restaurants

Greetings from Tulum

December 16, 2012 by Lesley Tellez

We’re here through Monday night. So far my favorite place to eat has been Hechizo, a quiet restaurant at the end of the beach road. (Thank you Liz for the recommendation.) The chefs, husband-and-wife team Stefan Schober and Hui Thai Low, source their ingredients daily, so the menu depends on what they find and like. I haven’t had a meal where I’ve sent back nary a crumb in I’m not sure how long.

If you are in Tulum, GO THERE. More of a full report to come sometime later, when I’ve gotten through my backlog of blog posts, and I’m back in the swing of things in DF.

Hope you’re enjoying the holiday season!

Mexican food the old-fashioned way at El Bajío

June 1, 2010 by Lesley Tellez

Chef Carmen “Titita” Ramirez walks a straight, firm line when it comes to Mexican food traditions. She scoffs at chefs who think carnitas can be made with Coca-Cola and milk. Or any chef (even if he is American and famous) who promotes such a thing as “Mexican chimichurri.”

Mexican food has a base and that base should be followed, says the chef, who runs the El Bajío restaurants in Mexico City.

“This idea of fusion, it’s confusion,” Ramirez said in Spanish, while hosting a four-course meal at her restaurant’s Polanco location. “Yes, I’m a purist. Yes.”

Ramirez learned her recipes from her mother and her nanny, while growing up in a small town in Veracruz state. I was lucky enough to try some of the food last Sunday, as part of the Ruta Aromas y Sabores tour. The tour runs through June 10 and is specifically for food writers, chefs and photographers from all over the world. It’s sponsored by various arms of the Mexican government, and organized by Izote chef Patricia Quintana.

The idea here is to show off Mexico’s culinary history and culture, and its wide variety of regional dishes and flavors. The tour started in Mexico City on May 29; today it moves onto the state of Mexico, and then Guanajuato and Michoacán.

I was originally scheduled to attend the whole thing, but unfortunately I had to cancel. My health hasn’t been top-notch lately and I’m dealing with our recent move. But it was really neat to attend even one event. At El Bajío, our group of about 10 included writers and photographers from Mexico, Spain and Germany. Titita sat with us the whole time and answered any questions we had.

I’d eaten at El Bajío once before and thought the food was okay. Guess I ordered the wrong thing back then, because this meal was among the best I’ve had in Mexico. Everything tasted like it had been prepared carefully and lovingly, from the homemade corn tortillas in the basket (Maseca has been the downfall of tortillas, Titita says) to the sweet potato pudding with pineapple, to the agua de guayaba speckled with bits of pulp. I really wished I could follow Titita for a day, watching her prepare some of these things that she’s so passionate about.

Some photos of the meal…

…

Where to eat in Mexico City: Charro

May 4, 2010 by Lesley Tellez

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.
…

Mexican chef Martha Ortiz to open two new restaurants in DF

March 18, 2010 by Lesley Tellez

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

March 8, 2010 by Lesley Tellez

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.

Eating my way through Monterrey

October 21, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Even though we were only in Monterrey for two full days — and we were sleep deprived pretty much the whole weekend, having woke up on Saturday at 4 a.m. to catch our flight, and then lying awake most of that night due to a rock concert outside our door — we managed to get a pretty good feel for regio cuisine. (A regio is the Spanish name for someone from Monterrey.)

I felt like I was in Texas a lot of the time. Tortilla baskets came with flour, not corn, tortillas. Waiters served chips and salsa as soon as we sat down, most places. The salsa reminded me of what you’d get at Mexican restaurants in San Antonio — something mouth-puckeringly tangy and watery. Some places served it warm.

We tried cabrito, or roasted goat, because that’s the regional specialty. El Rey de Cabrito — heralded by guidebooks as the city’s best — was a short walk from our hotel. A row of skewered, roasted animals sat in the window, in case you might have forgotten what you’d be eating.

The goat breast we got looked great, covered in a crackly brown skin, but it was a little too chewy and tough. I expected more for $200 pesos. (About $15 USD.)

My favorite spot ended up being Fonda San Francisco, a tiny, casual spot in the suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia.

Our cabbie got lost on the way there, but it didn’t matter in the end because we were the only customers, despite it being Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. (Everyone arrived after 9, fueling my lingering confusion about when, exactly, Mexicans eat dinner.) The menu had been painted on a chalkboard, and it included things like pork in plum-guajillo chile sauce, salmon gorditas, and sesame-seed enchiladas.

I wanted all of it. Unfortunately — damn you, stomach, for getting full on chips and guac at the Barra Antigua — I wasn’t extremely hungry. So we ordered three plates, in half-portions: fried goat cheese with strips of nopal; enchiladas in peanut sauce, and the pork in the plum-guajillo sauce.

