Not lyin', Abelardo's Mexican Fresh really is

My favorite part about food is running into a unique dish that leads me to a flavor I've never experienced before. I have an especially good time if this new flavor comes from a culinary destination I think I am familiar with, that I think doesn't hold any surprises for me any longer, like Mexican food. I acknowledge that this is a kind of arrogance, and I have been happily proven wrong yet again by Abelardo's Mexican Fresh, a Mexican restaurant located at 1740 Broadway in Cape Girardeau. Abelardo's hasn't been open for very long, but I think it deserves a visit, even if you feel like Mexican food has long been played out for you.

In Northern Mexico, there is a traditional dish called machaca. Every good machaca starts with beef or pork. The meat is sliced very thin, marinated in salt, garlic and other spices, and dried for 24 hours outside in a box wrapped in insect netting to protect the meat from bugs. After that initial drying, the slices of meat are moved to a charcoal grill and the drying process is finished off there, adding a good dose of smoky flavor. After all this processing is done, you will have something that looks and tastes very much like beef jerky. This is where I think things get interesting.

After the beef or pork is dried, it is ground, usually more than once, into a dried fibrous meaty powder. You can replicate this by pulsing beef jerky in a food processor, and that is actually a decent substitute if you find real machaca. Machaca can be prepared in many ways, and even the drying process isn't set in stone. When you are ready to use the meat, it is rehydrated by heating it up with some mixture of broth and/or salsa and cooked up with a variety of vegetables. Everyone seems to have a family recipe, and Abelarado's seems to have something that I haven't stumbled into anywhere else around here yet.

Abelardo's machaca is not ground as finely as I mentioned above, but I believe it really is traditional dried beef. It has a delicious concentrated beefy flavor and was cooked with a mixture of yellow, green and red peppers, tomatoes, onions and eggs. Oh boy, did the egg do it for me! Clinging to every bite of beef and veggies, it made the whole dish rich and wonderful and turned the traditional Mexican flavors into something familiar but also new.

Served with the machaca was rice, beans and an enormous folded tortilla, fresh and hot, folded up in a paper wrapper to keep warm until I was ready for it. I ripped off pieces of the tortilla and tucked forkfuls of machaca between them, happily making bite-sized "tacos." I briefly considered using the whole tortilla as a burrito and stuffing it with as much machaca, rice and beans it could handle. I was sharing it, though, so the small handfuls worked better and were just kind of fun.

An enormous burrito and taco combo offered at Abelardo's Mexican Restaurant in Cape Girardeau.Submitted by Rebecca LaClair

At the counter next to where I paid, there were three different kinds of what looked like fresh-made sauces. I took one of each just to try, and the red one had some real smoky heat if you like the fire. My favorite was the most mild, a creamy green color, because I'm a wimp about spiciness, but they all had that crisp fresh snap of flavor.

If you are interested in the more common dishes normally found at a Mexican restaurant, Abelardo's has those, too. The servings are generous, filling a large plate easily, and you will either leave with leftovers or a full stomach.

So just for fun, I ordered the cheesecake chimichanga, and it was beautiful. A deep-fried flour tortilla filled with cheesecake, it was served warm and drizzled with chocolate syrup with real whipped cream on the side. It was rich, ridiculously decadent, and exactly what I needed on that cloudy, rainy day.

Abelardo's Mexican Fresh lived up to its name for me. The ingredients were fresh, the flavor of the machaca was new and exciting, and somehow the food seemed to be a comfort food that was welcoming me home.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, and may your new year be full of new flavors and friends made over plates of delicious food.

Abelardo's Cheesecake Chimichanga, beautiful and just as delicious as it looks.Submitted by Rebecca LaClair