Of course we took a food tour when we visited Antigua, Guatemala earlier this year. The tour was exclusively street food focused, which Dan loved. You can easily recreate the tour yourself if you are a bit adventrous and speak a little Spanish. Otherwise, I will link the tour below.

Our first stop was at a real Antiguan bakery that has been around since 1940 (and opens daily at 5:00 AM). And, it was delicious. The name of the bakery is San Antonio Panaderia Lo de Cuchi Cuchi. It is famous for its homemade bread, and its take away only. Located right in the center of Antigua, San Antonio is super popular with both locals and tourists. If you are visiting, bring cash and know a little bit of Spanish.

We tried two dishes at San Antonio. The first “bite” of our tour was something that a tourist can pretty easily find all over Antigua, particularly in restaurants and shops offering traditional Guatemalan food (such as Rincon Tipico),Colochos de Guayaba.  Colochos for short are gummy-like circles made from guava fruit and topped with powdered sugar. These were midly sweet and very tasty. They were also super cheap. A definite must try in Antigua.

The second tasting of our tour was hands down the best thing I ate in Antigua – a chiles rellenos. Now, coming from the US, I usually think of a chiles rellenos as a Mexican chiles rellenos (i.e. a stuffed chilie). However, Guatemalan chiles rellenos are totally different and are not always made from a chile! At San Antonio, its chile rellenos begins with fresh baked bread, which was soft, flakey and very easy to eat. It was made that morning. The fresh baked bread was stuffed a mixture of shredded shredded pork, scrambled egg and a starch to hold it together. The best thing, however, are the spicy pickled vegetables topping the sandwich off. Truly, incredible. This was so good that I went back all by myself the following day and procured another one in Spanish!

After San Antonio, we walked to a little park beside San Juan de Dios Convent​, which is a beautiful church with an interesting history. This little park (I don’t know its name) is home to several pop-up street food vendors serving hot homemade food to mostly locals. According to our guide, this is a popular stop for locals during working hours. Our guide poked around the stalls and ordered when he found what he was searching for. For those wanting to visit, orders were in Spanish and cash only. Our guide claimed that these stalls were totally clean and safe to eat from, but picky eaters may not love this, ha. In any case, we survived fine.

We solely relied on our guide to order here, so please comment below if you know the names of these dishes! Our first bite was what I would describe as something very similar to a Mexican taquito – a fried rolled corn tortilla stuffed with local cheese and topped with two delicious sauces and a bit of local cheese. This was incredibly tasty – I loved it. The second tasting (on the right in the photo) was another corn tortilla stuffed with shredded chicken and topped with the same sauces. I preferred the cheese dish, but I am not a big shredded chicken person.

We ended our tasting here with something that I cannot recall exactly what it was…. I believe it was a plantain stuffed with black beans and topped with the same sauces and cheese. it was quite good, although I preferred the cheese dish. This dish was a bit messier and definitely required a fork to eat.

We walked around Antigua a bit more after eating quite a bit and eventually caught one of Guatemala’s ubiquitous bright buses to Antigua’s main market where we ate even more. We had seen these colorful buses all over Guatemala, so it was really fun to actually ride one, even for a brief time. Each bus is actually an American school bus that is “souped up” once brought to Guatemala. Particularly, the length of the bus is shortened (to better make its way around windy curves in the highlands), the seats are much closer together and the engine is replaced by a stronger one that those we have on our American school buses. Individual families own various buses, and they are painted in this way to advertise the owner and the route, as a decent percent of Guatemala’s popular speaks only a local Mayan dialect. I enjoyed our ride on the bus, even though it was tight and hot, but I don’t think I would take it any further. Also, if you are visiting Antigua’s main market, you can absolutely walk from the center of Antigua. The bus was just for an experience.

Once in market we did a bit of walking around, seeing lots of fresh fruit and vegetable stalls, fresh meat for sale, seafood, clothing, the list was long. Not at all for tourists, the market hot, crowded and smelled like a market. It was also very inexpensive, with cash expected almost everywhere. This market is definitely not for every traveler, but it is very interesting to see and we felt safe enough walking around (although we were told by our guide to watch for pickpockets in crowded areas).

Our first stop in the market was for a Guatemalan quesadilla in the most crowded tiny stall. The owner of this packed little stall, which was also probably 100 degrees, was constantly cooking up chicken and heating corn tortillas to make the quesadillas. The quesadillas were basically the heated corn tortilla, shredded chicken and a very tasty local cheese. An array of toppings was set up in front of the grill, and patrons could top the quesadilla with whatever one wants. I selected a tomato and pepper salsa, grilled onions and lime, all per our guide’s suggestion. The quesadilla was phenomenal.

We ate the quesadillas standing up with all of the other local patrons. It was a cool experience.

As we were exploring more of the market, Dan spied chicharrónes, or fried pork rinds. Our guide indulged and stoped for a take away bag. These were tasty, hard and quite salty, all in the best way possible.

Our tour ended in the cafeteria area of the market, which consists of numerous sit down “restaurants” serving various local foods. We opted for our guide’s favorite, Comedor Zenayda. Comedor Zenayda is a family stall that has been around for years. Dan and I split a traditional Guatemalan dish called hilachas. Hilachas is a red Guatemalan hot stew (I know, odd choice for such a hot day) made of shredded beef and vegetables such as tomatoes, potatoes, squash, or carrots. Our hilaches was served with a tiny bit of rice, which I enjoyed mixing into the stew. We paired our stew with a cold local Gallo beer.

We left our guide after the tour and walked the couple blocks back to central Antigua. We enjoyed the tour, especially its focus on real local street food. We highly recommend trying some of these dishes in Antigua, Guatemala.

STEAL OUR LUNCH

San Antonio: H746+9MH, Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. Open daily 6 AM  to 8 PM. Cash only.

Food Tour: This is the food tour that we took, booked via GetYourGuide. The cost was $68.00 per person. In addition to the food mentioned, the tour also included a walking tour of Antigua and lots of history.