Let's Give Them Something to Taco 'Bout
December 29, 2017 - January 5, 2018
Cream and Peebs have been living abroad for several years longer than we have, and every time we've made a plan to go and visit them something's come up and we've had to bail. When they told us that they were planning to move back to the States after this year, we realized it was now or never if we were going to visit them. Neither of us had been to Mexico before, and we were already coming to North America for Christmas, so we bought some Berlin -> Seattle -> Mexico City -> Berlin round trip tickets and finally made it south of the border to see our friends.
We're never too surprised at anything Endless Mike does anymore, so when he announced to us after we'd booked our trip that it was now his trip as well, we were like, "Yeah that sounds about right." He and Anna Bananaberg would arrive in Mexico a few days before us and leave a few days before we headed back to Europe, and all of us would be together over New Years. We rented an Airbnb not far from Cream and Peebs' place in the Condesa neighborhood so we wouldn't completely blow up their spot while all of us were in town together. It was exciting to have more friends onboard for our Mexican adventure.
Cream and Peebs have a 3-year-old named Emmett, which lightly affected the scope of grownup plans we could make, as the presence of any small child does. Emmett had recently embraced a new favorite word, "NO!" and he found a way to incorporate it into most conversations, including those in which he agreed. Having grown up entirely in Ecuador and Mexico with English-speaking parents, his language was a mix of Spanish, English, and toddler gibberish that was indecipherable to anyone but his parents. We hadn't seen Emmett since he was a little wiggle worm, but he started hugging and snugging on us within about two minutes of us showing up at his house.
We didn't really plan much out for our trip, as the best part of visiting friends who have been in a foreign city long enough is that they are happy to make an awesome itinerary for you. The one thing that was definitively on our list was to eat at Pujol, ranked number 20 in this year’s world’s 50 best restaurants list and the subject of a captivating episode of Chef's Table. We were luckily able to snag the last available 6-person table for the time we'd be in CDMX when we bought our plane tickets a few months before.
Each course of the menu let you choose from four options, so we were able to try most of the things they offered between the six of us. We all went in unflinchingly for the wine pairings, because when you're going to eat at a restaurant this nice, there's no sense in holding back. In addition to some excellent wine, the pairing also included mezcal to accompany the star of the show, Pujol's fabled mole. On the day we ate there, the "mole madre" had been cooking 1473 consecutive days, replenished with fresh ingredients regularly but showcasing the intensely flavorful, glacially slow-cooked, ever-evolving characteristics of the original batch. It was served on a plate with a spoon, with a dollop of new mole in the middle, and paired with tortillas pressed with large green leaves from the garden.
The food was exceptional and worth every bit of hype. And though expensive compared to regular meals, it was still half the cost of eating at Noma. We were surprised to see that in the surrounding neighborhood virtually every yard had signs posted in English and Spanish saying that eating at Pujol supported corruption. Cream and Peebs, who had eaten there before, had no idea what these signs were referencing. We looked into it further when we got back to their place and found out that basically the neighbors just don't like having such a bustling, world-renowned restaurant on their block, and don't have any evidence that Pujol does anything corrupt. Their signage doesn't appear to be hurting the restaurant's business.
Kirb's meal was slightly marred by severe leg pains, which caused him to get up and try and walk it off every 20 minutes or so. Not sure if it was the elevation (7382 feet, over 2000 feet higher than Denver) or dehydration, or something else entirely, Mazz helped Kirb stretch it out while Emmett crawled on him like a jungle gym when we got back to the apartment. Once Cream got to work putting Emmett to bed - which could be quite the process - Peebs led us to her favorite taco spot for dinner, El Tizoncito.
As excited as we were to eat the fancy fare at Pujol, we were almost equally excited by the opportunity to eat legit Mexican tacos that cost $1. We LOVE tacos, and unfortunately, they are probably the most difficult of our favorite foods to find a decent version of in Europe. El Tizoncito claims to be the originators of tacos al pastor, which takes its roots from slow-cooked, rotating Lebanese shawarma meat spits, of which we are very familiar. Essentially the Mexican version of our beloved Berlin food institution the döner kebab, it was a perfect place to start our taco adventure. Our lives in Berlin are a taco famine. In Mexico, we would feast on tacos every day, and be very stoked about each and every one.
