Mexico City has a rich, layered history you can explore by studying an ancient colossal head sculpture in the city’s world-renowned anthropology museum, kayaking the canals built by Aztecs or admiring the political murals of artists like Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
But Mexico City is also a food lover’s paradise. On my honeymoon with my wife, Gia, we had consistently phenomenal meals (and cocktails) at restaurants like Lismoneros. Still, to get a genuine taste of the city — the food and the culture — you need to eat like a local. And to do that, you should go on the walking tours of Eat Like a Local.
Rocio Vazquez started Eat Like a Local a decade ago after traveling to Istanbul. She loathed the tours and tourist traps and was miserable till she went drinking with some residents. She returned home, created tours focused on Mexican street food, eventually quit her advertising job and gradually hired more guides and added itineraries. (All tours have a maximum of seven people.)
Gia Rosenblum shows off the food from the world’s only Michelin-starred taco stand. (Photo by Stuart Miller)Gia and I took two tours: the Street Food at Night Tour started in Condesa before going to the lesser known San Rafael and Santa Maria neighborhoods and included tastings of pulque and mezcal, two culturally significant native drinks; the Hidden Gems tour took us to San Rafael and the Tacuba Market, ending at a small tortilla factory. Both were fun, informative and filled with incredible food.
“This company is about getting people to see beyond both the stereotypes and the fancy neighborhoods of Mexico City,” said our Hidden Gems guide Carla Obregon. (She’d also stop on the street to show us things like the crumbling Art Deco masterpiece Cine Opera, explaining its role in San Rafael’s history.)
At the tortilla factory, our guide, Carla Obregon, explains the process of making those bags of dried corn into tortillas. (Photo by Gia Rosenblum)Our Night Tour guide, Fernanda Castro, started us at Tortas Al Fuego, a staple in the Condesa neighborhood for nearly 40 years. The restaurant slow cooks its pork for six hours then adds Oaxacan cheese, chilis, fried beans, onions and tomatoes to the flavor-packed tacos.
What amazed us was how many different tastes we found in the tacos (all soft shell) we sampled across these two tours. The taco al pastor at Tacos el Betin was inspired by Lebanese shawarma, albeit served with pork instead of lamb. The cinnamon and clove provide “a Middle Eastern memory,” Fernanda said, while the chili pepper and pineapple add local flavor. At El Paisa, the brisket is so juicy, owing some of its deliciousness to being cooked in lard. (This is not a tour for the weak of heart — Gia noted with alarm how often Fernanda used the word lard.)
Outside of El Betin, the meat awaits. Taco stands all over the city share this feature but look for one where the meat looks this juicy. (Photo by Stuart Miller)Our first on the Hidden Gems tour was a favorite: chilorio de sinaloa, pork in a red sauce from dried chiles, bay leaf and spices like cumin and a generous squeeze of lime. “A taco is not a taco without lime,” Carla said.
The writer thoroughly enjoying the flavors of Mexico City. (Photo by Gia Rosenblum)That taco was made from a handmade flour tortilla, a rarity in a city where corn tortillas dominate; 80 years ago, the restaurant’s original owner, a professional wrestler, reached back to his Monterrey roots to make tacos northern Mexico style; the family that took over the business continues the tradition. (Vazquez asked that I not name the Hidden Gems stops to protect these small businesses from being overrun by tourists.)
Crowds, mostly locals, gather at El Paisa on a street corner in the San Rafael neighborhood. (Photo by Stuart Miller)That tour also took us to the city’s only taco stand to earn a Michelin star. Carla explained that it thrives on simplicity, cooking the steak only in lime and salt. It was remarkably tender but Carla rightfully recommended the rib, which had even more flavor, enhanced by red salsa.
Watching the gorditas get made at this family-owned restaurant may make you want to buy some to go.(Photo by Stuart Miller)It wasn’t all tacos, of course. The former wrestler’s restaurant also makes magic out of gorditas, small pancakes to dip in fried beans and melted cheese. The gorditas are actually sweet enough that I couldn’t resist eating one (OK, two) plain.
These gorditas go great with the fried beans and cheese but they’re also fantastic plain. (Photo by Stuart Miller)In the Tacuba Market, Carla steered us to a fruit stand for a bag of jicama, papaya, pineapple, cantaloupe and watermelon jazzed up with salt, spices and Chamoy sauce, an Asian-influenced sauce that blends dried apricots and plums with chili peppers and hibiscus flowers. These markets are so packed we never would have discovered this on our own nor would we have known what to order.
In Tacuba Market, preparing a selection of fruit to be seasoned with salt, spices and Chamoy sauce. (Photo by Stuart Miller)At Tamale Cintli, where we loved the tamale mole con pollo, Fernanda introduced us to atole, a thick and fresh pre-Hispanic corn flour-based drink. At La Canica we also sampled pulque, a traditional pre-Hispanic alcoholic drink “and one of my favorite subjects,” Fernanda told us as she served it to us plain and flavored — with tangerine, red wine, strawberry, and, my favorite, pineapple. The liquor comes from sap extracted from the center of agave plants (which also yield tequila and mezcal).
Pulque, a traditional drink derived from the agave plant and served in many flavors, is making a comeback at places like La Canica. (Photo by Gia Rosenblum)We learned that the Spanish conquerors tried banning and then taxing pulque, while the dictator Porfirio Diaz sneered at it as a drink of the poor and beer companies slandered it as being fermented in cow dung. But it survived and now is making a comeback.
The only thing better than ending a food tour with a churro dipped in chocolate is having a second churro dipped in chocolate immediately after. (Photo by Gia Rosenblum)We also had a mezcal lesson and tasting later at Bello Cafe, but the drinks paled compared to our final stop, La Galeterie in Santa Maria. There we indulged in churros: dulce de leche for Gia and chocolate for me … and when Fernanda offered, I said yes to seconds. (She and Carla always offered extra drinks or tastes but you need to pace yourself; dessert, for me, is always an exception.)
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