A Guide to Mexican cuisine

You're sure to find vendors hawking these delicious snacks on street corners all over Cancún. A variety of tasty meat fillings are wrapped in banana leaves or cornhusks with moist maize and slow cooked sauce for a quick, tasty and filling lunch. How many can you eat in one go?

If you're a fan of smoky barbeque flavours, then this wedding and festival fixture is a must. Meats are slow cooked for days at a time under maguey leaves, until they melt on your fork. The end result is then drizzled with all manner of sauces, guacamole and lime juice.

Mexico is known for spicy food, so it's no surprise to find somne icy relief on the menu. Paletas are a range of frozen sweets made from sweetened fresh fruits and chocolate. These cool treats can be either water or milk based, with many sublime and refreshing flavours. Guanabana and coconut are our favourites!

One of the best Mexican dishes is, of course, the taco. And you'd be hard pushed to find one more delicious than Tacos al Pastor, otherwise known as the Ahepherd's Taco. This type of taco has the perfect balance of sweet and spicy, as it is filled with spit-roasted pork, delicately marinated with chili and other spices, then served with a generous heap of roast pineapple fried onions, fresh coriander and salsa.

This crispy twist on the humble and ubiquitous tortilla is just divine. Tortillas are toasted then smothered in salsa, shredded chicken, raw onions, Mexican herb epazote, white cheese and sour cream. There’s a red version made from a blend of tomatoes and dark purple chillies, while green chilaquiles owe their zing to the sharp, seedy goodness of tomatillos. They’re served sizzling in a clay pot, bubbling with sauce and white cheese.

Mole is the National dish of Mexico and takes the country’s flair for mixing complex layers of flavour to a whole new level. Mole blends spices, tomatoes, chilli, garlic and, perhaps the killer ingredient, chocolate to create a rich sauce bursting with flavour. You’ll often find it served with turkey, pork or chicken and it’s always fiendishly moreish!