La Flor de Santiago

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Description:

At the northeast corner of Santiago Park, stands an old-time Mérida restaurant, the Flor de Santiago. The Flor was founded in 1926 and bills itself as a restaurant/bakery/cafeteria. You can eat on the garden patio or in the main dining room facing Calle 70, where an enormous, whimsical painting of a Yucatecan village fair decorates one wall. At lunch or dinner, try the Chamorro Pibil – pork leg cooked in the classic Yucatecan sauce made from achiote, which English-speakers know better as annatto seed (MX$69/US$7). The portion is hearty, easily making six tacos. Another specialty worth trying is the Brazo de Reyna – the Queen's Arm! It is a tamal – corn meal steamed in a banana leaf – filled with classic Mayan ingredients: toasted pumpkin seeds, hard-boiled egg, and chaya, the spinach-like dark green leafy vegetable. Breakfast is served from 7:00 am to 12:00 noon, with combinations including juice and coffee priced from MX$38-79/US$4-8.

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