Public transportation and cabs are very affordable in Mexico City. It only cost $5 or so to take a cab 20-30 minutes across town to get to the main bus terminal, and then $5 more per person for round trip bus tickets that took us over an hour outside the city to the pyramids of Teotihuacán. Built around 100 BC, Teotihuacán is one of the best-preserved Mesoamerican complexes still standing, and is the most visited archaeological site in Mexico. The grounds feature an imposing main pyramid called the Pyramid of the Sun, a less-imposing pyramid called the Pyramid of the Moon, and dozens of smaller structures that make up the Avenue of the Dead.
After making our way up to the top of the Pyramid of the Moon, Peebs, Endless Mike, and Anna Bananaberg decided they wanted to walk up to the top of the main pyramid as well, but after Kirb's shit leg episode the day before he wasn't interested in having any more shit legs for this trip. Mazz was also uninterested in Kirb getting any more shit legs, and wasn't in a big rush to get one herself. That thing was tall and had a lot of stairs. We let the 3-year-old lead us around the grounds instead.
All that sightseeing left us hankering for some tacos, and unsurprisingly there were several restaurants outside of the pyramid grounds willing to accommodate that. We got barbacoa plates, which had a bounty of flavorful meat cooked with spices in wax paper and served with rice and tortillas. After some confusion as to where the bus actually picked people up, we got onboard and napped lightly on the way back to the city. The bus route let us see firsthand just how massive and sprawling the city is, and gave us a quick glance from the freeway at some of the grittier areas that gringos like us probably wouldn't want to wander around in.
That night was New Year's Eve, and thankfully everyone was on the same page about not wanting or needing to go out to bars. We loaded up at the Superama with beer and good tequila and then made our way to the roof, where we found the neighbors had already set up a party of their own. They had a PA speaker with an AUX cable, and neighbor Chucho was using his phone to DJ a bounty of electro jams that we had never heard. Kirb immediately began investigating the most dance-worthy songs he had with him, and once the Chucho's phone started ringing and the music stopped, Kirb was ready to fill the silence with some bangers. He and Chucho would trade off song selecting for the rest of the evening, pumping the roof with party jams that kept everyone dancing well into the early morning. We had no idea at the time, but Chucho apparently plays keyboards in a very famous Mexican band called Zoé that has won Latin Grammys. He was happy to share his aux cable.
Eventually Bananaberg passed out on the couch and there were no available cabs due to it being New Years, so we hesitantly walked back to the Airbnb by ourselves at 3 am. Any fears we had turned out to be for naught, as we didn't even see another person on the streets the whole way home.
Virtually everything was closed on New Years Day except for the Superama, so Cream went to get groceries for a brunch feast and we met back up at the apartment in the early afternoon when we could finally get our bodies moving. It was a slow, hungover day filled with breakfast tacos, San Pellegrino, and a hilarious game of Quiplash.
By the time the sun was setting, we figured we should probably get out of the house and take Emmett to the park for some active playtime. He had a pretty epic toddler meltdown on the way to Parque México, but everything was right with the world when he finally got to the play area full of other kids. The adults used this time to entertain themselves with the public exercise equipment. Just look at how entertained hungover Kirb looks!
There were few restaurants open for dinner, so when we stumbled across a place called Señor Taco we figured it was probably as good as anything else we were going to find. Though the al pastor was nowhere near as good as what we'd had already, the slow-roasted pork cochinita pibil was very flavorful. Mazz thought it was too salty. Even a flawed taco in CDMX is better than 99% of the tacos we get in Berlin.
Though we'd been relying solely on inexpensive cabs to get around to this point, Mexico City has an excellent subway system, so we decided to take it downtown for our first foray into city sightseeing. The subway only costs 25 cents to ride and can take you virtually anywhere in the city. We started with the Metropolitan Cathedral, which was large and imposing from the outside but a bit underwhelming on the inside compared to the opulence we've experienced in places like Spain. Peebs pointed out that if a devout Mexican catholic had experienced leg pains like Kirb had a few days before, they could buy a little leg medallion at the church and pin it to a picture of the Virgin Mary to give the ailment a blessing.
