Summertime ‘22: Mexico City
After our exploration of the southern part of Mexico in Oaxaca, we were ready to return to a big city and continue our adventure in Mexico City.
We were excited to explore the history, culture, and of course, the food. However, many people we talked to before arriving had mostly negative things to say about it. Some of which are true things that they have experienced, but we were optimistic that wouldn’t be our story. Some neighborhoods are dangerous, yes, but there are dangerous parts of all big cities in the US as well. We wanted to experience the city for ourselves. We chose to stay in a nice neighborhood called Roma which actually ended up reminding us of Seattle.
With the neighborhood picked and recommendations from local friends, we felt ready for our visit.
Similar to Oaxaca, we decided to stay with a local via a private room on Airbnb. We were lucky again to have chosen a fantastic host, Torbin. He is originally from Copenhagen but has lived in Mexico City for the past 35 years. His home is a massive and beautifully decorated apartment in Roma. Immediately after stepping foot into his space it was clear he is a world traveler. From the art on the walls to the figures and masks that were hanging all around, it was clear he has lived a fascinating life. We would soon learn he has been to over 100 countries! And he has traveled to Thailand several times.
He is a unique and kind older gentleman who likes things just so. His particularness was mostly endearing. Despite it seeming a bit laborious at times, we were aware that we were staying in his home and needed to respect his wishes.
Within his apartment is his salon where he has been cutting hair for over 30 years. We enjoyed an initial chat to get acquainted with the city and his home.
Another unique aspect of Torbin’s personality is his love of opera. His room was filled from wall to wall with CDs, DVDs, vinyls, tapes, and photos commemorating his favorite opera singers whom he had met. On our first night in the city, he left for one of the biggest opera competitions that was taking place in Mexico City.
After getting the low-down from Torbin, we decided to check out the local scene since we were so close to so much. Our first stop was Cariñito Tacos. It was a small taco shop that sold various types of pork belly tacos (and one veggie option). We got all five tacos. They were really tasty. I wouldn’t say each taco matched their names (Thai, Issan, Cantonese, Criollo, and Berenjena) but nonetheless, they were delicious, bougie tacos.
For dessert, we hit up Churreria El Moro. We would end up coming back to their many locations several times for a sweet treat. The line was always long and it felt similar to standing in line for ice cream at Molly Moon’s or Salt and Straw. If you know me, I am a churro lover and these were thin, crisp and quite delectable. Emily especially enjoyed dipping them in the vanilla milkshake.
Our final stop was getting drinks at Licoreria Limantour. It was voted best bar in North America last year, and Top 50 this year. This bar was huge. It had two floors and also served food. The night we visited we got to try a couple of cocktails from the rotating menu made by bartenders from around the world. It was a fun place and the drinks were superb.
It felt so nice to be back in a big city. There was much to see and do, lots of food options, and DOGS everywhere. Even though we were urged by many to not come, we knew we made the right choice.
Torbin insisted on making us pancakes for breakfast the following morning. He was elated to find out we had planned to visit the National Museum of Anthropology afterwards. Every single person we talked to who had been to Mexico City said that we needed to visit this museum. It is known to be one of the best in the world.
We hopped on a bus and headed for the museum. Once we arrived and took a look at the map we knew we were in for a journey. After completing the first section, we realized the scope of the museum. It has two floors with a total of 22 gigantic rooms. If you were to read every blurb written, you would probably be there for a week. It was crazy.
Just one of the 22 rooms at the museum.
The museum is divided into sections based on time period and/or location within Mexico. The lower level rooms have archaeological artifacts and information from various groups and regions of Mexico. To name a few – the Mayans, people from Oaxaca, the Teotihuacan area where there are still pyramids that show the vastness of the ancient city. The upper floor displays the ethnography of the various indigenous and modern ethnic communities represented in the past and current Mexico. There are also several outdoor spaces with artifacts and gardens to get some fresh air throughout the experience.
The collection of artifacts is astounding. The organization and preservation of the items was immaculate. Even the murals on the walls to help explain how people lived and what the landscape was like in the past were breathtaking.
We stayed for several hours, took small breaks after every few sections and we still felt like we were rushing through it. Another visit would definitely be needed to feel like we saw everything. We would highly recommend it, just like it was suggested to us. We were glad we experienced this museum at the start of our Mexico City stay because it gave us context for the rest of the art, traditions, and culture we experienced throughout the city.
