality of the ingredient and then just letting the ingredients shine for what it is. But the thing that I love the most is that people, when they're cooking, when they're using it, they pay a lot of care and attention to it. Because in order to make it this good, this simple, you have to give a shit. And they give it big time. It's very rare. I'm coming back to Sinaloa. I love you, Sinaloa. Thank you. Since the crab was the best bite, I'll give that a total of an 8.
It feels like it should be higher territory, but let's be honest, it's just straight seafood. Literally no flavorings added. You kind of got to season it yourself with salt. It's kind of a crazy high rating for that. So now we're moving south to Oaxaca. Will they be able to defeat the Don Chuy Cabeza & Chicharrón taco? We got Gaby with us, the greatest tour guide in Mexico. At our first stop, Tacos del Carmen. And everything here is cooked not on gas, not on a grill, but a charcoal-burning comal.
When you look at the comal, everything's ready. This is real fast food. Whoa. This is a perfect example of an unassuming bite. All you see is a rolled tortilla, but you take the bite and the tortilla is perfect. It's a little bit crispy on the outside. And after that, the filling is really what makes this. I like that it's not oily. Rather, it's moist. It's got good juiciness to it in the meat. But you know my favorite part? Seasoned perfectly with salt.
They intentionally make it crunchy. They dehydrate it, right? So it has all the intensified flavor of the pork. But by remoisturizing it, you get this sort of soft, gelatinous, melt-in-your-mouth bite that's full of toasty, porky flavor. The last bite here is arguably the best bite because all of the juice has sunken to the back end of this. And then you take that bite and boom! Immediate flavor. It's a 9.5. Whoa. We got a close call here. Don Chuy is in trouble. And our next stop might be a sleeper, because while we were walking, we stumbled upon a woman selling tacos dorados right off the side of the street with all sorts of toppings like guacamole,
dried chili salsa, fresh cheese. atop fried filled tortillas. I mean, it's served on Styrofoam, so it's probably going to be good, let's be honest. Is there anything I should know about this taco? Placero, we call it. Like. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah. No. But I'm telling you because now that I feel like you're more Mexican, I think you understand more my language. But anyway. How is she frying this over there? It's already fried at her home in the morning. How is it still crispy? I don't know, but it's amazing.
Honestly, it's surprisingly delicious. It's still crispy. The beans are seasoned really nice. It's got the umami that I want. The chicken's cooked nicely. It's not dry. If I were to compare this back home, there's a restaurant I'm thinking of that I won't name in Austin. They're not bad, but they make them fresh. And this is better than that. Uh-oh. I think it's deserving of an 8.5, actually.
I'll give it an 8.5. We've got a lot to explore, so we move on. Later that night, Gaby brought us to a place with a big pig sign. I like that. As you might imagine. Lechoncito de Oro. Lechón is essentially suckling pig, basically very slowly cooked until it is melt-in-your-mouth. It's like if barbecue and a Mexican-style confit had a baby. This is the epitome of a proper street food experience because you walk up, and the first thing you smell is nothing but pork fat, which makes me happy.
It makes me feel at home. But also, it tells me that there's probably some delicious tacos. I've been coming here for several years, and this is the same taco, you know, like, amazing flavor. You ever eat something so good that you almost swallow it instantly without chewing at all? First of all, it's seasoned nearly perfectly. I wish there was a little bit more salt, but I don't even care. The pork itself is cooked so succulently soft. And what makes this taco even better is the. crispy chicharrón on top. because it's salty. But the crazy thing is it's somehow still crunchy.
It's tough because we're only getting started. There's so many places to eat at. I'm going to compare it to all the things that I've eaten so many times, right? I've gone to Mexico City. I've had some of the greatest tacos of all time. I think in comparison to those, I think it's an 8.9. Easily strong and powerful. We've got to leave a little bit of room here. Could there be something bigger? This is what I love about Mexico and street food.
Surprises around every corner. Now, we were done for the night, except we found another corner of something possibly awesome. They had a lot of different items. An empanada oaxaqueña with red and green sauce, and a fresh squash blossom quesadilla. That one I'm most excited about. We'll try that one last. Crisp on the outside, but still it has that soft chewiness on the inside. God, the flavor of the corn is so fragrant.
Here we go. The verde. This is the one. I think this is the winner. Something about this is just bringing me back very herbaceous. A little bit of heat behind it, too. Oh, but we have the quesadilla. Whoa. Now we're talking, Gaby. The corn in the tortilla is so fragrant. The saltiness from the cheese, but also the freshness from the squash blossoms that they're putting in here. This is probably a nine for me. Unreal.
