Food&Rest

Mexican cuisine is a wealth of traditions that strongly influence the flavors of the dishes that prevail in this region. Openness, colors, smells, a celebration not only of holidays but of all life…These are the characteristic features of the population living in Mexico, which is now mixing with the influences of European culture. The country is known all over the world not only for its characteristic hat – a sombrero but above all for what Mexican cuisine has to offer.

8 Facts About Mexican Cuisine

Mexican cuisine has become noticeably more popular lately. Corn, beans, and peppers are symbols of Mexico that immediately bring to mind the cuisine from the region. But in fact, Mexican cuisine has given the world a lot more. Thanks to it, we know potatoes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, avocados.

There are three main culinary destinations: Central, South, and North. Central Mexico’s cuisine is divided into an additional 4 groups. Although in general, Mexico can be simply described as a country of spicy dishes based mainly on a specific group of vegetables.

Northern Mexican Cuisine. Despite the harsh climate, Mexicans raise livestock in the north and grow plants. The dishes here are delicate and quite simple, and dairy products are widely used. The cuisine of the north is considered the least glamorous.

Southern Mexico Cuisine has a large number of fish, seafood, and exotic fruits. In addition, dishes are prepared with rather unusual ingredients – from ant eggs, grasshoppers or spiders.

Central Mexican cuisine is the richest in terms of ingredients and cooking methods. The fertile soil produces fruits and vegetables, and seafood often appears on tables.

What other facts make it different from other cuisines of the world? Let’s take a look!

1. In 2010, Mexican cuisine was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. It was recognized as a unique synthesis of the thousand-year-old traditions of Mesoamerican Indian cuisine with a vibrant medieval Spanish cuisine. Every time you eat a tortilla, you are eating exactly the same dish as the disappeared Mayan Indians.
2. The first Indians were vegetarians. Supposedly, they did not know the taste of beef or pork. The subsequent influx of Spaniards directed Mexican cuisine into two periods: Lent and the time when you can eat almost anything. These Indians are also known as the People of the Corn.
3. The Spanish conquistadors were not linguists-researchers, and they simply gave new, familiar to the modern ear, names for traditional Indian dishes: tortilla, cocoa, chili. Some of the dishes have retained their ancient names: tacos, chipotle, guacamole.
4. Burritos and chimichanga are the Mexican counterparts of the Arabian kebab, the look of which the Spaniards borrowed from the Moors. And then the conquistadors began to wrap everything in an Indian tortilla in this manner: meat, beans, vegetables, avocados, rice, and cheese. By the way, it did not delight the local tribes at all, accustomed to respectfully treating yellow cakes as a symbol of the sun, made from corn sent by the gods.
5. The famous nachos are a very modern (by the standards of cooking) dish. It was invented by the owner of the frontier restaurant Modern Ignacio Nacho Anaya in 1943. Thus, he found the original use of a dried tortilla, when at night, after the closure of the restaurant, the angry wives of hungry American soldiers who had just been quartered in the town broke into it. He called his impromptu Special dish from Nacho.
6. There are 11 types of taco toppings and 5 cooking options. It gives us 55 types of this simple dish, and that’s if you don’t combine the fillings. If you take a tortilla, fold it in half and fry it until crisp, and put the stewed lamb in the resulting envelope, you can boast to everyone that you have prepared tacos poblados de barbacoa.
7. Central American Indians were fashionable baristas even when Europeans were wearing skins. The cocoa whisk has been popular in today’s Mexico for thousands of years. Now, the Spaniards call it Molinillo.
8. The most popular street food in Mesoamerica is chicken with rice and beans. It costs less than a dollar in any city that is to the south of Texas. It is hearty, tasty, and easy to cook. All these characteristics allow the inhabitants of cities in Mexico not to cook at home.

In Mexico, culinary culture is often combined with fun. Various types of celebrations and events are an opportunity to have fun, eat and spend time with family and friends.

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By Antonio

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Mexico attracts tourists from all over the world. And this is not surprising, because the flavor of this country is unlikely to leave anyone indifferent. Culture, beaches, nature, holidays – this is why thousands of people come to this country every year. And of course its cuisine! Everyone knows about Mexican cuisine. The names of dishes such as burritos or tacos have been heard even thousands of miles from Mexico.

