Guelaguetza

The shopping center looks forlorn now that the supermarket has closed, its sign scrubbed down to a faint shadow. That only makes the brightly painted facade of Guelaguetza, a little Oaxacan restaurant on the fringe of the abandoned parking lot in Palms, all the more welcome. Inside Soledad Lopez's modest place, Oaxacan women in snowy white caps tend their pots of bubbling beans and moles. Sun streams in the windows onto the oilcloth tablecloths, and the scent of cinnamon and chocolate, chile and the herb hoja sante is enough to make anyone hungry, especially on a late Saturday morning.

A handful of customers, mostly couples from the nearby Oaxacan neighborhood, linger over breakfast of pan de yema (egg bread) and big cups of milky coffee or plates of beans and eggs. We spread out the Saturday paper and order tall glasses of that days agua fresca -- watermelon -- before considering what we want to eat.

It's been awhile since I've been to Guelaguetza and I'd like to order more things than I can possibly eat -- that wonderful soup with green mole, chayote and pork bones or the stewed goat, the supple warm tortillas dipped in black beans, then folded in quarters like a handkerchief. And then the empanada with mushrooms and yellow mole.

In the end, I go with my favorite breakfast dish here, huevos rancheros. Here a fresh corn tortilla goes on the bottom, topped with a thin slice of pink ham, two fried eggs and a smoldering chile-flecked ranchero sauce. Cut into the eggs and the deep, gold yolk runs out to mix with the sauce. This version is not a bit heavy. It comes with rice and juicy black beans -- a meal on a plate. But it seems I have to share, in order get some of my companion's scrambled eggs a la Mexicana. That's scrambled eggs with diced tomato and chiles, a particularly savory combination, delicious piled into one of the warm tortillas.

Why isn't everybody here? Sure, I have laundry and assorted errands I should be doing. I'll get to it all -- later. Meanwhile, I've taken an hour out of my day to spend at a slower, Oaxacan pace.