We stumbled across a street full of food vendors and stopped for lunch, excited by all of the options. We chose some fried quesadillas filled with meat and cheese and a grilled sandwich called a pambazo, but the stars of the show were the massive, sloppy steak tacos made with cactus and grilled Oaxacan cheese that cost $1.50 for a pair. When Kirb was hesitant to eat the lettuce in the pambazo for fear of getting sick, Cream boasted that he already had parasites from eating the food and personally had nothing to fear. He then ate a fried thing with a bunch of lettuce on it from a different stall than the one we chose.
One of Cream and Peebs' favorite places to bring visitors was the building of the Secretary of Education, a three-story complex filled with murals painted by Diego Rivera depicting the history of the working class of Mexico. It's essentially a museum's-worth of gorgeous artwork, but free to enter and virtually devoid of tourists. Strolling through the grounds absorbing the massive murals was an excellent way to spend the afternoon. Outside the building we came across throngs of people being entertained by dancers in traditional Aztec garb, and got a look at the ruins of Templo Mayor - the remains of the original Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan that became current-day Mexico City.
Endless Mike and Anna Bananaberg said their farewells and made their way to the airport, and we continued on the subway to the Artisan Market, a huge collection of arts and crafts booths selling vibrantly-colored clothing, accessories, tapestries, jewelry, leatherwork, art, and more. We strolled through the market for hours until we could finally make decisions on what we liked best, then loaded up on souvenirs. There were so many amazing things for sale it was tough to narrow it down to only a few choices.
Mexico City had been described to us before we came as "constantly under construction," and this turned out to be very true. Every few blocks in Cream and Peeb's neighborhood there were streets completely torn up with exposed pipes sticking out of dirt pits. After we arrived, we learned to be mindful of "Death Holes"; if you weren't paying attention while you walked you could easily fall into a section of missing concrete and mess yourself up pretty bad.
That night, the water went out at the apartment. With the Bananabergs now out of the picture, we'd moved out of our Airbnb and into Emmett's room. Peebs did some investigating and found out that none of her friends in the area had water either. To flush the toilet, it had to be filled each time by hand with a giant jug of water. It was the perfect time for Cream to become violently ill from the street food he ate earlier and be up all night having diarrhea.
Cream was still quite sick in the morning, so Peebs stayed home to take care of him and we ventured off into the world to entertain ourselves. The activity that came most highly recommended by our friends was visiting the National Museum of Anthropology, so we made that the day's activity. The massive museum covers the entire timeline of indigenous peoples throughout the area from pre-history to present day, with a staggering amount of sculptures and artifacts dating back hundreds to thousands of years. At the center of the interior courtyard is a huge pillar surrounded by cascading water that acts as the single support for a roof the size of a basketball court. We spent hours milling through the exhibits until our eyes couldn't handle any more, and it still felt like there were hours and hours of things we didn't get a chance to see.
The museum is located in Chapultepec Park, the largest city park Latin America. Outside the museum stood a long line of food carts, and it was definitely time for a snack. We got a tlayuda, which is basically a big blue corn tortilla chip covered in bean spread, cactus, cilantro, cheese, and salsa, as well as elote, which is gilled corn slathered in mayo, cotija cheese, and chili powder. Just on the other side of the stalls was a performance called Danza de los Voladores, or "Dance of the Flyers." Four "birdmen" in traditional garb climb up a massive pole and attach ropes to their bodies, then fall from the top and spiral around the pole as the one of them plays a tune on a combination flute and drum. As far as free performances in a park go, it's about as entertaining as you can get.
The water was still out, but some buildings were being serviced by giant water trucks that could restore running water for a few hours or so, long enough to get some showers in and do the dishes. Our building was lucky enough to get refilled by a water truck because there was a café on the ground floor, and they needed water to stay open. Peebs heard a rumor that the water being shut off was a conspiracy to drum up business for the water trucks, but she didn't buy it. The "real" reason was that main water lines were being replaced, which, based on how many streets we saw ripped apart with water lines exposed, seemed to check out.