A random street corner nearly takes the lead. So we have a quick sleep, and the next morning, we meet Coco at the most insane market in Oaxaca. And what we're eating here is only served on Sundays, period. End of story. You come another day, you're not getting it. It's their classic barbacoa that's made with sheep. from this woman named Olga. It's the Olga barbacoa. All right. You don't know it. We better find out. There were no tables here, and these sweet ladies noticed that we're looking for a table.
They just grabbed a sheet tray, threw it down right here in the middle of their operation, and they go, boom, you got a table now. Enjoy. They brought a salsa guacamole accoutrement. That's Michelin level service right there. This is actually the barbacoa. So it's sheep. Got this sort of, like, incredibly rich red broth. It looks absolutely beautiful. They wrap literally the whole animal into the avocado leaf. So that is what makes super special this flavor. So we got a little bit of taquito, and then you dip it.
Oh, yeah. This is what I was waiting all week. You load it up with your salsa, season it to your liking. Now we're there. The whole point of these little setups is they're giving you the building blocks to make it your own taste. You can make it spicier, you can make it more acidic, but the bite is perfect. I think this is something everyone can eat and love and enjoy. Out of all the barbacoas I've had, this one is the most unique, the most deeply flavored I've had.
I think this is worthy of a nine. It's unbelievably good. I prefer when things are seasoned out the gate. I don't like that I have to season it myself, but I also respect that, and I'm still giving it a 9. Most places, if it weren't salted enough, I would go sub 8. The deep richness and everything here is just so fun. Solid nine. Moving on. Wow. Big shocker here. Oaxaca was not able to take over Sinaloa's cabeza taco. So that means there's only one other city that I think could take the lead, and it is Mexico City.
Now Gaby's starting us off in risky territory with a taco where the technique has to be perfect. Beef suadero. Suadero is a very classic taco in Mexico City. This is a very amazing representation of the taco. It's called Los Tacos Charly. Why is suadero so important? It's because it goes from all the levels, you know, like, it's a very hard to boil meat that will cook for long hours and then deep fry. So it's a very simple meat, but it's just. it has to have very good flavor and very good salt. Emphasis on technique to make it delicious.
Let's try it. Mmm. People make lines for this taco. Perfect ratio of fat to lean. A little chewy, a little tender, a little fatty. You get, like, all the good beef textures in one. Super beefy, even a little creamy. From the fat in there, it looks oily, but it's actually not too oily at all. And the tortilla has absorbed some of that oil, and it's made it even more soft, even more tender. It's a delicious taco. It's a perfect execution of exactly what you would expect in a street taco. Do you want to add some salsa?
You see, the salsa is always, like, a perfect addition to these tacos. It needs the salsa because it's lacking a little bit in salt. Yeah. So I always say for a good salsa, I think we say that it's like the holy trinity, you know? Like, it's the good tortilla, the content, and the good salsa. It always. What about lime? Yeah. The lime. So like Quad-trinity. What? The salsa completes the circle. Honestly, without the salsa, it's a nine. With the salsa, I would say it's a 9.4. So far, we have another high nine, but not enough to knock off Don Chuy.
Are they gonna win this? Come on. We've gotta find another banger. But we need a minimum of a 9.7 to see that happen, and this is the only place that could happen. Could the classic torta take the lead? Because this one's made with turkey. This is what I think. It's a very good torta, which is really simple. It's avocado with turkey and chipotle. That's all. Again, I think the simple is better, and you will see the very good flavor of the bread and the ingredients are very good quality.
Beautiful. Cheers. Oh, the crunch on the bread is awesome. This is a good choice, Gaby. I'm glad you took me here, because, like you said, I'm used to seeing the really huge torta, and I'm not, like. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of that. Me neither. Because it doesn't taste bad, it tastes good, but it's just too much. It's almost nothing because there's so much going on. You know what I mean? And this is beautifully simple. It's also a great example of a street food because it's, like, really quick.
You can grab it and you can eat this pretty quickly. You can eat this in 5 minutes if you're fast, 10 minutes if you're slow and be on your way. That's the beauty of a good street food. But this is, to me, like a solid 8.8 out of 10. Something that will always deliver. You're not coming here for, like, a mind boggling experience. You're coming for a delicious and easy bite and move on your way. It's a big score for a pretty simple dish, but we're looking for winners here. And the next one could change everything.
It's from the Yucatecan culture, like the Yucatecan food. This is a panucho that is fried, filled with beans and the cochinita. I need to put some habanero salsa to your second bite. Okay. Oh, my God, Gaby, you put so much. Nothing happens to you with habanero. Wow. Why does this always happen? Like, I'm not expecting anything here. I'm, like, kind of done with the day at this point.
This is a banger, Gaby. Yessss! The tortilla was soaked in the pork fat, not in, like, a greasy way. and like a nice, like, juicy way. Ultra crisp around the edges, but super soft on the. on the inside of the tortilla. And the pork is, like, cooked perfectly. Not dry at all. Super moist. Melts in your mouth. And the meat itself, it shreds as you chew it. Zero dryness. It's seasoned perfectly with salt.
