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It being the tail end of low tourist season I hesitate to pick on those sad, empty (relatively) high-end restaurants in Oaxaca City’s center. They’re still recovering from social unrest last spring, during which some 20 people were killed in clashes between police and antigovernment protesters, scaring away all the tourists and sending the economy into the toilet. My uneducated guess is that many of the street vendors and operators of the tiny fondas and comedores (market stalls and small restaurants) suffered relatively little from the tourist exodus, since much of their business comes from actual Oaxaquenos who couldn’t or wouldn’t flee when things got hairy.

Every night in the shadow of the magnificent Basilica de la Soledad in Oaxaca City the ice cream stands were hand-churning nieves in innumerable flavors, from tequila to queso to corn to cactus pear.

Check out Elizabeth Gomez’s pics below.