Did you know that Mexican food is the only one designated by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity? It is as vibrant and exciting as the country’s culture, renowned throughout the world for its bold tastes and intricate ties to the lives of numerous peoples of Mexico. If you plan to visit this country, pay attention to useful options from the Marginalen Bank that will help you to save when traveling. Want to know more? Check out reviews of Marginalen Gold and Marginalen Traveller then!

Today, we want to talk about 8 dishes that are not so well-known among tourists, however, which are definitely worth trying when being in this wonderful country.

1. Huevos rancheros

Let’s start with the dishes that are usually eaten for breakfast, and it will surely wake you up and prepare you for any morning work. Huevos rancheros (translated as egg ranch) – fried eggs served on lightly fried hot corn tortillas topped with salsa. They are easy to make on your own and pair well with various vegetables and other toppings.

2. Chiles en nogada

Chiles en nogada is one of the most patriotic Mexican dishes. It is served at room temperature and consists of pepper stuffed with picadillo (the mixture contains minced meat, dried fruits and spices), topped with a creamy walnut sauce that is called nogada. Pomegranate seeds add the third color of the Mexican flag to the dish: green – chili pepper, white – nut sauce and red – pomegranate.

3. Pozole

This is a traditional soup or stew, the recipe for which belonged to the Aztecs. Then, during the heyday of civilization, it had ritual significance. It is made from dried grains of corn with meat (usually pork), adding various fillings to your taste. Mexicans usually eat Pozole on special occasions: Mexico’s Independence Day, Christmas, or birthdays.

4. Chilaquiles

This dish consists of corn tortillas that are fried or boiled in green or red salsa and seasoned with cheese. There are several ways to enjoy them, you need to add:

• eggs;
• chicken, beef or guacamole and fried beans for a hearty breakfast.

This is a great way to use the tortillas left over from last night’s dinner.

5. Pan de muerto

The sweet side of Mexican cuisine is Pan de muerto (translated as bread of the dead) is a sweet burger traditionally baked ahead of the Day of the Dead, which runs from October 31st to November 2nd every year. The reason is peculiar, therefore, the appearance of the baking is appropriate: the decoration is made of dough in the shape of a bone, and the round shape symbolizes the circle of life.

6. Tamale

Tamale is considered one of the best Mexican dishes, the history of which goes back to the tribes of the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas. Initially, this cake was taken with them on military campaigns as a quick and nutritious snack. Corn dough pockets are stuffed with sweet and savory ingredients and wrapped in paper, corn wrap, or a banana leaf on top. Meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, chili and mole sauce are successfully combined with tortillas. Before eating, be sure to remove the wrapper!

7. Horchata

Horchata is a fresh and delicate rice milkshake with aromatic spices: vanilla and cinnamon. The recipe has several versions. To make the drink richer and more nutritious, nuts are added to it. For a pronounced creamy taste – milk. Horchata is a thick, sweet and very aromatic cocktail. Be sure to try it if you get the chance.

8. Tostada

Mexican cuisine welcomes an original approach. For example, if you still have tortillas that are not the first freshness, you can fry them in boiling oil until golden brown and make a tostada. It is served with a variety of side dishes: fried beans, cheese, meat, seafood and ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon juice).

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By Antonio

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If you own a Mexican restaurant, you are already aware of the competition. To increase your online presence, you need to have a top-notch marketing strategy that allows you to promote your business to the right audience and get them in the door.

While advertising sales and promotions is a great technique, when you pair it with our 5 best Mexican restaurant SEO tips, you can give yourself a huge edge over your competitors. If your competitors are already using SEO and local SEO to promote themselves online, but you are not, you are at a clear disadvantage.

Our guide will go over the ways that you can create effective strategy to leave competitors in the dust. Having a strategy that clearly identifies your goals and how you intend to get there will help you gain vision about your website.

Choose Your SEO Strategy

Start by choosing a marketing strategy for your business. You should consider establishing a strong online presence if you do not have one already. This will require some brainstorming and researching. Your strategy should be a reflection of your brand and how you operate.

You may need to hire a digital marketing agency to help you come up with a successful strategy that works for your Mexican restaurant. They can help you come up with a strategy that reflects your brand’s mission and values and how you want to portray yourself to your customers.

You should choose a marketing agency that has a lot of experience in promoting restaurants. An experienced agency will understand the industry and the best techniques for promoting your business. They can use successful tactics that they have learned from other campaigns to gain brand awareness, bring traffic to your restaurant, and create customer loyalty.

