The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Archives for June 2013

What it means to be home

by

The New York City skyline at dusk, captured from the Hudson River in April 2013.

The New York City skyline at dusk, captured from the Hudson River in April 2013.

Yesterday, my friend Fany and I were trying to make plans to hang out, and I told her I’d be in Mexico for the next two weeks. “Again?” she said. “You know, you haven’t arrived.”

She was right: I hadn’t arrived. I’d moved to New York at the end of January, but I’d been gone in Mexico twice already (more than a month in Mexico, if you counted up the days), in San Diego once, and in Portland and San Francisco. Being in New York still felt like an extended business trip. I didn’t feel yet like I was here to stay.

I kept repeating that little sentence in my head — I haven’t arrived — and it made me feel better about this anxiousness I’d been feeling lately, this need to establish myself right away, to do something big and important now. Arriving in Mexico City, I’m sure I’d felt the same way, but my freshest memories were of how routine and comfortable everything was.

I’m curious: when you moved to a new city for the first time, what little things made you feel like you’d truly arrived? How long did it take you to really feel like you were home?

Concha taste test #17: Rosetta Bakery

by

Outside Rosetta bakery in Mexico City

The conchas at Mexico City’s Rosetta bakery are quilted in dark, chocolate-sugar diamonds. The rolls are dense but somehow airy; yeasty, but not too chewy or sweet. On a recent visit, I gobbled almost en entire chocolate concha before my coffee had even arrived.

The secret to these conchas is slow fermentation and a small amount of yeast, which creates a soft, airier crumb, says chef and owner Elena Reygadas, who was hanging out at the bakery recently and answered a few of my questions.

“We don’t put a lot of butter,” Reygadas says. “We want to respect the Mexican village-style bread.”

Mexico City is undergoing a bakery renaissance, and Rosetta — a sister establishment to the Rosetta Italian restaurant a block away — is among those leading the pack. The narrow, warm Colonia Roma cafe invites you to sit and stay awhile. Creamy subway tile covers the walls, and fresh-baked loaves stack neatly inside wooden crates. (One of those loaves is pan de pulque, which is a rare find in Mexico City.) Croissants and chocolatínes mingle in a glass display case near the entrance, along with bulbous popovers bursting out of their little accordion-shaped paper cups.

Bread at Rosetta in Roma

The overall effect is sort of European. But due to the small, sausage-shaped size of the place — the bakery was once the driveway and garage of a fancy Roma mansion — it’s also quirky, pleasantly chilango.

Get there by 8 a.m. on a weekday to snag one of the spot’s few coveted seats and to try the conchas. (At 10 a.m. one morning, they’d already disappeared.)

The shop’s vanilla conchas also contain real vanilla bean. Reygadas admitted it was a little expensive, but I’m hoping she continues to spoil her customers.

A concha from Rosetta bakery in Mexico City

A concha from Rosetta bakery in Mexico City

Rosetta Bakery (the sign says simply “Panadería)
Colima 178-A, at the corner of Orizaba
Colonia Roma

Read about my other Concha Taste Tests in Mexico City here.