A while ago on Pacific Palate I featured some young women who cook the foods of their central Mexican home town in Vancouver because they couldn’t find a restaurant serving such foods in the city.
Now a relatively new restaurant on West Broadway is featuring traditional central Mexico dishes…but the story has a twist. The owner is an orthopedic surgeon from Mexico who has so far been denied the opportunity to practice in B.C.
The restaurant, at 3066 West Broadway, is called Hola Churro! The website is still under construction but has some basic details along with the history of the churro and the spicy hot chocolate so many Mexicans enjoy.
They make two kinds of churros at Hola Churro! The traditional narrow churro, which is extruded, deep-fried then rolled in sugar and cinnamon. Yummy! By changing the extruder, they can make a larger, hollow churro that can be stuffed with either sweet or savory fillings. The machine used to make the churros is a specialty device that fries the churros at just the right temperature so that they don’t get too greasy. They have a fairly wide-ranging menu at the restaurant, featuring freshly made salsas, many of which I had never tasted before. The pulled pork for their ‘torta’ sandwiches takes 36 hours to prepare and uses a spice unique to the Mayan Riviera. There are no soda pops for sale there, instead, owners Edgardo Gonzalez and Adriana Braniff prefer to serve healthier beverages such as fresh lemonade, freshly squeezed orange juice, hot chocolate made from cocoa beans they grind themselves, a refreshing hibiscus drink and a unique beverage made from rice called horchata. The restaurant is very kid-friendly, with a separate play area monitored by video camera, where you can let your children play or watch a DVD while you eat. Edgardo and Adriana have designed the interior of the restaurant to look as if you are sitting in the main plaza of a colonial town in Mexico in the 1600’s, complete with fountain fed by an aqueduct. Their aim is to serve fresh, healthy food, so don’t expect the fast Mexican food you get at places like Taco Bell!
Those churros look so good. I love them with a dipping sauce of chocolate and cayenne pepper and that picture is making me so hungry right now.
I can attest that you looking at the real deal my friends. That food looks like real mexican food. If you want to recreate the chocolate served you can order it from here: http://mexicoetal.com/Beverages/Chocolate-and-Milk-Mix/Nestle-La-Abuelita-Chocolate-Granulado-500g.html or mexgrocer.com.
I currently have to order everything as well since I moved to Peru. It’s not cheap, but sometimes you just want to taste a little piece of home in every bite.