Start Local SEO Campaign

Local SEO is a perfect way to advertise your Mexican restaurant and bring traffic to your website. This is the way you optimize your website for search engines specifically for where you live. For example, if your restaurant is in NYC, you could narrow it down to your neighborhood or borough.

You can customize your SEO strategy to promote yourself in the areas where your restaurant has locations, too. It starts by creating an online presence and adding listings of your business to national and local directories.

List Your Restaurant Everywhere

Using Yelp and other local directories will help direct potential customers to your restaurant. Oftentimes, potential customers will do a local search when they want to find a restaurant to go to near them. They will look at reviews and photos of food to learn about the experience that other diners had at your establishment.

A digital marketing agency can help you set up your listings and provide you with the best restaurant SEO tips for your business. If you do not have a lot of experience in marketing strategy and marketing techniques, you should use the services of a professional advertising firm.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is what helps get customers into your business and visitors to your website. This is a big part of your overall marketing strategy because it is how you portray yourself to the public and your customers. Your content will take on a voice and tone that customers will associate with you. This is how brands establish and differentiate themselves among competitors.

There are different strategies you can choose from when creating a content marketing plan for your Mexican restaurant. This is depending on the content structure that you already have in place.

If Your Website is New

When you are establishing a brand new online presence with a brand new website, you should target low-volume relevant keywords to get your first visitors. This will help you get your website in front of the right audience, even if it is a small, targeted audience. You should start out on this scale, rather than targeting high-volume, popular keywords.

When you use this strategy, you will find your audience and create a group of loyal customers. From there, you can use local SEO techniques that will help you get in front of a wider audience. But it’s better to establish your website and content plan first.

If Your Website is Aged

When your website is older and hasn’t been updated for a while, you can do a few things to help your SEO. First, check your old blog posts in case you are missing out on keywords opportunities.

One of the best ways to update your website is by checking competitors and creating better content than they have. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create unique, relevant content. Simply focus on your restaurant’s unique selling point (USP) and utilize the content strategies that other successful Mexican restaurants have used.

It is important that you don’t copy their content, but rather research multiple competitors and come up with a list of some of the best techniques that you would also like to implement on your own website.

Increase Brand Mentions

Reach out to bloggers who create articles like “Top 10 Mexican Restaurants in New York”, and ask them to mention your brand. You can start to establish rapport with popular food bloggers and influencers so that they will mention or tag your restaurant in their articles and photos.

The best SEO for restaurants is local food bloggers who continuously mention them. You will notice an increase in brand awareness and foot traffic once you start to establish relationships with more bloggers and influencers.

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By Tim Absalikov

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A restaurant menu is amongst the primary columns of your customer’s experience. Whether online, published, or on a food selection board nonprescription, a properly designed food selection increases your revenues and improves the visitor experience.

Great food selections ought to absence overloaded designs, exceedingly wordy summaries, or repetitive video. Likewise, upgrading your restaurant’s food selection every now and then is essential in maintaining leading of food expenses and food patterns. Listed below is a total direct on ways to produce a lunchroom food selection your clients will like.

Choose The Perfect Number for Menu Items

Prevent preparing a large choice of products when producing your menu. A workable restaurant menu ought to provide your clients the capability to select without obtaining bewildered. For that reason, guarantee that the food selection listing involves what your kitchen area can create and what you prepare finest.

Use Images

An attractive menu a restaurant with its clients. So, utilizing food digital photography is suitable for showing distinct products or food that you provide everyday. Furthermore, a great food photo integrated with a well-written summary includes a favorable effect for sale.

The impression constantly sticks, so aim to create a fantastic impression by utilizing pictures on your menu. The function of photos on a food selection ought to be to attract the customer’s interest, set off appetite, and excite their hunger. Top quality and beautiful photos make clients keep in mind your resort.

Use Professional Design Tools

A good menu design is a crucial marketing strategy for any restaurant. Well-designed menus talk more about your cafeteria’s personality. It also focuses on your overall operations, promotes success, inaugurates your budget, and keeps your foods fresh in your consumer’s minds.

A great menu design should converse the brand, the vision, and the relevant guest experience your restaurant provides. Among the best tools to use when designing your restaurant’s design includes iMenuPro, Canva, Adobe Spark, amongst others.