After we made it through the museum we were eager to find some food. Lunch was at another taco spot. It’s called Siembra Tortilleria where they work with local corn farmers around the area when making their tortillas. Their selection of tacos was extensive and the quality was even more impressive. It is another small taqueria where almost everyone stands outside.
Our friend Diego, from All Cats All Bats, connected us with a friend of his from culinary school named Ariel who could show us around and take us to some good restaurants while we were in town. As it turned out, Ariel was having a ramen pop up in his studio that night. We decided to go introduce ourselves as well as see what he was cooking.
His studio was conveniently only blocks from where we were staying. The theme of the pop up was Ramen and Tattoos. While we were not prepared to get a tattoo, we were interested in trying his ramen.
We were seated at the table and ate ramen. Other people (who all seemed to know each other) would come in and out. There was a man giving tattoos just feet away from us. Ariel sat down and chatted with us for a while. He is a man of many talents and interests and had recently started a brand called “Obscuro con Blanco” that includes cookies, clothing, and other merch.
The studio space was cool, the flatware was on point, and it was great meeting Ariel and tasting his food. He has a weiner dog named Sebastian that we played with for a while before leaving. Ariel and another friend of Diego’s, Abi, would meet up with us later the following day.
After visiting another Churreria El Moro location, we finished our night by finding a speakeasy called Handshake Speakeasy. It was another bar in the Top 50 in the world. Once we were seated, it was clear why. The space was small, dark, and sophisticated. The bartenders knew a lot about their drinks. We were served warm towels and complimentary bar snacks. The drinks were quite expensive and we couldn’t stay long because they gave us a time limit due to another booking. Overall, a very cool spot.
Because Mexico City is known for its museums and art we decided to spend the following day downtown. Before we left, Torbin gave us a rundown of his favorite places to visit and drew out a walking tour for us to follow. This ended up helping a lot since we did not have much planned.
We began by taking a subway to the west side of downtown. Once we were onto the street, I was hit with glimpses of memories from when I came as a child. There were so many people surrounding the sidewalks selling everything from kids toys to clothes to food. It made walking nearly impossible. We felt claustrophobic to say the least.
Our first stop was at the Museo Mural of Diego Rivera. While it was a very small museum, the one large mural called “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park” was definitely worth checking out. Diego Rivera is a famous muralist and was the husband of Frida Kahlo. His work is essential to understanding Mexico’s past – politically and culturally.
Since Alameda Park was next door, we decided to take a walk through it. It’s the oldest park in Mexico and possibly all of Latin America. It was a beautiful park to relax and people watch.
Our favorite site we visited that day was Palacio de Bellas Artes. This museum opened in 1934 and features the most outstanding national art of the country. One of the permanent exhibits that was commissioned when the museum first opened was the murals. They were created by Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, among others in the coming years. Today each wall on every floor features a different mural.
We were lucky to see the current temporary exhibit, which was all surrealism. It was called “Solo lo marvilloso es bello. Surrealism en dialogo.” It was fascinating to learn about the surrealism perspective within Mexico given the social and political context of the 1920s and onward when this artistic movement was happening. I didn’t know Mexico was considered the “homeland” at one point where surrealist artists gathered to escape the fascism of Europe. The exhibit featured Dali among many other artists. We appreciated the easy-to-follow flow of the exhibit, and the impressive art on display.
The most recommended place to eat from friends and family was Los Cocuyos. A 24/7 one window taco stand that has been open for 50 years. Their menu featured more off-cuts than traditional tacos foreigners might be used to. Once we arrived almost everything sounded and looked good to me. Because we were downtown on a Sunday afternoon, the line was insane and we waited way too long for the tacos. However, the wait made the tacos taste even better in my opinion. This is 100% worth getting, but learn from our mistake and come at a less busy time, maybe after midnight on a weekday :)
We continued to visit several other sites downtown including –
Palacio de Iturbide, which featured a collection of old religious paintings, very big but kind of boring. The building had beautiful architecture.
House of Tiles used to be a residential home but has since been turned into a pretty touristy restaurant. Torbin gave us the tip to not eat at the restaurant, but rather walk through the building and use the restroom in order to see the decorative tile that was all over the inside and outside of the building.