All the flavors, the garlic, the spices, the spiciness, the acidity from the pickled onions. the flavor from the pickled onions. I think that's a 9.5. Like, that's. That just rocked my shit off. It makes me feel weird because it's like, I feel like I have to give some of the more famous ones, like, really high ratings because they're famous. Why? But then I go to places like this, and it reminds me that I don't give an F. I just can tell you what is good. And this is.
This is a 9.5. Maybe even higher. Oof. By 0.1, the Yucatan style cochinita pibil panucho just misses tying with the leader. And there's only two more stops to steal the crown, starting with. pizza. No, it's not pizza. It is a fried quesadilla. It's a very, very common street food in Mexico City. This is classic for night. Let's be honest. If you're eating a fried quesadilla at night, we all know what you're up to. I'm completely sober right now. I should be clear.
I had, like, four mocktails. Guys, I'm crazy. Isn't that sugar rush? Oh, that lady. I think I scared that lady. Like, she's running. I don't know which one is which. I don't know. Because you had so much salsa. I'm gonna go for this one. I'm gonna have to cut my leg off after. I don't even know what to say. It's a deep-fried quesadilla. How are you not gonna like that? Super moist, not dry at all.
Ultra crispy on the outside. And then the corn, the masa has aerated from the frying. It's almost bready. Tons of melty Oaxacan cheese. I like the chicharron one a little more because it's more flavorful. For a random street corner, I mean, look how busy they are. Look at that. I'm gonna give this a solid 9. This is tremendously delicious. You could serve this at a restaurant. I would pay good money for this. On to the next. Or you want to.
Do you want to say it? On to the next! Yeah. Oh, she's running. The fried quesadilla with a 9. Incredible for something fried on the street corner. But we have one last stop and one more chance to see a new winner. And I'm gonna be honest. I've never even heard of this type of taco. And the family behind it has an incredible story. This is a place from my friend, Chef Irasema. This place is from 1991. Her mother started it. Unfortunately, she passed away because of COVID. and she took off like, she's super brave. And against all odds, the place is still the same and the best. And also her family is here.
Her daughter is helping out, like, just to be the next generation. This is a taco de humo. We call it like a fire. Just have a taste and tell me, what do you think? Everything is on the charcoal. I'm not gonna lie. I was worried about this one. I was worried that it might not be good. Cause it looked kind of plain. Not at all. So beefy, so flavorful. The meat is cut thin. It's juicy. It's not overcooked.
It looks overcooked from the outside, but generally speaking, it's pretty juicy when you take a bite. Even the tortilla, they put it in the grill of the charcoal. So it's not only the meat, it's also the tortilla. The other thing is it's actually seasoned properly with salt. You can taste the beef. What we have been doing is to go to a very simple. This looks simple, but it's not simple at all. I might as well try the campechana.
Look at the maillard on the chorizo here. So crispy and flavorful. Fatty. Goddamn. Wow. I'm really. I'm honestly very surprised. You get to a point after eating so many. tacos that sometimes they're all delicious, but there's a lot of kind of the same flavors, right? Yeah. This is the first time in a while that I've sat down with you, had a taco that wasn't just delicious and traditional, but also a little different.
Yeah. Because of the charcoal. Yeah. This is something that you cannot get in your house. You cannot get in even a restaurant because they use so much charcoal. It's few places that I know that you can get this quality. With all the equipment and all the money in the world that they could have, this woman is killing it on the side of the street. She doesn't even have gas. Her griddles are powered by charcoal. The key point is that charcoal is very difficult to work with because in order to use it, you can't just, like, turn a switch on and the charcoal is working.
You have to heat the charcoal. You have to get it red hot. And then once it's red hot, you have a coal base. You set the coal base, then you can use it. But that can take 30 minutes to an hour, and her whole operation is working off of it. If she doesn't have her charcoal set up, she's not serving food. Not only that, but it's also the heart and soul of the flavor, and the flavor is impeccable. For me, this is probably going to be a 9.5, I would say. And by only 0.1, do we have a winner. It was Don Chuy of Los Mochis. They're unbelievable. They serve one taco, one taco only. started by Don Chuy himself, and it's still killing today, even with him not in the restaurant anymore.
Still fantastic. But the biggest learned lesson that I got out of this was I'm shocked by how little a beautiful place like Los Mochis is talked about. And when I say how little, I mean, I have not seen anybody talk about the food there. And if there's anyone that's going to make a statement about it, it's going to be me. They have some of the best street food, let alone just food, that I've ever had. The one thing that I would recommend is if you're out in Mexico City, get something on the street. It doesn't always have to be in a fancy restaurant. And a big thank you to Gaby. and Luis for making this happen. Subscribe.
Oh, bye. Love you!