Avoid Price Scanning

Price scanning is the ability for a customer to check your food prices and distinguish the cheapest and the costly. While making a good menu should make guests choose the food to eat based on hunger, making subtle design choices makes price scanning more difficult.

Keep your food menu mixed to prevent customers from scanning your prices. Also, never list the food prices from the cheapest to the most expensive or vice versa. This can make it easy for eaters to scan your prices.

How you place and format the cost of each food has a significant psychological impact on your guests. When you separate and justify prices on the right side of the page, people view the menu as generic. This makes them clam it from right to left, beginning with the costliest items rather than the most interesting.

Keep Your Menu Simple

It is essential to draft a simple menu that is easy to read and peruse. In fact, menus with each item on one page are the finest. If your establishment offers different food courses, split up your menu according to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

When creating a menu, never assume that everybody who comes to your eatery can see even the smallest words. Instead, use clear and large fonts to ensure that the menu’s layout is easy to read. Also, include hyperlinks in your website menu to enable customers to click on each item for a comprehensive explanation.

Combine It with Your Interior Design

A restaurant menu layout is a replica of the hotel itself.  The design of your cafeteria’s menu, whether casual or formal, should match your restaurant’s location, concept, and theme. Also, the choice of your menu’s color and theme should reflect the interior design of your restaurant. 

Flowers and plants are a great way to update your restaurant’s interior design. Similarly, giving your menu a green look makes customers believe in your ability to protect the environment. 

Conclusion

A menu drives business to your restaurant. Therefore, coming up with a practicable menu is a paramount factor in making your restaurant a success.  Also, always stay within the law when creating your eatery menu. Various laws from different states expect you to be very accurate in what you include in your menu. If you want to have your food source on your menu, ensure the information is correct. 

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By Antonio

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The most common dishes throughout the continent are:

• Fajitas – grilled meat with vegetables wrapped in a tortilla
• Burrito – a tortilla with minced meat mixed with vegetables. The tortilla wraps the contents
• Quesadilla – differs from burrito in that the tortilla is not wrapped around the filling, but simply folded in half and cut into three pieces, often cheese is present in the dish
• Tacos – just a filling of different kinds of meat, seafood, on an open corn tortilla
• Enchiladas – the difference from burritos is that this dish is additionally pan-fried
• Nachos – tortilla chips, usually served with different sauces
• Guacamole – mashed avocado with tomato, cilantro, lime juice, and other spices and additives
• Gazpacho – cold tomato soup.
• Saltado – stew of vegetables
• Chile con carne – chopped meat in chili sauce with beans, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and spices.

Because of the addiction of Latin Americans to spicy foods, few restaurants and cafes dare to include in their menus the traditional dishes of this cuisine, such as chili con carne, fajitas, burritos. You’re more likely to find them at fast-food stands.

And in vain, because the same Mexican cuisine is included in the list of cultural heritage of UNESCO.

Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, national cuisine of these countries is very similar, but, of course, not without differences: Cubans, for example, recognize only chicken and pork meat – beef and mutton are not in honor. At the same time, Argentina adores beef – fried, stewed, made of it meatloaf and generally considered a national product. There are many countries in South America, where rice is loved, and where it is used minimally.

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By Antonio

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The inhabitants of South America have long known and used the useful qualities of corn in the preparation of traditional dishes. Corn is an indispensable element of any dish, it is used to prepare both main dishes and garnishes to them. They even use corn flour as a base for making the traditional and popular tortillas. These tortillas have long become an independent dish of Latin American cuisine.

To make tortillas, you need to add spices and spices to the dough, and then smear the finished tortillas with butter or vegetable oil and eat with a spicy or cheese sauce.

Latin American cuisine is characterized by the use of masses of spices and spices. One dish must contain no less than 5 types of spices, this is the main rule of cooking traditional Latin American dishes.

There are vegetal notes in the local dishes that give the dishes pleasant aromas such as basil, thyme, mint, sage, and pepper. Pepper is the most favorite ingredient of the chefs; the most famous in Latin American countries is the “jalapeno” pepper. Although not inferior to the primacy of the “chili pepper”, it is actively used in the traditional cuisine of this region. As for varieties of chili, only in Chile there are more than 70 varieties! And all of them are used in cooking.

Tomatoes and potatoes are as commonly used ingredients as spices. Chefs and residents have a great love for legumes, especially red beans, which are as popular as corn.

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By Antonio

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