Eating out in Mexico City

We ate a LOT in Mexico City! In fact we ate so much good food in that pretty much every day involved the same conversation at some point: “Man, when we get back to Rio, we’re going to have to get in shape”.

Yeah, “when we get back to Rio” …but in the meantime:

Mexico City has a lot of street food stands. There is practically a taco stall on every street corner and it’s great to see everyday Mexicans, from taxi drivers to office workers (ties tucked over their shoulders), indulging in some delicious snack at lunch time.

Taquería Jalisco

We had arrived late on our first night in the city, so dumped our bags in the hostel and wandered out on the street to see if we could find something (anything!) to fill that post-flight hunger. We were ridiculously lucky to randomly stumble on Taquería Jalisco, a tiny little place that stays open late and serves up all kinds of delicious tacos:

Not exactly a food-stylist’s photo, but hopefully you get the idea. Tangy, spiced, fatty meat accompanied by coriander (cilantro), onions, spicy red salsa and a good squeeze of lime. The perfect start to our trip. After a little Googling, I just found this rather nice article related to Taquería Jalisco, coincidentally written by the founder of Eat Mexico Culinary Tours!

Mercado Roma

At the other end of the scale, a few days later we found Mercado Roma – a place so packed full of rich and swankily dressed Mexicans that I felt fully ashamed to wander in wearing my backpack and scruffy t-shirt. If I had known it was going to be so fancy, I would have dressed up. Nevertheless, we ate some wonderful food in this upmarket market:

Fancy jewellery, lots of make-up and designer clothes. It seems this is where the well-heeled of DF come to indulge in culinary luxury.

We started off with a glass of chilled rosé and these ceviche tostadas.

Alemeja Chocolata, huge Mexican Chocolate Clams. That is seafood heaven in a shell right there.

An oyster with seaweed, a dash of truffle oil, a couple of capers and something unidentified that had been spherified. Tasted better than it sounds.

Wagyu tacos. Yes, these exist. Yes, they were amazing.

A wagyu taco ready to be devoured. Again, not a beautiful picture, but shortly after it was taken, this became two dreamy mouthfuls of creamy meat offset by tangy salsa and sweet onions. If you ever get the chance, try it.

Restaurant Chon

We had heard there was a restaurant serving pre-hispanic food including various reptiles, insects and other delicacies, so went on a mission. It took us ages, but we eventually tracked down Restaurant Chon. I have to say, it was a pretty miserable place and the owner/waiter seemed completely lacking in enthusiasm for his job. Anyway, I thought you might be interested to see Escamoles, ant larvae cooked with nopales (cactus flesh). Not sure if we were just put off by the shitty service, but we both thought this ‘delicacy’ was completely underwhelming.

Mmmm, delicious ant larvae.

Pastelería Ideal

As we were walking back from Restaurant Chon, we passed Pastelería Ideal, a legendary bakery that was founded in 1927 (thanks to Stacy for the tip – I probably would have walked straight past this place if you hadn’t mentioned it).

A no-nonsense bakery, teaming with customers. We spotted people all over the city walking with parcels from this place.

The pastries and breads looked pretty good, but it was the cakes that really caught my eye. Then Mrs Eat Rio noticed a sign saying they had a cake exhibition upstairs. Oh. My. God. I have never seen anything like it:

Enormous cakes, five, six or more stories high. Amazing creations measured in kilos!

Impressive icing-icles.

This one weighted 110kg. For imperial measurement fans (seriously, get with the 21st century) that’s 242 pounds.

El Hidalguense

The following day we went to El Hidalguense to try the legendary Barbacoa: lamb/mutton slow-cooked over an open fire. These guys have been in the business for nearly 40 years (15 in Mexico City), so it was safe to assume they knew what they were doing. When the salsas arrived, we decided we were in for a treat:

How great do those salsas look? The dark brown chipotle number at the front was especially awesome.

A black/blue taco filled with tender, fatty meat plus a generous helping of spicy salsa. Excellent.

As we were on a mission to try as much as possible, we also decided to try the chinicuiles (AKA Maguey worm), crispy-fried grubs found in the maguey cactus which is used to make pulque and mezcal.

I want to tell you that we loved these, but we didn’t. They were OK and we ate about 1/3 of the plate, but we didn’t fall in culinary love. The texture is great super light and crispy. The taste was kind of creamy/nutty, but after a few I started to want something else.

OK, so that was one big old food-photo-fest wasn’t it? I will finish off by showing you my favourite bar of the whole trip:

Cantina Tio Pepe

This was one of those most wonderful holiday things – a completely unresearched, undeserved find. I just happened to peep above the frosted section of the windows to see what looked like a very cool old bar. We were a bit hesitant to go in (may it was just a locals’ place?) but then saw a printed A4 sheet next to the door saying something about how the management accepted anyone and had no tolerance for homophobia, sexism, etc. We were reassured that they wouldn’t have a problem with a couple of gringos coming in.

Cantina Tio Pepe: What a gorgeous bar! I think the guy with the awesome comb-over (never thought I’d put those words down in writing) is Pepe himself.

This was such a cool place. The huge bar, backed with a stained glass Hennesy sign and wooden carvings, set the scene. The drinkers were a mixed crowd, young and old, and the manager (or owner?) was super friendly without being intrusive. This place was full of personality – a couple of old street-vendor guys would periodically come past the tables offering bizarre snacks such as bright yellow chickens’ feet (er, no thanks) and a small plaque screwed to the wall proclaimed no entry for children, women or street vendors (presumably a relic from a bygone era).

Se prohibe la entrada a menores, mujeres, y vendedores ambulantes

After 5 wonderful days in Mexico City, we decided to head southeast to the state of Oaxaca, but I’ll tell you about that another day – the beach is calling!