Memelas are thick masa rounds toasted on the comal and topped with asiento, frijol, salsa and quesillo, the canonical Oaxacan home-kitchen breakfast; in Mexico we have verified places to eat it in Oaxaca and Puebla.
Memelas · Oaxaca
Memelas are thick masa rounds toasted on the comal and topped with asiento, frijol, salsa and quesillo, the canonical Oaxacan home-kitchen breakfast.
Memelas are the canonical Oaxacan breakfast: a thick masa round pinched at the edges to hold the toppings, toasted on the comal and dressed with asiento, refried beans, salsa and crumbled queso fresco or quesillo. The Memelas Dona Vale counter at Mercado de Abastos is the most famous early-morning stand; Itanoni serves a heritage-corn version that locals consider the city's reference for criollo-maize masa.
Where to eat in Oaxaca:
- Memelas Dona Vale (Mercado de Abastos)
- Itanoni
- Comedor Yolis (Mercado Sanchez Pascuas)
- Comala
- Almu
Where to eat Memelas in Oaxaca: the editor picks
Memelas · Puebla
Oval masa cakes cooked on the comal, pinched at the edges, then spread with lard or asiento, beans, salsa and crumbled cheese. Breakfast food, cheap and eaten by hand.
The memela is the plainest thing on a Puebla comal and one of the oldest: a thick oval of masa, cooked, pinched around the rim to hold the topping, then dressed with asiento, refried beans, salsa and crumbled cheese. It belongs to breakfast rather than dinner, and the counters that sell it open early and shut in the afternoon. La Ververa in Arboledas de Guadalupe presses them on hand-made blue-corn tortillas and prices them between twenty and forty-five pesos, which is the version worth leaving the Centro for, though it only opens at the weekend. Mercado Xonaca, out between 22 Norte and 28 Oriente, cooks them daily and is the fallback on a weekday.
Where to eat in Puebla:
- La Ververa
- Mercado Xonaca
Where to eat Memelas in Puebla: the editor picks