The Post Museum was also recommended to us, but we were not sold initially on visiting an old post office. As it turns out it was actually quite cool and reminded Emily of the Gringotts Wizarding Bank from Harry Potter. Unfortunately, due to Covid most of it was closed off so we could only gaze at the lobby and peek up the stairs.
Plaza Manuel Tolsa was a cool building that we walked around.
The Zocalo, like in Oaxaca is the central part of the city. At the time we were passing through they were preparing for a large concert so there wasn’t much to explore since it was mostly a venue space. It seemed like a nice, open area otherwise.
Nearby was the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. We went inside to see the huge cathedral, but unfortunately it was closing soon so we only stayed for a bit.
All that walking and sightseeing left us needing a siesta back at the Airbnb before continuing into the evening.
The rest of the evening was spent with Ariel and Abi. I asked them to take us to Choza, a restaurant making Thai-inspired food using both Thai and Mexican ingredients. Ariel used to work there and knew the entire staff. Choza is an off-the-map spot, like many restaurants and bars in Mexico City we soon learned. It doesn’t have a sign outside so the discrete, speakeasy vibe made it difficult to find at first. Thankfully, Ariel sent us the pin and luckily, it was just a few blocks down from our Airbnb.
The atmosphere at Choza was 10 out of 10. The music was great and the ambiance was super cool. The clientele seemed to have a familiar feel as many people knew each other. (Or at least Ariel knew most people.) Tyler, the chef, had an amazing open concept kitchen with lots of heat coming from it. We got to say hello, but he did not stick around to talk with us. We were disappointed by this because we were hoping to swap stories about his time in Thailand, but so it goes. The food was by far the best-tasting Thai food outside of Thailand we’ve had. It had Mexican flavors intermingled but overall, it was all great tasting food. Unfortunately, the bill was beyond anything I could have imagined for some of the items we got. I’ll leave it at that.
After dinner, they took us to Ticuchi, a sister restaurant to the acclaimed Pujol. It felt incredibly exclusive inside. Ariel knew everyone, of course. Since we just ate, we only got their popcorn and tlayuda. They were both spectacular. The tlayuda was definitely one of the best tasting things of our entire trip, in my opinion.
Our waitress was a good friend of Ariel’s and kindly brought us each different mezcal to try based on our personality. (We hardly even interacted with her so I think she is a mezcal whisperer or something.) These were by far the best tasting mezcals we had, even when compared to Oaxaca. Most of them were from Oaxaca, but were rare or less popular bottles that we only got to try due to her close connection with the producers.
The waitress knew a lot about each mezcal. Emily talked with her a bit about the mezcal she had chosen for her, which was one of less than 20 bottles made. She said that one of the beautiful and sad things about mezcal is that many types of agave take a really long time to grow and be ready to process (sometimes 20 years or more). Therefore that bottle of mezcal she had could be one in a lifetime because it would be another 15-20+ years before that agave is grown again and the growing conditions and other variables would likely be different. That snippet of insight really made us appreciate the mezcal we had tried, and her words have stuck with us ever since. The experience is sacred to many people in Mexico, we were feeling the reality of that after this intimate experience.
(Side note, I found a glory hole in the bathroom.)
Our night ended after Ariel and Abi took us to another bar called ololo. We had no idea where we were going until we arrived. It was a small spot up the stairs within a closed restaurant with maybe 15 people inside. The entire room was painted orange. There were two DJs and everyone was lit. Before we left (at nearly 3am), Abi told us he wanted to take us to see the pyramids when we woke up. We agreed and left to sleep for a few hours.
Before heading off on our adventure, Em and I stopped by Panaderia Rosetta to get some pastries to eat along the way. I had read about this bakery from quite a few sources, so I knew it was good quality. However, we weren’t expecting to learn that it’s so beloved that a couple was taking wedding photos there. We had to wait in line behind a bride and groom posing with the pastries. Imagine that!
Shortly after, Abi picked us up and we were off on an hour drive northeast of the city. It was crazy to see how sprawling the outskirts of Mexico City are. It was clear that this city is massive with a constantly growing population. It is considered by some one of the most populated areas in the world. Even though the city proper isn’t that huge, the surrounding concrete sprawl is practically endless.
