Feed Me Loco

For two years, chef Luis Cabrera has dished up a quesadilla topped with roasted crickets at his central Auckland South American restaurant, Besos Latinos. For American Express Restaurant Month, he is raising the stakes — using crispy crickets and other unusual-for-us ingredients in a varied four-course menu that includes nopal cactus to be boiled, sliced and seasoned with pico de gallo, six-chilli mole, and lamb shoulder cooked inside blue agave leaves. Used to make tequila, agave leaves, Luis says, are ideal to wrap and steam with the meat. Those crickets will be served on sope — a ground maize corncake topped with refried beans, lettuce, sour cream and guacamole.

Like a variety of other insects and bugs eaten in Mexico, crickets score highly in both protein and sustainability and are commonly boiled, then toasted or fried and sold by street vendors as a snack. At Besos Latinos they are selling well too. “The quesadilla has become very popular thanks to brave Kiwis wanting to try them and inviting their friends to try them,” Luis says. “Crickets are not just tasty but healthy.” His come from Thailand. “They arrive whole, clean and dry but we roast them and season them just like in the south of Mexico.” He has no plans to stop there: “I want to try using beetles and meal worms. They are very delicious.”

Earlier this year, Luis was hired to cook for Barack Obama at his Auckland hotel.

“He mentioned that his favourite food is Mexican and wanted to have a true Mexican breakfast. He wanted huevos rancheros, fried eggs over fried tortilla covered with rounded red salsa. He also had guacamole, refried beans and he requested three salsas with various level of spiciness.” No crickets in sight.

FEED ME LOCO, AUGUST 14, Besos Latinos, Elliott Stables, Auckland City. $140 for 4-course dinner including canapes and tequila matches. aucklandnz.com/restaurant-month