I’m not the hugest nopal fan, but the goat cheese, which had been seared to deep-golden brown and doused in some type of honey vinaigrette, went perfectly with the tangy strips of cactus. We gobbled them up, and then sopped up the sauce with the restaurant’s thick, homemade corn tortillas.

It was the pork, though, that left me a little breathless. It was covered in a thick, deep-purple compote, and it fell apart as I scooped it onto my plate. I took a bite and felt my eyes light up, catch fire. I closed my eyes and desperately tried to record what I was tasting. Sweet… smoky… jammy…. what was this? I took a picture of my plate, but of course it came out horribly. And I didn’t want to keep taking pictures. This was the type of dish where you wanted to sit, eyes closed, and stay in the moment.

Crayton surprised me. He’d been eating his pork in silence, when he said: “I know this sounds weird, but this reminds me of smoking a cigar. But in a good way. You know? Doesn’t it have that smoky, tobacco taste?”

I nearly fell out of my chair. Wasn’t that supposed to be my line?

And then I felt a twinge of pride. I’ve trained him well.

IF YOU GO

Fonda San Francisco: An intimate fonda with a creative, traditionally Mexican-inspired menu.
Los Aldama 123, Col. San Pedro Garza García
(81) 8336-6706

Cafe Infinito: A dark, romantic spot in the Barrio Antiguo with great thin-crust pizza, and an affordable wine list.
Jardón 904 Ote., in the Barrio Antiguo
(81) 8989-5252

Barra Antigua: We hit this Barrio Antiguo sports bar for beers and bontanas. Highly recommend the chips and guac. (Unless you’re dining at Fonda San Francisco later, in which case, I would try to save room.)
Ave. Constitucion 1030 Ote., in the Barrio Antiguo
(81) 8345-4848

El Rey de Cabrito: Great norteño ambience, with its roasted meat in the window and kitschy decor. The food is pricey and somewhat mediocre, but if you’re dying for cabrito, it’ll do.
Avenida Constitucion 817, in the Barrio Antiguo
(81) 8345-3232

A five-course lunch in Condesa

October 16, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

My friend Hugh moved to New York this week, and we went out to lunch as a last hurrah. He found the place: The Colegio Superior de Gastronomía, a Condesa culinary school that offered a five-course meal for 250 pesos (about $19 USD). The price also included four drinks.

I’ve never eaten at a culinary school restaurant before, but I’ve been intrigued by the idea. Two culinary-school restaurants sit just a 10-minute cab ride from my house, and I’ve been reading a lot about another cooking school restaurant in the south, Alkimia, which is supposed to be one of the top restaurants in the city.

I hadn’t heard anything about this Condesa place, but you can’t beat five courses for $20. Hugh made reservations and arrived before me, so I met him in the open, airy dining room. A flat screen TV played a slideshow of the menu items, including beef wellington with fig compote (pictured above), and slices of duck stuffed with pistachios and spices.

A young waiter (who I think was sweating from nervousness, poor guy) arrived and took our order, announcing that day’s drink special as “green beer.” It was a mix of beer, curacao and lime juice.

Oh hell, why not. The drinks are included!

It was actually kinda good, if you ignored the color.

I was surprised not to see more traditional Mexican dishes on the menu. A lot of the menu items leaned toward molecular gastronomy, which I thought the restaurant world had moved on from — meat topped with airs and foams, deconstructed soups, a chemical-reaction take (picture an oozy puddle of chicken broth, surrounded by dollops of corn) on Mexico’s famous corn-in-the-cup.

I would have loved to see simple dishes, oomphed up with high-quality ingredients. But the “plain food, done well” movement hasn’t really hit here yet. People still really love foams and beef wellingtons.

I ended up ordering the sliced duck, fideos en adobo, tuna with risotto (my only dish that was truly bad; it’d been saturated with wine), and a chocolate tart with beer ice cream.

My favorite dish was the fideos, which were served with a big ol’ scallop that wasn’t mentioned on the menu. Good thing I’m not allergic to shellfish.

Overall: The food was average, but worth the price. I’d go back with a girlfriend or two, because it’s a different experience, and the menu makes you feel like you’re dining somewhere elegant. I don’t think I’d recommend it to visitors, though. Unless they were looking for a deal.

I plan to visit Alkimia in a few weeks — they have a Mexican wine dinner on the last Wednesday of each month, and Crayton and I are going for my birthday. Will let you know how that turns out!

Colegio Superior de Gastronomía
Av. Sonora no. 189
Col. Hipódromo Condesa
México D.F. 06100
To reserve a table: 55 84 38 00 Ext. 103
A five-course meal, including four drinks, is 250 pesos. It’s cash-only.

