Cochinita Cravings
Why Taquería “El Turix” is reason enough to travel to Mexico City
Cutting through the hipper-than-thou nonsense plaguing Mexico City food and travel writing, there’s one often-cited place that actually merits the column space. Taquería “El Turix” (Avenida Emilio Castelar 212, Colonia Polanco) alone is reason enough to book a round trip to the capital.
Pronounced turish, the stand is named after founder Arturo Nabte, a man of Mayan origin who was nicknamed “el turix,” or “the dragonfly.” Along with his mother and uncle, Nabte operated a street stall in nearby Colonia Irrigación before opening this brick-and-mortar location in 1986. While they initially sold Yucatecan specialties such as relleno negro, salbutes de pavo and sopa de lima, patrons deemed their cochinita pibil exceptional and so they decided to go all-in on the beloved slow-roasted pork dish.
To create cochinita pibil in its truest form, a whole suckling pig — cochinita means baby pig — is marinated in sour orange juice and rubbed with annatto seeds (aka achiote), which impart a vivid burnt orange color. The meat is wrapped in banana leaf and cooked low and slow in a traditional underground oven known in Mayan as a píib (sometimes spelled pib).
At El Turix there is no píib and, owing to the uniformity of the meat, I don’t believe they use the entire pig (the owners are justifiably tight-lipped about the preparation; all I could confirm was that they oven-roast their pork). Yet their version of this famed dish is more exceptional than the numerous píib-cooked versions BB and I sampled in Mérida, Yucatán’s capital, last year.
There are two things that set El Turix’s cochinita apart: the soupiness of the shredded meat, which verges on stew, and the Pixy Stix-like tang of the marinade.
The cochinita we had in Mérida was tender and incredibly succulent, yet the pork absorbed the marinade; there was no real sauce. At El Turix, however, the meat swims in a vat of Sunkist-hued liquid. Chilangos (Mexico City residents) love their guisos or guisados (homestyle stews that range from poblano pepper rajas in a pool of cream to chicharron swimming in salsa verde), so it may be possible that the Nabte family adapted the recipe they brought with them from Yucatán to satisfy local tastes.
El Turix also pushes the acidity much farther than the cooks in Mérida, which means they use a higher ratio of naranja agria (bitter orange) to achiote. Combined with the chunks of pickled red onion that crown the stewed meat, a mouthful of El Turix cochinita nearly makes you pucker.
To balance out the acidity, you must order the cochinita atop panuchos, fried tortillas stuffed with refried black beans. In Yucatán these tortilla treats are somewhat soft, but at El Turix they are fried until shatteringly crisp. As Nabte’s granddaughter explained to El País:
In Mérida the panucho is parboiled, soft, but here many people asked my father to turn them golden and he obliged. Some come and say ‘this is not a panucho,’ but it’s our touch.
The contrast in texture between the silky shredded pork and the crunchy shell is divine. The fat and richness from the oily corn-refried bean tortilla perfectly mellows the marinade’s extreme tang.
The El Turix experience is all the more rewarding considering you must consume these drippy discs while seated on a low, concrete railing or perched at a narrow metal banquette smack dab in one of Mexico City’s ritziest neighborhoods. This barebones spot attracts aIl walks of life and it's great fun watching fresas try their best to avoid having the achiote stain their designer outfits huddled among construction workers licking the marinade from their fingers.
In a city full of legendary taquerías specializing in a singular food, El Turix rises to the top for its unique, Mexico City-take on cochinita pibil. Ignore the recommendations to indulge in a lavish, multi-course meal up the street at Pujol or Quintonil, and opt instead for some of the most extraordinary stewed pork in all of Mexico.
Photos by Jared Wheeler
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I'm from Connecticut and so I don't venture south of the border (the border of North Carolina that is). I love foreign adventure and the South is foreign enough for me......a true Connecticut Yankee.
But Bubba loves grease and pork or is it pork and grease? In any case your excellent description of El Turix makes this bbq lover really hungry. There is plenty of room for El Turix in North Cack. Please ask the owner to open a joint here. We'll figure out a way to get everyone into the Raleigh/Durham area before these wacky American politicians seal the border with Mexico.
Yet another excellent post. Congratulations.
I should not have read this before dinner, as now anything else I eat may as well be garbage.