Estaba en Mexico.
(Please excuse any issues with posting, I’m making some changes to the blog and I don’t really know what I’m doing lol)
Until recently, for every five years of service, you’d get a one-month sabbatical with which to do as you please. They changed that to once on your eighth year and no more after that, but thankfully I made the cutoff to qualify for your second one.
As an aside, it is wild to me that I’ve been here for 10 years. 10 years!
Since I am trying to learn Spanish, visit at least one new country once a year (though I’ve already done this by going to Korea a month or so ago), and spend my birthday not at work, I decided to spend three weeks in Mexico — two in Mexico City and one in Oaxaca. Check, check, check.
My sabbatical did get off to a weird start, when USCIS told me I had to go in for fingerprints on April 8, but my trip started on April 5, and now seems not the time to be asking the government for delays or favors, so I made the executive decision to fly back from CDMX to SFO the evening of the 7th and fly back out the afternoon of the 8th.
Anyway, that all worked out, so please enjoy some disconnected photos below. I loved Mexico! It reminded me a lot of home (mostly because of the pork and the Catholicism lol). I’d love to go back and explore even more parts of it, but I’d also happily go back to either CDMX or Oaxaca.
Monumento a la Independencia on Reforma
Central Library of UNAM
The view from Chapultepec Castle
Inside the Metropolitan Cathedral
Yours truly at the Palacio Postal
Lucha Libre fuckin rips and I’m so glad I went, though I don’t think my Spanish tutor appreciated all the vocabulary I learned from the audience.
Mistico about to lay the smackdown on Volador Jr
I could have spent days at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, but I only had one day:
Piedra del Sol/ Aztec Sun Calendar
Xōchipilli, god of … a lot of stuff (beauty, youth, love, passion, sex, sexuality, homosexuality, fertility, arts, song, music, dance, painting, writing, games, playfulness, nature, vegetation and flowers)
Xochimilco has a lot of canals, the last remnants of a complex Aztec transport waterway, but now it’s mostly like, party boat central, so of course we went at like 9am and it was very peaceful. Then about half an hour in there were mariachi boats and beer boats and quesadilla boats that would row up to your boat and deliver whatever you wanted.
Boats parked
Food!
Listen I ate so much good food and so many goddamn tacos but here are some highlights.
Left to right, top to bottom: al pastor street tacos; the mixed plate, a Tijuanita, and just straight bone marrow all from Tacos del Valle; a chile relleno taco and a soft shell crab taco from the Taco Omakase at Pujol (I’m gonna be honest with you … not worth it. Though maybe I’m just burned out on fine dining now?); and a mixed plate from Tacos El Betin — turns out I love fried tripe tacos. Who knew?
Some advice: if the line at Tacos del Valle is too long, go to Cariñito instead. It’s not that far away, their tacos are like Asian/Mexican fusion, and are very very good. So caramelized and so flavorful. Not authentic at all.
In Week 2 we went on another taco tour, and it was also very good, but I didn’t get a lot of photos. I did bookmark every spot, and if you ever need taco recommendations in CDMX, I have a whole list to share with you.
I know I just said I was maybe burned out on fine dining but I actually enjoyed my meal at Quintonil. The service was good, the food was fantastic, and I sat next to a lady from Walnut Creek who’s now a professor in Wisconsin. But it was also by far the most expensive meal of this trip so like, it better have been, you know?
I don’t remember most of what this was, but there is a delicious mole here somewhere that came with the best duck I’ve had in a while, and I got a bonus dessert because it was my birthday. I may have told every restaurant I went to that it was my birthday and I had so many free desserts.
Quintonil collage!
But my favorite meal in CDMX might be at Masala y Maiz. (There’s a Chef’s Table episode about it which you should watch if you haven’t already.) It’s Indian-ish/ Mexican fusion with really great use of spice and techniques.
I am still dreaming about this grilled shrimp; even just sucking on these shells was so good, it was so limey and smokey, and you dip it in this vanilla ghee which at first sounds insane but actually the warmth of the vanilla works well with the spiciness of the shrimp.
Shramps
Look at this teeny weeny chicken (sorry for the shitty picture it was dark in there)
Perfect serving size for one person
CDMX is also chock full of great pastry shops but I especially enjoyed Panaderia Gala, which is like a bakery speakeasy? You have to get buzzed in and you walk in right where they’re baking stuff and the tables are right in the middle of the action and the pastries are all really good (especially the guava croissants).
I mean look at this goddamn sandwich. Melts in the mouth
In summation: CDMX rules.
Oaxaca needs its own post and I will make sure to get it up before I have to go back to work on Monday.