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36 Hours in Mexico City

by erika Leave a Comment

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Hello! Here is a very late recap of a quick trip that Dan and I took to Mexico City last year. 2017 seems to be the Year that Everyone Went to Mexico City, and it’s no wonder: vibrant culture, phenomenal food and breath-taking accommodations can be had for budget prices. Late last summer, Dan surprised me with tickets for my birthday! Tickets can be unbelievably cheap from Houston (round-trip for well under $100), and I’m tempted to go back for a longer stay soon.

Although we barely scratched the surface during our stay from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, we gathered a ton of recommendations from friends that I wanted to share because they helped make our trip amazing. If you go, I hope these help you with planning as well!

Mexico City 2017

Mexico City 2017 Mexico City 2017Mexico City 2017

 

 

 

 

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What we did (hint: it involves a lot of food):

Friday

  • Cafe El Popular: a 24/7 casual cafe with large portions of comfort food. We put our name in (it was crowded with locals at 9am!) and went down the street to check out the panaderia on the corner before returning to split the chilaquiles and guacamole.
  • Dulceria Celaya: huge array of traditional sweets and candy!
  • El Moro Churros: the Centro Historico is the site of the original El Moro, though it has expanded to other areas of the city. Their churros are just stunning: massive ropes of crispy fried dough that the churro chefs expertly snip into curved batons. Don’t miss the super-thick Spanish style hot chocolate with your churros. Pro tip: if you get an order to go (at least at the Centro Historico location), they’ll usually hand you an extra churro or two while you wait.
  • Mercado San Juan Gourment: a huge market with everything–vendors who will give you samples of fruits, and imported goods from Spain.
  • Museo Mural Diego Riviera: really cool murals from local artists, and a relatively small time commitment as museums go (it’s pretty small, but worth the admission fee).
  • Pujol: Named to the top 50 restaurants in the world, Pujol is perhaps the crown jewel in the Mexico City fine dining scene. You can choose between a variety of options for each of the six courses to make your meal vegetarian, pescatarian, or possibly vegan/gluten-free friendly. It’s still not cheap (our total was around $300 including several cocktails, tax and tip), but it’s a relative bargain when you consider some fine dining experiences of this caliber in other places). Complete with a surprise dessert course that ended in the candlelit garden, this was definitely a hugely memorable birthday dinner!

Saturday:

  • Lalo: recommended by multiple people, this place felt a little touristy (i.e. more English-speaking peeps and slightly more expensive) but was also so hipster and cute with the most amazing bread!
  • Parque Espana: huge, gorgeous park that we walked to after Lalo. There’s a cute dog park that is either adjacent or part of Parque Espana that is great for people/dog-watching!
  • Mercado Roma: we walked to this food hall after Parque Espana. We were too full to eat anything, but we bought some exotic truffles for later and printed out some instagram photos from a photo machine upstairs. I would have loved to return for lunch or a snack–there are tons of delicious vendors on offer, including an outpost of Churreria El Moro.
  • Contramar: although we still weren’t starving, we stopped by for our 1:30pm reservation (definitely make a reservation before you go if trying to eat around normal meal times), and I’m so glad we did–the Contramar fish, slathered in a duo of red and green salsas, was one of my favorite things we ate in Mexico City.
  • Palacio de Bellas Artes
  • Castle de Chapultepec: Enormous castle surrounded by a forest. Be prepared to walk (it took us about 20 minutes to ascend the hill that leads to the castle) and be rewarded with a great view of the city.
  • Fonda Fina: The food here was average for the most part, except for the squash blossom salad, which was PHENOMENAL.

Sunday:

  • Before we left for the airport, we took an amazing cooking class that Dan found through TripAdvisor! We made an absolute feast (most of the latter pictures are from the class): vegetarian mole with squash, homemade tortillas that we made into quesadillas with this addictive stretchy Oaxacan cheese and huitlacoche, sopes topped with refried beans and cheese, nopales, rajas con crema, a plum-like fruit compote, and sweet corn tamales (ground from fresh corn!). This was maybe my favorite thing we did in Mexio City–if you search pretty much any cooking class in Mexico City, I’m sure you’ll have a great time!

Other suggestions by friends, organized by neighborhood:

Polanco

  • Museo Soumaya (houses a Salvador Dali collection among many other works of art)
  • Lots of high-end shopping.
  • Pujol

Bosque de Chapultepec area (adjacent to La Condesa)

  • Casa Gilardi (make a reservation)
  • Luis Barragan House (make a reservation)

La Condesa:

  • Lardo

Roma Norte

  • Cucurucho (coffee)
  • Lalo (breakfast or pre dinner drinks)
  • Contramar
  • Fonda Fina
  • Panaderia Rosetta: get there early for the best selection
  • Cafe Virginia
  • Rosetta
  • Mercado Roma
  • Maximo Bistro
  • Por Siempre Vegana
  • Cafe Toscano
  • Licorera Limantour
  • Xaman
  • Poxeria
  • Gin Gin
  • Quentin and Memories de un Barista coffee shops

