Mexico City: A Taco Chronicle

Leaf taco, fungus-infected corn, and the In-N-Out version of Mexico City layered in with many AirBnB Experiences!

I had heard so much about the culture and food scene of Mexico City before making this trip, and it had been on my priority list for a while now. I bought the flight tickets in June and forgot about it until two weeks before the trip. Slightly panicked, I decided that my plan was to pack the schedule with AirBnB Experiences tours. And they all turned out to be way better than expectations.

Arriving on Wednesday night, I could not wait to start my taco adventure. It was already 10pm at night. I wandered around my neighborhood, La Condesa, searching for anything that looked remotely legit to satisfy my eagerness and hunger. I settled for a taco shop with an al pastor grill (indicating legitimacy for me), tried to use my 9-month-old Spanish, and got myself a couple of tacos. I was so curious about the menu that I looked up all the names on the menu. I even took up the courage and asked el camarero the name of the salsas.

The next day, I ran from my market tour to Contramar just in time to meet Jeri. I had no idea how Jeri found two seats at this Netflix-featured restaurant with just a 12-hour notice. She said she came 20 minutes early. My fellow travelers said they made reservations at least one month in advance. Jeri worked in politics. So let me just romanticize that she was kinda a big deal around here.

I met Jeri in March 2022, when she and others came to my apartment for World Dinner. I loved building connections at my dinner table and meeting them around the world after that. I got a sneak peak into the life of a La Chilanga (that's what Mexico City people were called). Terrible traffic, long working hours, underpaid, and not enough time for themselves. She said she would start looking at other opportunities after the New Year.

How was the food? The fish tacos were good, and the raw tuna tostadas were great.

The only thing on the agenda for the rest of the night was more eating, with a new friend this time. Beth connected me with her friend, Jung-Ah, and we were going to meet at Molino of El Pujol, which literally meant "the mills" of a famous restaurant called El Pujol. Good food, and decent conversation. The menu was quite light. The mole taco was good, and the highlight was the taco de aguacate made with blue corn tortilla perfectly laminated with hoja santa, with simply avocado and some type of sauce in it.

It was 8pm. I was not ready to call it a night. An Instagram DM suggested Taqueria Orinoco. Some called it the In-N-Out of Mexico City in the best possible way, and I knew why right away when I got there. There were only two colors in the restaurant, red and white. White porcelain walls, red chairs, white floor, red words. The menu was very simple - three types of meats, cheese or no cheese. After waiting in line for 20 minutes or so, I went up to the counter and used my broken Spanish to order two tacos and an aqua fresca. The only right place for me to sit was right by the kitchen, watching the choreography of tortilla making, el pastor grilling, and the taco assembling process. For some reason, it just juiced up my appetite a little more. How were the tacos? Top notch.

I also signed up for a bike and taco tour for the next day. I made friends with these two mid-forties ladies from Louisiana and an Asian family from the Bay Area. This city was surprisingly bike-friendly, or we just thought that we could bike in any way and on any road without getting hurt. The first stop was a street taco stall called Birria Los Gueros De Juanacatlan, focusing on the birria-style taco. For those uninitiated, birria means broth on the side of a taco. It was exactly how I liked it - sitting in front of a big pot of meats off the street together with many others that looked like locals. Decent tacos.

The next stop was Molino El Pujol (described above). And, by coincidence or "engineered serendipity" by the tour guide, we ran into the basket taco (tacos de canastas) guy featured on Netflix. Chicken, beans or potato, 7 peso (30 cents) each. They tasted pretty good for what they cost.

The tour went up a notch and took us to El Parian, a curated alley shopping mall with the higher-end dining experience. We got a fish taco and a margarita from a taco bar called Polpo, which only has one type of taco at any given time. Good ambiance, good taco, good drinks - a good date spot.

The last stop was Carinito, an Asian-fusion taco joint with a residence dog guarding it upfront. Perhaps it was because I was pretty full already, the tacos were not particularly memorable. With that being said, I still had four tacos downed with a couple bottles of Corona. Would I go out of my way to come back? Probably not.

I knew the evening time could be lonely so I paid for companies for an evening. Not that. I signed up for a guided bar crawl, which turned out to be a decent idea. The company was so-so, but it got me into several rather exclusive speakeasies. The most memorable one was Xaman, a shaman-theme speakeasy with deep house music. I also met an interesting couple - Hailey and her German boyfriend. Hailey was in her late 20s, freshly graduated from law school. Her boyfriend was in his 40s, divorced with two kids. They traveled and went to music festivals together all the time. A pretty unique relationship I would say.

I committed my entire Saturday to a Teotihuacan tour with "a lunch at the Grandma's house", so it better be good. The tour was run by two brothers, both of whom were very knowledgeable about the site. It was a well-planned and well-rehearsed tour, including the jokes. Teotihuacan was an impressive site. But if you ask me what I learned and how did it change my life, the answer was probably close to nothing. It did show the depth of American history, and that was about it.

The grandma piece of the tour was pretty well done too. We stopped by the "Granma's house" before the tour of Teotihuacan to get some cafe de olla (pot coffee) and came back for lunch. Upon our return, we were welcomed by live marimba in the courtyard playing both traditional and pop songs. They served us a hearty plate of enchiladas with mole (green and brown). I was probably too hungry to pass good judgment on it, to be honest. We then spent the rest of the time talking about pulque, a traditional alcoholic drink made from agave (think tequila). The brothers said that they were one of ten families in the area that made pulque, and the European almost killed this used-to-be popular drink through a smear campaign. Now the brothers were trying to revive it. We tasted five variations of pulque. It was a half commercial half educational session. It was fine, I did not mind it.

Through this Teotihuacan trip I also met a queer friend. Unintentionally we ended up getting churro and coffee at El Moro after the trip. A queer from Michigan working in the entertainment industry (video editing), this was the first time he stepped out of the country. He went by Dominic or DomDom. I never had any queer friend, so hanging out with him for an afternoon was a new experience for me. He was a vegetarian and did not like to drink. He talked about the difficulty of finding his community because he did not like going to bars. We said we would stay in touch, but we probably would not.

The night was saved for a Lucha Libre tour. I was pleasantly surprised by Mercado San Camilito, which was basically a food court. It reminded me of the food court in Malaysia. I ate more tacos and met more friends. The guide gave us the basics of Lucha Libre and taught us a few phrases to shout at the wrestlers, like "kiss him", "sit on my face", "make a baby with me", and several others that involved someone's mom. We even had a facemask as a souvenir. The show itself was like a WWF - well-rehearsed stuns, obvious bad guys, and a dramatic ending. Our tour guide went out of his way to shout every possible insult at the wrestlers, cracking up a lot of the audience, except us tourists that did not know much about what he was shouting. 5 stars for his effort.

I was not ready to end the night and my trip was just like that. I went back to the square near the Mercado San Camilito for some sort of mariachi festival. I had no idea what it was. But there were a lot of mariachi bands wandering around and playing songs in the square. Singing, dancing, and laughing. I tried very hard to fit in but I knew I didn't. It was quite alright. I texted the girl I met yesterday to come over, but she did not. It was quite alright too. I went through all the street food joints and had more tacos.