Watch my VLOG video here: Rotterdam | Sabor Sabor Authentic Mexican restaurant – Dia de los Muertos
At authentic Mexican restaurant Sabor Sabor you won’t find u-shaped, crunchy Tex Mex tacos like you can buy in the supermarket. Instead, you’ll find soft tortillas made in Mexico, just like all dishes at Sabor Sabor are authentic Mexican.
We visit restaurant Sabor Sabor on October 31, 2021. We are warmly welcomed by Liz Fernandez. Liz Fernandez (hereinafter referred to as: Liz) was born in Mexico City and together with her husband Alfonso Fernandez she owns Mexican restaurant Sabor Sabor.
The restaurant is beautifully situated in a residential area of Rotterdam with colorful houses. The interior of the restaurant looks just as colorful and cozy. In the window sill we see various decorations, such as skeletons, skulls and a festive piece of bread. You would think this is because of Halloween, but nothing could be further from the truth, it has everything to do with the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos).
Liz tells us that many original ideas have lost their meaning due to marketing purposes, but Mexican restaurant Sabor Sabor brings you back to authentic Mexican food and cultural traditions.
Sabor Sabor
Sabor Sabor means taste, and they are the flavors of Mexico. In Mexico they have different kinds of flavors, textures and colors with the main elements being the peppers, corn and beans, that we will find in different combinations in our gastronomy.
At Sabor Sabor they have about eighty to ninety different types of pepper, both dry and fresh. They have the most typical Mexican pepper, the Jelapeño and in a dried version the Chipotle, also a well-known Mexican pepper.
Location
When Liz arrived in the Netherlands thirteen years ago, her goal was to introduce the best Mexican cuisine to the Netherlands. They had a pop-up restaurant in China Town on the Kruiskade in Rotterdam for a year and a half to test whether the concept would catch on. It became a great success.
Then they found their current location in a nice residential area that is less commercial. Three years ago in 2018 Sabor Sabor opened at this beautiful location at Adrien Mildersstraat 11a in Rotterdam.
Wall Mural Doña Toñita
On the wall hangs a colorful mural by artist Tymon de Laat depicting the portrait of Liz’s nanny, Doña Toñita. When Liz was four years old, her nanny taught her to cook. It is a tribute to Doña Toñita.
Day of the Dead
The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) is a traditional Mexican holiday that is often mistakenly confused with Halloween, as both days fall around the same time period. During Halloween, Halloween outfits derived from Mexican skulls are worn, but this has nothing to do with the Day of the Dead.
The Day of the Dead is a traditional Mexican holiday that dates back to the times of the Aztecs and was later adopted by the Spanish Catholics who came to Mexico. The festival lasts for three days, from October 31 to November 2. On the Day of the Dead, they celebrate the lives of those who are no longer with us, and unite with them spiritually, so it is not a gloomy event, but something very lively.
On the Day of the Dead, departed loved ones are commemorated and honored, with people visiting the graves, making sacrifices and spending time with their deceased loved ones.
Just as you will find the true meaning of the Day of the Dead in Mexico, you will find real traditional Mexican food at Sabor Sabor Mexican restaurant.
Customer’s Favorite Dishes
The guacamole can be seen as one of the customer’s favorites, a traditional Mexican sauce made from avocados, which is eaten with different types of Totopos. Totopos are the typical Nacho chips you often see in commercial advertisements, but in Mexico it’s the homemade corn tortillas.
At Sabor Sabor they have several homemade sauces and the green salsa is fantastic.
In addition, the Enchiladas are also popular, not the Tex-Mex Enchiladas, but the real Mexican Enchiladas made from corn tortillas.
The Menu
On the menu are the general and traditional dishes that you can find in Mexico. Sabor Sabor is like a Mexican bistro, also called Fondita, with universal homemade Mexican dishes with special flavors, such as the ‘Polo con mole’ chicken in green sauce, ‘Sopa Azteca’ Mexican tortilla soup and ‘Mexico Lindo Botana’ small Mexican appetizers that you can share. The Botana contains the typical Mexican black beans, baby corn with Chipotle sauce, ‘Chicharón’ pork skin with green sauce and ‘Calabacita’ zucchini.
Our experience
Cocktails
We drink two typical Mexican cocktails, the white traditional Margarita with Tequila and lime juice and the red Margarita Jamaica with the ‘Flor de Jamaica’ (Hibiscus), a flower that you can find in Mexico. The cocktails are nice and fresh, sour and taste great, they drink away in no time. There is salt and sugar on the rim of the cocktail glass, which I really like. With these festive cocktails you immediately imagine yourself in sunny Mexico.
Side Dishes | Totopos – Nachos
On each traditional Mexican table you will have salsas. We have nacho chips with three different kinds of salsa, that are all spicy.
We got the salsa with Habanero, a very hot pepper and onions. The salsa tastes sour and salty and starts off fresh, but ends up being very spicy. We have the salsa with Jalapeño, a fresh tomato salsa that also tastes very spicy, but tasty and a salsa with a different kind of pepper, which tastes less spicy.
We have a basket with four different flavors Totopos or nachos with Guacemole in the middle. The light yellow is natural, the blue/green is the typical corn, the orange and dark yellow are fusion. One of the sauces that comes with it is with cactus and the other is with Chipotle.
The light yellow nacho tastes light and natural. The orange nacho reminds me of sausages, it has a slightly burnt somewhat spicy taste. The dark yellow nacho also tastes spicy, but from a different type of pepper. The blue/green nacho has a mild slightly burnt taste that you can eat away.
Starters | Soups
‘Sopa Azteca‘ or ‘Sopa Tortilla‘ Aztek soup, a traditional tomato soup with crispy tortilla strips, fresh cheese, cream, avocado and pasilla pepper.
‘Sopa de Frijol’ Frijol black bean soup with crispy tortilla strips, fresh cheese and cream.
The Aztek soup is very tasty. The soup is a bit thick, tastes light, tomato-like and is well complemented by the tortilla strips and pieces of sliced avocado. The Mexican way tomato soup.
The black bean soup is also very tasty. It’s thick and creamy, a hearty bean soup that’s filling. The sour cheese goes well with it. It could be a complete meal soup with lots of protein.
Main Dish | Tacos or Quesadillas
We get a basket filled with different kinds of tacos or quesadillas, a collection of flavors, which is also called ‘share with friends’.
The flavors are:
- Fish with ‘Huitlacoche’ a Mexican mushroom.
- Vegetarian Taco.
- Chicken with mole, which is a salsa of twenty six ingredients with one of them chocolate and also pepper.
- Some beef.
The dish is served with a colorful salad. The different types of tacos or quesadillas taste great. They look small and sweet and you can complement them with the salad. Despite the fact that they are small in size, you can get quite full of them.
Dessert | Pan de Muertos
The Pan de Muerto is a typical Mexican sweet bread with vanilla ice cream, a dessert eaten during the Day of the Dead. The Pan de Muerto is decorated with yellow petals of the Cempazuchitl, a typical flower for the Day of the Dead. The bread tastes nice and sweet and is a special dessert that we were allowed to eat on this Dia de los Muertos.
A piece of Mexico in the Netherlands
If you want to taste and experience a piece of Mexico in the Netherlands, you don’t have to travel miles to Mexico. Mexico is ‘amigo’ which means friendly and ‘comparte’ which means together. At Mexican restaurant Sabor Sabor they give you the feeling of a piece of Mexico in the Netherlands, with the traditional Mexican flavors and the warm, friendly atmosphere.
Sabor Sabor
Address:
Adrien Mildersstraat 11a
3022 NB Rotterdam
Nederland