Last week, in the spirit of Exploring Mexico Now That I Don’t Have a Full-Time Job, Alice and I took a trip to Ciudad Universitaria to see UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
It’s considered among the largest universities in the Americas, with nearly 200,000 undergrad and grad students enrolled this past school year. Can you imagine? The place is huge.
They’ve also got a lot of really cool murals, and a new contemporary art museum called MUAC. (Which we reached by cab, because we couldn’t figure out how to take the free university shuttle.) It ended up being a neat day trip, though. We saw the famous Central Library mural created by Juan O’Gorman (pic above), and we wandered around and saw kids playing ping-pong and studying outside on bean bag chairs. We stopped at a cafeteria for a snack — a muy rico panela and avocado sandwich — and then hit MUAC, which ended up being this giant, peaceful breath of glass and steel.
We ate our real lunch at Café Azul y Oro, which I’ve been dying to go to. All the local magazines have hailed it as high-quality Mexican cuisine for a fraction of what you’d pay elsewhere. I loved that the place was casual (paper napkins; no AC), and the menu creative — my prehispanic corn-gelatin dessert was officially the highlight of the afternoon — but I’m not sure I’d make a special trip, especially considering it takes me an hour to get down there.
Definitely will eat there again next time I hit UNAM, though. Then hopefully then we can see the murals we missed, and the rogue auditorium that’s been taken over by students.
Lots of photos of UNAM, MUAC and Azul y Oro after the jump.
UNAM
A mural we stumbled across in one of the courtyards
MUAC
The very cool museum facade
The view while walking to the bathrooms
Café Azul y Oro
Horchata with pecans and melon
Hibiscus flower enchiladas, topped with crema, cabbage and cheese
Alice's chicken topped with bittersweet, chocolatey mole negro
My Oaxacan nicuatole dessert -- basically sweetened corn gelatin sitting in a vanilla sauce. Soo good.
A slice of pineapple cake, topped with a thick, boozy frosting.
lesley:
if you’re ever on another sureño culinary excursion you might want to try breakfast at las lupitas (francisco sosa, coyoacán). it’s a sonoran-style eaterie with dreamy chimichangas, coyotas, and machaca burritos. another great morning munchies spot is zaks in san angel, with delicious, warm homemade cornbread. the original is in insurgentes, but the san angel one has a lovely outdoor terrace.
for some serious (albeit pricy) dining, one of my absolute favorite restaurants in mexcity is monica patiño’s taberna del leon in plaza loreto (don’t be put off by the fact that it’s in a mall). even if just to try the duck tacos with plum sauce and salsa verde it’s worth the trip and the splurge. another great patiño place is the mp bistro in polanco. the ambience is a little too ejecutivo (wannabe nyc winebar type of place) but they serve a drop-dead tuna fillet with wasabe butter and fries on the side.
Reinito: I just had lunch and you’re making me hungry again!
I’ve heard raves about Zaks. Might try to go in a few weeks. And I gotta try a Monica Patino place… I’ve read about both of those you mentioned and I’ve even seen her cooking show on local TV. It’s kind of a travesty that I haven’t gone yet, especially now after hearing about this tuna fillet with wasabe butter.
Ahhhhh, don’t you just love not having a full-time job? I’m in the same boat right now 🙂
Cool to hear/see about your little mini-trip, can’t wait to see what else you explore on your down time!
Kyle
(from http://www.kylehepp.com in case you’re confused)
Lovely pictures of the campus, where I’m lucky to be an English Literature undergraduate student. But I’d like to clarify… that auditorium was not taken over by students, but by radical groups who claim to have been students at some point (I have my doubts). The strike was over 13 years ago, and they are still there. The place is seriously damaged and gives a terrible image of the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. It is a public space, and the majority of the community of the facultad thinks that these people have no right of living in the largest auditorium in Central Campus, where Julio Cortázar lectured decades ago.
Hi Julieta: Thanks for clarifying. I appreciate your comment!