Austin, Texas food and travel writer Mick Vann starts his article in Chow with a description of lunch in Xico.
I’m sitting in a restored 18th-century house in a Mexican mountain village, about to have one of the best lunches of my life. I taste my first bite of picaditas, grilled cornmeal tortillas with raised edges that cradle black bean paste topped with pungent Cotija cheese and two salsas.
http://www.chow.com/stories/10660/4#restaurants
What makes Chow unique is the combination of expert knowledge of food and dining together with advice on where to eat, what to eat, what to buy, and where to have fun at your destination; in this case Xalapa, Mexico and surrounds. Actually those basics just scratch the surface. You will also find recipes, shopping guides geared toward food, and ratings of Chow's readers. In fact, pick a country or a city and you will probably find some unique information on this web site, some of it generated by residents.
The author of Mole in the mountains, Jon M. “Mick” Vann is a retired professional chef who has been specializing in international cuisine for more than 30 years. He has been a food writer for the Austin Chronicle for nine years, and coauthored a cookbook on international appetizers with Art Meyer titled The Appetizer Atlas: A World of Small Bites. Vann also owns Atlas Culinary Adventures, a company conducting domestic and foreign culinary tours.
The small town of Xico is a short distance from Xalapa, Veracruz and is only one of the side trips covered in Mick's article.
For residents of Xalapa (or other towns in the vicinity) it would be interesting to receive comments on the articles and recommendations of Mick Vann.