When we arrived at Teotihuacan, we saw the pyramids in the following order: the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, Pyramid of the Sun, and lastly, Pyramid of the Moon. Unfortunately, since Covid, they do not allow people to climb the pyramids. But even from the ground level, you could tell these were gigantic.
Abi acted as our guide and would tell us facts about the history of the area as we strolled. Teotihuacan is an ancient Mesoamerican city. The population of the city has been estimated to be 125,000 or more, which would make it one of the biggest cities around the first century CE. The pyramids are thought to have been religious sites and was once a place of pilgrimage. Today they are one of the largest archaeological sites in the country.
Each pyramid was rather far from one another so we had a bit of a walking tour between each pyramid spot. Thankfully it wasn’t terribly hot yet since it was still morning, but it still left us tired by the end. We appreciated that Abi offered to take us both to and from the pyramids back to the city.
Once we were back in the city Abi took us to the neighborhood where he grew up, Coyoacan. After a quick lunch at Los Sifones, where they serve tacos on square tortillas, we headed to the central plaza where there is a weekend market. He said it was a unique part of the city where it is colonial in its architecture and very walkable. Unfortunately, once we passed through the plaza it began to pour rain so we had to rush back to the car and our Coyoacan stroll was concluded.
Abi took us back to our Airbnb where we rested, and ended up spending a while with Torbin as he showed us some of his favorite opera singers. We thoroughly enjoyed learning about this aspect of the arts that we had very little knowledge about previously, mostly because his excitement and passion was contagious.
As we watched recordings of his favorite singers, he would tell me to wait to record until the best singing parts were about to happen. He told us story after story about being in fan clubs, meeting his idols and overall love of opera. To be honest, it was a lot to take in but with Torbin being such a nice gentleman, it was actually a fun and educational experience.
Something inside me told me I needed to take advantage of the fact that Torbin was a hairdresser. I have been living in Bangkok for two years with long hair and it has honestly sucked. My hair is always tied up in a bun or I wear a hat so I can’t really enjoy my long hair. Finding someone who can cut the hair of foreigners is difficult in Bangkok and expensive. Torbin has been a hair stylist for more than 40 years! So I asked him if he could cut my hair and he gladly obliged.
I left it up to him to do whatever he saw fit. In the end, it was a style I have never rocked but Em and Torbin both seemed to really like it so I guess I can’t complain (even though it gave me Will Byers vibes).
After the haircut, Torbin wanted to take us to Medellin Market to find a few last minute items. On the way, I asked if we could stop by Quentin Cafe to try their almond croissant (Ariel said it's the best in the city). And it was quite delicious. Torbin thought it was okay and insisted he take us to his favorite croissant spot. “Just like in France,” he said. It was quite good but didn’t think it was that much better, in my opinion.
We walked to the market and it was definitely a higher end, well kept place. Torbin left us to do our exploring while he gathered his groceries for the week. We browsed a bit, bought our items and left. It was crazy seeing naranja agria (or som saa) so plentiful in the market. In Thailand, it is hard to come by.
Next, it was time for lunch. Because our days were running out we wanted to try and fit in two places for lunch.
First, we stopped at Molino “El Pujol.” Another sister restaurant of Pujol. The cafe was simple with only a few food options. We got two tacos (one with avocado and one with huitlacoche), two tamales (one of mole con romeritos and one with mango). We also got their churro and a scoop of ice cream for dessert.
Because they use the same ingredients and masa harina as Pujol, the quality of everything was absolutely top class. A very delicious meal to say the least.
We walked down the road and stopped at Taqueria El Greco, Arabian tacos. They make their own pita bread of sorts that you have as a taco shell. The place was very tasty and we were stuffed afterwards.
Both places are definitely worth checking out.
For our last meal, we ate at Pizza Felix, and met up with Ariel and Abi to say goodbye. Abi would be visiting Thailand in a couple of weeks to see Diego. So we looked forward to crossing paths again.
Mexico City was a wonderful place. Being half Mexican with the ability to get dual citizenship, we could see ourselves moving here at some point in the future. The food was incredible and there is so much history, culture and sites to see. Our time was well spent and we met some great people along the way.
Our time in Mexico City wouldn’t have been complete without Torbin waking up at 5am just to send us off and give us freshly baked zucchini bread. That man is a saint.
Our journey is coming to an end with only a quick three day visit to LA to see my dad’s side of the family near Anaheim, California before heading back to the kingdom.
