Directly after dropping my bags at the hostel, we drive back to my cousin’s house, pick up her mom (my aunt), and head to a restaurant called La Chaya Maya.
Chaya is a leaf that resembles the Maple leaf but green. It’s made into tea and juice. It’s very healthy and has been made into juices here in the Yucatan for a long time. I’ve never tried it before, so I decided to give in and try it.
We get to this large restaurant. Very popular. My cousin tells me the lines go around the block every weekend. It’s one of the few restaurants that have sampler platters. As we enter, there’s a lady dressed in traditional garb (called an Ipil — pronounced ee-pee-l), hand-making corn tortillas next to our table. We sit and order. Guess what we ordered? The sampler platter! It has four bowls of different things. It’s the stuff my family makes at home. I’ve tried other restaurants in California that have a “Yucatan” section on the menu, and it’s never that great, not bad, just not great.
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La Chaya Maya and its Food
The four dishes consist of Cochinita Pibil (a pulled pork dish). This dish is baked in a cocktail of red spices and simmered for hours… sometimes up to 24 hours (or at least that’s how it’s made at home). It’s served on a tortilla (as a taco) or as a sandwich, inside of french bread. It’s topped with pickled red onions and chilly as hot as you can handle. I can’t handle chilly. No chilly for me.
Queso Relleno (filled cheese): This cheese dish is basically melted cheese from a type of cheese they call “cheese ball.” It gets its name because this giant cheese is literally the size and shape of a basketball. It’s a strongly flavored cheese. They cut it into blocks, melt it slightly and put some ground beef. They add flour and make it into gravy. I think it’s amazing and my mother makes a good one as well.
Put Negro (put… pronounced poot): Basically a beef dish in black spices. The stew is thick and black. It almost looks like blood sausage. It tastes a little smokey and peppery. It’s good too. My parents also make this at home.
Pipian Rojo: A reddish chicken dish. The spices make this one red, but this one has always been my least favorite. It was today as well.
The result? Amazing deliciousness. I’ve never had food
this good outside of my mother’s house. This really is the homeland.
La Chaya Maya and its Tasty Desserts
After our food, even though we were so full, we got dessert. Traditional dessert from the Yucatan. I’ve never eaten any of this back home. You can’t find it. We got another sampler platter. This one came with three desserts. Candied Nancer. Nancer is a round fruit the size of a grape. It’s sweet to begin with. Followed by candied Papaya —I don’t like papaya, but what the hell, right? And a dessert called the Broke Cowboy or Caballero Pobre, which I’ve never heard of before. This one was a smothered bread pudding.
Everything was amazing and worth it.
Let me break it down for you:
Should you come here? Yes! On a weeknight, there is no line out the door.
Is it expensive? It was a welcome to Merida treat. Therefore I can’t really tell you what the prices are…
La Chaya Maya is totally worth it.
In the video below, I show you several free things you can do… But I also show you great restaurants and places to eat. Yes, La Chaya Maya is included here too. Check it out!