Everywhere we read said that El Mural de Los Poblanos was THE place to go and sample the traditional delights of Poblano cuisine, so we headed into the old town on our first evening in Puebla to try it out.

We started with some tacos.

When in Rome and all that…

We were rewarded by our lack of inventive ordering – the tacos were juicy, soft and full of flavour…the only problem being the fact that I seemed to be incapable of making sure all that lovely filling made it into my stomach (a sad proportion ended up on the tablecloth, my napkin, my shirt…)

For main we shared the selection of mole – the El Mural de Poblanos speciality.  Back home I have only ever tasted traditional mole (made with chilli, chocolate and spices) but our main course was an education in the range of flavours available.  Of course there was the traditional mole, which possibly rivalled that in Pujol (see more on our meal here) but other flavours included a sweet red mole (made with sesame seeds, tropical fruits and guajilo chillis) and my favourite, the green mole (with tomatoes, serrano chillis, herbs and pumpkin seeds).

I also had a wonderful salad of prickly pear cactus, tomatoes, onions, radishes and serrano chile. The salad was a fresh and light accompaniment to the heavier flavours of the main event, but no less tasty.

And for pudding I chose another dish designed to show off the best of Mexican ingredients – the chocolate fondant.

This fondant was so liquid that once again too much of it ended up on the table.  The molten, buttery centre of the fondant was delicious but so rich (and a bit too buttery) meaning that even I couldn’t finish it all.