The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Food

Where to eat in Mexico City: Charro

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Some of my favorite restaurants in Mexico City are the ones that take traditional Mexican ingredients and turn them on their heads. For instance, Mexicans have traditionally eaten amaranth grain as a sort of sweet snack. But why not take amaranth and use it in a savory dish? Heck, why not go the other direction and take a quesadilla and roll it in sugar?

It’s surprising how few Mexico City restaurants veer in this type of direction. They’re either entirely traditional, or Mexican-French, or Mexican-something-else. Nothing wrong with those things, but it can be an absolutely inspiring experience to dine in a place that opens your mind a bit.

Charro in Condesa is exactly this type of restaurant — creative and fun, and playing with the boundaries of what exactly we should consider as Mexican food. The restaurant opened in December on Vicente Suarez street, under the direction of chef Daniel Ovadía.
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Mexican chef Martha Ortiz to open two new restaurants in DF

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A few weeks ago, a little item in El Universal mentioned that Martha Ortiz Chapa is developing two new restaurants in the Mexico City. Ortiz was behind the much-heralded but now closed Aguila y Sol restaurant, which specialized in high-end Mexican cuisine. Her new projects will be part of the Las Alcobas, a chic new hotel that recently opened in Polanco.

I reached out to the folks at Las Alcobas, and they were kind enough to send me some information. Here’s what I got:

The restaurants will be called Barroco and Dulce Patria, and they’ll be be located inside the hotel at Presidente Masaryk and Anatole France. Both restaurants will “venerate Mexican gastronomic traditions.”

Barroco will offer exotic moles, tamales, and even buñuelos, throwing back to one of the greatest moments of Mexican culinary history. (Guessing the baroque age? The press release doesn’t spell it out.) Design will veer toward intimate and unpretentious, with Mexican artesanía objects on the tables. Look for it in mid-July of this year.

Dulce Patria will be more lively and colorful, with a bar serving cocktails, mezcal, tequilas, flavored Mexican raspados and other “pequeñas delicias frías.” (Love that phrase.) The food will include ceviches, tostadas, guisados colorados and aguas frescas crowned with flowers, among other items. The wine menu will also emphasize Mexican varietals. Look for it in mid-April.

I never got to try Aguila y Sol — it closed before I moved here — but I’m really looking forward to trying out Ortiz’s new ventures. Will give you a full report once they open!

Where to eat in Mexico City: Casa Mexico

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I first went to Casa Mexico maybe three months ago, after reading about it on Good Food in Mexico City. Crayton and I weren’t immediately drawn to the place, to be honest. We were on our way to another restaurant in Roma when we walked by Casa Mexico, an empty, open restaurant with white tablecloths. It looked out of place amid the Zona Rosa’s fast food joints and cheap-beer bars.

Two uniformed waiters stood out front, as they are wont to do in Mexico. They looked bored, as if their only wish was for us to come and check out the menu.

So we stopped. I was kind of astonished at the prices. Forty-five pesos for a starter? Whoa. You don’t see that at an upscale place in Mexico City. Normally they’re at least 70 and above. Plus the menu looked interesting: organic chicken with two types of pre-hispanic sounding mole sauces; itacates (no idea what those were) with quelites. I’m a sucker for quelites, so we ditched the Roma restaurant idea and decided to stay there.

I didn’t regret it. Two very attentive waiters took our drink order almost immediately and walked us through the menu. (One complaint: the menu has no descriptions.) Many of the items ended up being regional, comfort-food Mexican dishes I’d never heard of before: itacates were corn-husk wrapped packages of steamed greens, sprinkled with goat cheese; tacos de chan chan were a piquant mix of fish with lime juice and adobo spices.

They also had sopa de milpa, a traditional, farmer’s-style soup with corn, epazote, squash and squash blossoms, poblano peppers, and chicken stock; and pellizcaditas de tuétano, a Veracruzan antojito comprising a type of masa-and-lard sope with pinched edges, topped with bone marrow.

We ordered the itacates; soap de hongos, or a mushroom soup thickened with masa; chilaxtle de cerdo, a chunk of roasted pork in a red toasted-chile seed sauce, and a green-bean salad with sesame seeds. (The latter was for me, attempting to keep the ol’ waistline in tact.)

Crayton also ordered a mezcal, which came with sliced grapefruit, oranges, chile powder and a few chapulínes.

The itacate, topped with crunchy fried tortilla strips

The green bean salad with grilled baby corn and tomatoes

Chilaxtle de cerdo, or pork in a red toasted-chile seed sauce

Chocolate mezcal cake

Everything was exceptional, save for the somewhat bland mezcal cake. The prices were extremely fair, and the service was probably the best I’ve gotten in Mexico, although I daresay the waitstaff might have hovered a wee bit too much. But that was a tiny complaint.

About two weeks later, Crayton and I went back with his parents who were visiting Mexico City for the first time. We weren’t as wowed as we were during our first visit — this time, the service was a bit more disorganized, and our waiter insisted on speaking English even though he couldn’t translate the menu as well as he thought he could. The waiters hovered much more.

Still, though, it was an above-average experience. Some things were brilliant: the pollo en alcaparrado oaxaqueño was probably the best chicken dish I’ve had since living in Mexico City, with tender meat covered in a luscious, tangy-sweet mix of capers, tomatillos, chiles and raisins. I also loved Crayton’s pollo al chilmole, a leg of chicken that’d been smothered in an ashy, carbony mole sauce.

I’ve since recommended Casa Mexico to two friends. One liked it, and the other said it was good, but the food was a little inconsistent. I still think the prices and the regional dishes make it a strong contender. There aren’t many places in this city that offer this kind of off-the-beaten-path Mexican food, in an imaginative yet unfussy way.

More info below if you’d like to check it out.

INFO

Where: Casa Mexico, Genova 70 between Londres and Liverpool in the Zona Rosa
What to order: Definitely get the itacates and pollo en alcaparrado oaxaqueño.
Prices: Appetizers start at 44 pesos; main plates range from 90 to 152 MXP. The wine list is also very reasonable, with several Mexican bottles in the 300/400 peso range.

MORE

Read the Washington Post’s take on Casa Mexico.
Download Casa Mexico’s menu in PDF here.

UPDATE: Casa Mexico has closed as of spring/summer 2010.