Damn you covid!

It was back in November. I’d discovered this new restaurant that looked right, that felt right, but it was indoors and we’d sworn we weren’t doing indoors until the numbers went down. Then, in January, the daily new case numbers in Mexico not only failed to go down, they soared. From 4,000 to 40,000 in one week. If we were going to continue to play it safe and not get and not give covid to anyone else, it was going to be weeks before we’d ever get there.

What to do? I had an answer. We wouldn’t get to experience that cool, classy, sophisticated ambience that I’d spied the couple of times when I’d stuck my nose through that front door on Calle Quebrada. But we would get to experience that intriguing, mostly Mediterranean menu.

So off to Uber Eats. No, no sign of the restaurant there. So off to another food delivery site. No that doesn’t work anymore. DoorDash, Skip The Dishes, the rest of the start-ups…or should that be up-starts…had long ago fled San Miguel. 

OK, I’ll try a direct order. No website to be found. No link on Trip Advisor. Ah, but a Facebook site. And an almost legible menu. And a phone number.

“Buenos tardes, Bocaciega”.

“Hola. ¿El restaurante entrega?”

“No, we don’t, senor.”

“You don’t have a driver that you could call to deliver our order?”

“No, lo siento, señor, we don’t.”

I was heading down to Candelaria the next day. It was my day of extravagance, the day each year that I treat myself to the most alluring work of nature that I can find at San Miguel de Allende’s annual plant fair. I’d walk over to Bocaciega after. I’d see what I could work out.

Don Day’s Wife and I had decided on sharing four appetizers for our first foray into the menu. I scribbled them down on a piece of paper, tucked it into the right patch pocket of my most baggy and comfortable Levi’s, and off I wandered.

Even with Google Maps in hand, Bocaciega isn’t easy to find. Bistro 300, the restaurant next door, shouts welcome, step right in and enjoy. Bocaciega takes a more subtle, sophisticated, small brushed metal plaque approach.

Erik, a very amiable server, met me at the door. I did a little panorama look around the room. It was as striking, as debonair, as I had remembered from my previous glances from the street. I counted two customers; one I recognized.

“Isn’t it lovely”, she said. “This is such a wonderful place.”

I counted 11 employees. I wondered why one of of them couldn’t take one minute to replace the out-of-date online menu that was different from the one Erik had given to me.

Ah well, those four starters were still there, even though their prices were a little swollen and, yes, the restaurant would pack them up for pick-up by the taxi I’d send at 7:00 pm.

$1355 might have been more than I’d ever paid for four starters in a San Miguel restaurant. And I was still thinking about the $420 I might have overspent on that single anthurium at Candelaria. I justified it in my mind by knowing that the $400 bottle of red I’d be opening at home wasn’t going to be raised to a $1500 restaurant price.

The driver was just pulling up when I opened the front gate. I took the two brown paper bags and walked up the path in anticipation of what was inside.

The oven had been preheated to 230C; the tray had been lined with fresh foil. Five minutes later we were ready to plate. Here’s what we thought of our off-site visit to Bocaciega.

Their birthplace may have been Greece, Turkey or Lebanon but gyros might just be the great great-grandfather of the Mexican taco, particularly when they’re topped with pink pickled onions, cilantro and crema. The meat was lamb and was rich, juicy and generous in quantity. The wheat flour pita it was wrapped in was a welcome alternative to a corn tortilla. 

Going back decades, there has always been at least one restaurant offering Middle Eastern cuisine in San Miguel de Allende. This is the first one in my memory though that has served gyros carved on order from the spit. I can’t think of a dish I’d welcome any more.

Kibbah is Syria’s national dish and you’ll find it in cafes throughout the Middle East. Traditionally, these mini footballs are composed of ground meat, bulgar wheat, onions and spices. Bocaciega adds an ingredient to their kibbah that I’d never seen before and it made them impossible not to order. On Bocaciega’s menu, their kibbah is labelled foie gras kibbah. And they pair it with something else quite intriguing, a strawberry sauce.

“Taste any foie gras?”, Don Day’s Wife said to me.

“No, how about you?”, I replied.

“Nothing”, was her reply, “but I thought it was really light and airy and very tasty. If I hadn’t been expecting the taste of duck or goose liver, I would have been thrilled by it.”

The best squid are the smallest squid. The best part of squid are the tentacles. Bocaciega’s calamari are all tiny tentacles. They deep fry them with something quite different, strips of zucchini. They accompany them with something even more different. 

“Love the choice of okra as a side. Love okra, period”, I remarked. “Despite it being part of Middle Eastern cuisine you so seldom see it except in creole dishes.”

“And love the way the okra was cooked. Not gummy as it too often is”, said Don Day’s Wife. “Plus a nod to the kitchen for those little things like knowing to grill the lemon to caramelize it and bring out the juices.”

I’ve been on an octopus craze for a while now. The previous week, we’d ordered the garlic octopus from Polp which, at $190 for four limbs makes Bocaciega’s seem expensive at $420 for two.

Bocaciega grills their tender cephalopod with olives, tomatoes and greens and serves it on a bed of couscous. The briny sauce is tentacle and finger dipping good.

There wasn’t a single bite of it left for the mini plate of leftovers I microwaved in the morning.

We don’t often order from upscale restaurants. Because many of the pleasures…the ambience, the atmosphere, the attention…can’t be savored eating from cardboard containers in front of a television.

But all four dishes that we ordered had travelled well and all four were dishes that we’d order again. I imagined how much better they would taste being personally served to us hot from the kitchen in those smart, sophisticated surroundings on Quebrada.

We made a plan. A plan for a celebration. When the daily new case numbers in Mexico go down again to 5,000, we would cheer the event with an indoor dinner. The destination would be Bocaciega.

Damn you covid if those numbers don’t happen before we plan to head back to Toronto in April.

Bocaciega is located at Quebrada 20 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open on Monday and Wednesday through Saturday from 1:00 to 10:00 pm, Sunday from 1:00 to 9:00 pm.