Coyoacan:

  • La Avellaneda: coffee
  • Kahlo/Rivera museum
  • Dolores Olmedo museum: It is her hacienda and houses her collection of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera paintings
  • Museo de Artes Populares on Independencia: fabulous folk art
  • And drinks at La Cerveceria by the Cibeles fountain in Roma. And the Mercado Roma for dining. And pozole at the original Casa de Toño on Liverpool. And coffee at Memorias de un Barista and at BUNA and at Quentín. Etc. Etc. Etc.
  • Arena Mexico for lucha libre on Friday nights

Centro Historico:

  • Four walking streets (reduced traffic or closed to traffic): 5 de Mayo, 16 de Septiembre, Tacuba, Madero. The billionaire, Carlos Slim, worked with the city to revitalize the downtown area
  • Cafe el Popular: casual spot for breakfast and lunch. Popular with locals
  • Casa de Azulejos Sanborns: pastries or desserts, great for before or after the Bellas Artes museum
  • Azul Historico
  • Cafe Tacuba
  • Restaurante El Cardenal
  • Dulceria Celaya
  • El Moro Churros
  • Mercado San Juan Gourment

Museums:

  • Museo del Estanquillo
  • Museo de Bellas Artes
  • Museo Templo Mayor: Aztec museum
  • Museo de Artes Populares on Independencia
  • Museo Franz Mayer on north side of the Alameda

And for a very detailed itinerary, here is a recommended list of things to do from my friend Jay!

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{HOUSTON GIVEAWAY} Hi friends! If you’ve been f {HOUSTON GIVEAWAY}

Hi friends! If you’ve been following me for a little bit, hopefully you know how obsessed I am with @happyearthcompost and their mission to make composting more accessible and easy for the Houston community! Here is just a sneak peek of all the eggshells and lemon peels from the lemon poppy seed muffin bake off that are going straight into my Happy Earth compost bucket instead of the trash 🎊

I’m thrilled to be partnering with @happyearthcompost to do a giveaway for one lucky winner! Here are the deets:

🌱 you will win 2 free months of monthly pick ups from @happyearthcompost! You’ll get a little counter top bin (pictured here) and a larger bucket to keep outside (in the second pic)
🌱 must be located in Houston or Bryan/College Station to win
🌱 to enter, just make sure you’re following me and @happyearthcompost and tag a friend in the comments! Each comment is a separate entry
🌱 giveaway will close this Saturday (1/16) at midnight! GOOD LUCK!!!
Thankful for another year of bake offs with you gu Thankful for another year of bake offs with you guys! Loving the appreciation for the coffee cake, blueberry muffin, pecan pie, gingerbread and Levain cookie bake offs (more Levain to come in 2021 hopefully!) 🎊💕

While on vacation, I’ve scraped a lot of recipes for future bake offs (thanks to your help) and I feel refreshed and ready to get back to baking ASAP! On the list for 2021 bake offs: carrot cake, oatmeal cookies, copycat lofthouse cookies, Levain chocolate pb cookies, shortbread, lemon poppyseed muffins, etc. Let me know if there’s anything else you’re dying to see in the comments!

THANK YOU for all of your support, your kind comments, your reviewing of different recipes and your spreading of joy through baked goods this past year. Thanks to my tasters for their critical tasting and hilarious comments. Can’t wait to do it all over again next year 💕
Gingerbread bake off is up! Commence all the ginge Gingerbread bake off is up! Commence all the gingerbread baking!! 🎄🎄🎄

Tap the pic to see all participating recipes and tell me which one looks the best or which recipes you’re most excited to try!! You really can’t go wrong with any of them 🎊🎊🎊 and if you’re planning on baking any other holiday cookies this weekend, gimme the deets on what you’re making! I need more inspo for my cookie boxes 🍪🍪🍪 #pancakeprincessbakeoff
According to Google, interest in apple cider dough According to Google, interest in apple cider doughnuts has waned by now but I’m not exaggerating when I say these doughnuts might be one of the best things I’ve made all year #sponsored

Pictured here are a few recipes I tried to satisfy a craving: @smittenkitchen, @tasty, and a few of @sallysbakeblog’s baked apple cider doughnuts as mini muffins. Sally’s were good but clearly in a different league than the fried doughnuts. I liked the denseness, tang and substantial exterior crunch of @tasty’s doughnuts that came from the sour cream, but once I got the hang of frying @smittenkitchen’s doughnuts, they edged @tasty out as my winner—ethereally light, they just melt in your mouth. Plus, Smitten’s method for rolling out the doughnuts is MUCH MUCH easier. 

I used @whitelily flour in all recipes and loved the way the fine texture led to feather-light doughnuts! If you’re looking for an application for low-protein flour, I can’t recommend these doughnuts enough. They’re worth getting over your fear of deep frying for 😜 #whitelilyflour
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