Last Night in Guadalajara

 

Horse-drawn carriages lined up at the Plaza de la Liberación near the Cathedral

It is better to have vacationed and then return home than never to have vacationed at all.

I went up to the area of the Cathedral because there was a well-regarded "Tortas Ahogadas" restaurant near there that I wanted to try. Last night in Guadalajara and I still had not eaten the local specialty the "tortas ahogadas" (literally: drowned sandwich). It's a meat sandwich soaked in red sauce.

Cathedral at dusk

The problem is that it was a little after 7:00 p.m. and the restaurant I wanted to try was closing. A lot of restaurants in this area are breakfast/lunch only so you had to be aware of the hours.

Finally got a peek inside the Templo de San Agustín.
There appeared to be a wedding in progress, which I did not want to interrupt, so I did my shutterbugging from the street.

Another "tortas ahogadas" restaurant closer to my hotel was shuttered for the night.

On the Plaza de la Liberación, looking at the Cathedral

Teatro Degollado on the Plaza de la Liberación.
The sun was setting in the west and Teatro Degollado faces west, so the light was better in this direction.

But there is a happy ending to my "last night in Guadalajara" food quest: the line was a little shorter than it had been at La Chata, the restaurant that my hotel had strongly recommended to me.

So La Chata it was!

One interesting thing about this restaurant is that the kitchen is open and right in the front of the restaurant, for everyone to see. The restaurant is always packed so it makes sense that the kitchen is always packed.

I waited in the line for about 15 or 20 minutes (which, as I said, was an exceptionally short line), but was seated soon enough,

Tables were packed.

The chips and salsa came with a choice of four salsas. The red was "off the charts" hot. The green was a creamy avocado/guacamole based sauce. The brown was quite tasty. Never tried the pico de gallo. It's chopped tomatos.

The avocado/guacamole sauce cooled my mouth down from the red salsa, so I could enjoy the brown salsa.

I ordered the enchiladas in a mole sauce.

 

The chocolate flavor was intense. Not sweet at all. Not bitter at all. But strong. And yet I could taste the other flavors in the sauce. The chicken inside the enchilada was perfect. Tender and not the least bit dried out.

The horchata I ordered at the beginning was downed very fast -- I was thirsty from all my walking around -- so I ordered a dark beer to cool down my mouth from the hot salsas. Another Victoria, por favor.

I should have braved the line sooner. The food at La Chata was excellent. And there were many more menu items that could have tried,

It is getting time to fly back home. It's always a little sad for me when a vacation comes to an end, even a mini-vacation. A three-day, four-night trip to Guadalajara was a perfect mini-vacation.