Korean food in Mexico City

October 8, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

As I’ve mentioned before, Mexico City’s Korean neighborhood sits just a few blocks from my house. A few weeks ago, we finally made it out to a restaurant there, courtesy of my friend Hugh.

He’d raved about this certain Korean restaurant in an email, saying he didn’t know the name, but it was at Oxford and Hamburgo in the Zona Rosa, “the spot next to the strip club, with the suits of armor out front.”

A big group of us agreed to meet there on a Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. We walked up and sure enough, there were two suits of armor. (Great landmark, Hugh!) The restaurant ended up being a narrow, two-story building next door, with a terrace overflowing with balloons. A back room on the first floor held one table just big enough for the 11 of us.

While we waited for the staff to clean it, a group of Korean kids, maybe nine or 10 years old, stared in awe at our friend John, who happens to be really tall. One kid walked up to John and jumped up and down, eager to see what life might look like in John’s orbit. It was adorable.

The Mexican waiter brought us thick menus, and I felt a little panicked. I’ve eaten Korean food a few times before, and loved it, but it’s kind of overwhelming to stare at five pages items, and you’re not entirely sure what they are. We all agreed to share everything family style, so I ordered soup with merluza (hake), egg and vegetables, and we got several orders of grill-and-your-table ribs and skirt steak, and bibimbap, more soups, and dumplings.

Just a few minutes after we ordered, the waiter brought out dozens of small dishes: kimchi, plates of what looked like glass noodles, a type of mayonnaise salad with apples, tempura shrimp….

We nibbled. And then the meat came out. We turned on tabletop grill, and designated Joy’s friend H. as grillmaster.

When the meat was done, H. showed us how to make these lettuce-wrap packets, by grabbing a lettuce leaf, slathering it with spicy red sauce, adding garlic, a piece of meat, and then a jalapeño. Of course I had to add two jalapeños, because I’m hard like that. Then my eyes started watering and I had to take a break.

The food was great, though. I loved the communal aspect of the meal — passing the small dishes, the lettuce leaves, holding up our plates to the grillmaster, and waiting for our little gift. And it was amazing how many flavors and textures were represented — anything from the mild mayonnaise salad with apples, to the starchy, eyewateringly-hot bibimbap, to the garlicky kimchi.

After we’d paid the bill — and by the way, Korean food is expensive for Mexico City — the owner came out and introduced himself, and shook all of our hands.

I think we rolled ourselves out the door, but it was worth it. I’d go back again in a second. (As long as I haven’t eaten much that day. This is a huge meal, people.)

GO THERE
The Unnamed Korean Restaurant*
(*unnamed to us; it does have a Korean sign, if you speak the language)
Located on Oxford Street, just north of Hamburgo, next to the black building with the suits of armor out front
Avg cost per person, including drinks: $30-$40 USD
Note: To drink, they offered Mexican beers and Korean soju, a distilled beverage typically made from rice. I haven’t seen soju yet here, so this was an interesting find.

A day trip to UNAM and Café Azul y Oro

June 17, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

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.
…

How to leave a tip in a Mexican restaurant

January 22, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Last night, our first night in town, we had dinner at El Bajio, a Veracruz-style Mexican place in the neighborhood. It was cute: Bright textiles on the walls, baskets, orange napkins. I had the ceviche verde, which was decent, and a yummy ensalada de nopales with strips of grilled panela. Crayton had enchiladas verdes. (When my salad arrived, Crayton eyed the white cheese warily. “What is that? Tofu?” I gave him a Look. “It’s CHEESE.”)

When it came time to pay the bill, the waiter asked us something about closing the account, or leaving it open. We said to close it. He looked confused. (And maybe a little offended.)

“Close it?” he asked again.

“Yes, yes,” I said. He didn’t move. He asked again if we wanted to leave it open.

Finally, Crayton said yes, okay, leave it open. The waiter whisked away the check and our credit card, and brought it back a few minutes later. We noticed nothing amiss: The receipt showed our final bill, and a space to leave a tip. Crayton wrote in the tip and I was ready to go. He suggested we stay and ask the waiter what “leave it open” meant.

I have this weird thing about not wanting to seem like a tourist, but these are the cultural things we need to understand. (Right?)

So we called the waiter back and I explained that we just moved here from the U.S., and what did this “leave it open” thing mean? The waiter very graciously said that it meant the customer would write in a tip on his/her own. And then he said some other stuff we didn’t understand. (About how some customers write the wrong amount on the check? Huh?)

Now we know, but still, kinda weird. Has anyone else in Mexico City ever experienced this?