Peebs suggested we walk to a nearby neighborhood and check out a public market called Mercado Roma, which was very European in its open layout and wide variety of food stalls. We stopped for some beers but didn't find anything particularly exciting to eat, so we read up on the Internet's favorite tacos in the vicinity and made our way to La Cerveceria de Barrio. This place only served seafood tacos, and as we hadn't eaten any of those yet in CDMX, we excitedly ordered squid in ink, marlin, and shrimp tacos with a round of Negra Modelos. They had nearly a dozen hot sauces to choose from, and the shrimp tacos in particular were incredible. Cream, who had spent the entire day sleeping and pooping, had saltine crackers and water for dinner.
The next morning Peebs picked up a batch of fresh tamales for breakfast. We'd never eaten tamales for breakfast before, but we were very, very into it. She got a variety of flavors in two different styles – a fluffier, drier type served in corn husks, and a denser, moister type served in banana leaves. The green chile and chicken banana leaf tamales were the best.
One of the most interesting and surprising things we learned at the Museum of Anthropology was that when the Aztecs built what is now Mexico City, the whole thing was essentially situated on and surrounded by a massive lake. Peebs' favorite thing to do in CDMX is to go to an area on the outskirts of town called Xochimilco, which is the last remaining area that is still reminiscent of how the original city was built. Here you can rent boats called trajineras to guide you through the system of canals for hours at a time. Lots of people rent the boats to have parties; we passed by trajineras with huge spreads of food and two dozen people who would cheer and wave as we rode by. On the weekends when it's busier, boats filled with mariachi bands will serenade you as they pass.
Our destination for this boat trip was la Isla de las Muñecas, or "the Island of the Dolls." This creepy plot of land is completely covered with decaying dolls, some of which have been hanging from the trees since the 1950s. We were given a primer on the island by the original owner's nephew, with Peebs translating the story for us. Legend has it (as far as we could decipher) that his uncle found a doll in the canal one day when he was off on an errand, and when he returned to his land the trees were filled with dolls. It is believed the dolls ward off evil spirits, and protect the spirit of a young girl who drowned in the canal nearby. Over the decades, people have brought more and more dolls to fill the trees, and it's become a destination for people who like looking at creepy shit. Like us.
For our last meal out in Mexico, we returned to El Tizoncito for a final round of delicious al pastor tacos. Afterwards, Peebs took us to a mezcaleria to taste a variety of mezcal variations, including "mezcal de pechuga" which is made by hanging a raw chicken above the rising distillation vapors, cooking the chicken and infusing the mezcal with its essence. Of the three distinctly different types of mezcal we sampled, the chicken version was the smoothest and most flavorful. She also ordered us a bowl of fried grasshoppers as a snack. We munched on them curiously and found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that they mostly tasted like crunchy grass clippings.
Peebs was kind enough to return to the tamale man the next morning and get us another round of those green chile and chicken tamales for breakfast before we headed off to the airport. Cream was finally up and out of bed, but he'd inform us later that the diarrhea lasted for 8 days. At this point we all thought he had the flu, but the fact that no one else ever got sick after a week sharing everything seemed to put the blame on poison lettuce instead of a nasty bug. We dreaded the thought of being struck with the same bad butt on our international flight. Mazz gave Kirb a stomach flu once right before he had a 14 hour flight and it was THE WORST.
The trip home was a daunting one, taking 24 hours from door to door through CDMX Airport, Dallas Fort Worth, London Heathrow, and Berlin Tegel. Though it was free of gastrointestinal distress (thank god), it was still thoroughly shitty. The process of getting into the country in Dallas was so hectic, overcrowded, and unorganized that we vowed to pay significantly more in the future to avoid ever coming through there again. Finally home, we adorned our kitchen table with the brightly-colored runner we had bought, basked in the fiery hot sauces we'd brought home in our checked bags, and sighed with a hint of despondence, wondering how many months it would be until we got to eat a proper taco again.