La Biznaga

Before I get to the part of my review where I recount how the owner of the restaurant terrorized the 7 of us and chased us out into the street, with one woman in our party threatening to call the police, let me tell you how stupendous the food is.

Their house drink—the biznaga —is a blend of tropical fruit juices and mescal. Delish. They have quite an assortment of tequilas and mescales.

• cones of fried flour tortillas stuffed with roasted hibiscus blossoms (jamaica), dried chiles, and guacamole.
• tamales of Oaxacan cheese; squash blossoms; and chile poblano; wrapped in a broad, pungent, and highly perfumed hierba santa leaf.

• rolled chicken breast stuffed with mashed plátano on a pool of guava mole
• garlic shrimp perched on a tamarind mole

Now, the story. I went to Oaxaca City for a psychotherapy conference in July, 2004. I ran into S—, a colleague-friend I did not know was going to attend. S— and her husband had already scoped out La Biznaga and recommended it to me. I went alone and had a wonderful time, savoring the atmosphere, the eclectic jazz played as background music, and the scrumptious food. I liked it so much, I went back a second time. By the time I compared notes with S—, she and her husband had also been back a second time. Then came the fateful night mentioned above. S— had befriended a family from Scotland at their hotel and invited them and me to join them for a final fling at La Biznaga. Their ditzy and entitled 19 year-old daughter changed her mind repeatedly and insisted on numerous modifications to everything she ordered, only to send things back, because they were not to her liking. She frustrated every server, all the way up the hierarchy to the owner, who eventually came to our table ranting at all of us. What a scene! It devolved into the drama I described in the opening paragraph.

The epilogue is that I loved Oaxaca so much that I took my s/o J— there 5 months later for the Christmas holiday. He was so intrigued, of course, by my story about La Biznaga that he could not pass up the opportunity to go and check it out for himself. It was again a tranquil evening-like my first 2 there alone-as we heaped cordiality upon cordiality upon each staff person we encountered.

And actually, that night there with J— was a bit of destiny. Upon entering the restaurant, I noticed they had mounted prints on the walls. At some point, while waiting for another food course or another round of mescal-and-juice, I walked over to study the artwork. At the far end of the lineup, they had posted an article explaining that the exhibit was a series of xilographs made by young Afro-Mestizo art students. They were all participants in a program based in El Ciruelo, a community in Costa Chica, the region of “Black Mexico” that runs along a stretch of the coast from within the state of Guerrero into the state of Oaxaca. I instantly realized that this program was the work of Rev. Glyn Nelson, one of the presenters who had been honored at and who had captivated me at the conference I had attended earlier in the year. I eagerly bought two prints. One was for J— and me, to be sure. The other was for my cherished friend and psychologist colleague Pat G—, who has recently become enthralled with African spirituality and ritual as a way of integrating and activating in her own and others’ lives some of the expert knowledges of her ancestors (most recently, her grandmother). Someday, I want to go to El Ciruelo, meet the artists, and vigorously shake the hand of Rev. Glyn.

How can I but applaud La Biznaga for lending support to such a laudable endeavor?