Tamales Lady
After a week of eating mashed potatoes every other day, and almost a week of eating at home, what better way to start off the Christmas shopping season than to eat tamales. Yea, you read that right. I have not had too many tamales in my lifetime, probably only tasted a couple. A couple of weeks ago I saw Midtownlunch post about the tamale lady in front of the Mexican Embassy and it looked too good to pass up.
I originally thought perhaps it would be rough to communicate with her since the person in front of me ordered in Spanish, but things went smoothly. At first she told me she had two types of tamales (chicken and pork), and I replied that one of each would be great. Then she looked in her stash and then told me she had three: cheese, pork, and chicken. The more the merrier. I also asked about the drink options and we had a communication breakdown with words, so I just pointed at the stash of cups next to her and voila, hot chocolate.
The first tamal was a chicken one, I think? It had some green chili stuff in it which gave it a great kick. The chicken filling seemed mostly like an after thought, although I did not really miss it since the spiciness was nice. I tasted mostly the corn meal part of the tamal. It was difficult to compare this to my previous experiences because I suffer from long term memory loss sometimes.
The second tamal was the cheese one. The middle part of the tamal was orang-ish looking in color and it was the most spicy of the three tamales offered by the tamales lady. Maybe she put some red mole sauce in there and that was what gave it the spicy kick and color, but I liked this one the best. Zach at midtownlunch said that he thought there was chicken in this one too and I agree that I was a bit confused. Either way, eat it. It will make you happy.
The pork one tasted very much like a zongzi. For those not familiar with what those are, basically they are the Chinese version of a tamale, sort of. The pork tamal offered the least spiciness or maybe the cheese one was just more spicy, thus it made the pork one seem less spicy. I do not know. There are some things where I just do not have the answers, such as why I often find rabbit droppings in my living room floor or why Santa never brings me what I really want for Christmas. Oh wait, this is a food blog, sorry. If you are close to the tamales lady, I suggest just getting one kind at a time, but three definitely fills you up.
As for the hot chocolate, it really left me cold. It was not like a hot chocolate I experienced before because it was a little gritty. That was probably attributed to the corn-ish taste that came with it. Maybe it was some sort of special drink that I did not like but I saw other people who ordered it, so maybe it's just a taste preference.
Hmmm... you know, I've never had a tamale before. They don't seem to do tamales down under (at least, I've never seen them anywhere). I've had zongzi before though so I kind of get the idea!
Agnes
November 29, 2007 2:13 am
your pinyin is terriblej hsu
November 29, 2007 3:41 pm
Yea I also wonder if you can get better ones in other regions of the U.S. (southern California or Texas). It is pretty tasty though, so if you ever do get a chance, give it a shot! Plus I think it is easier to adjust to than antelopes.
Danny
November 29, 2007 3:43 pm
down under, do you mean you are in Australia Agnes?
chicago2007oct
December 2, 2007 10:26 am
tamale and zonzi are not really comparable. One is made of corn and one is made of rice.
Ang
December 3, 2007 7:00 pm
I know but they still remind me of zonzi and the mashed up corn is obviously less sticky but still. I think the problem is I need to go back to school and learn a better vocabulary.
Danny
December 3, 2007 11:16 pm
chicago - yep, Australia.
Danny - I can't believe you've never had antelope. ;)
Agnes
December 4, 2007 3:14 am