Dan Perlman's Blog, page 4

Mexico City VI

Last post on Mexico City and then back to our regular programming. The last day, not surprisingly, a major food day. Started off early at the Mercado de Medellín, which turns out to be my favorite of the three markets I made it to. Cleaner, brighter, more variety, things from not only all over Mexico rather than just nearby, but also from Central and South American countries. I found the dried chilies, chilhuacles, that I’d looked for to no avail in the other markets – and in negro, amaril...

Mexico City V

A short (relatively speaking) post today – needing a bit of a more relaxed day yesterday. Morning spent writing and then headed out closer to noon to meet up with friends Amy, of Nomadtopia, and Roberto who happen to be in Mexico City this week as well.

I know, I know, not more market pictures. But yes. A visit to the Mercado de Coyoacán in the southern part of the city, famed mostly for its food stands, the two most recommended of which seem to be Tostadas Coyoacán for, not surprisingly,...

Mexico City IV

Finally, I got around to making something with the ingredients I bought at the market. Crispy tortillas topped with a fresh fava bean puree, fried egg, and sauteed morel mushrooms and pinenuts with garlic and just a hint of ancho chili. Breakfast of champions?

Even larger shots of the Museo Soumaya don’t do it justice, and the word impressive doesn’t either. Awe inspiring? Jaw dropping? Really, really cool? Had to get in a little culture, you know? Private collection of the world’s weal...

Mexico City III

It was off for a day trip to Toluca, without traffic an hour west of here, however, that wasn’t the case, and it took a bit over two hours to get there. As the bus trudged along the skies darkened, it began to rain, it was clearly windy, and on arrival, I found that the temperature had dropped from around 60 to around 45, and me in a light sweater. I had about two hours until my lunch reservation, and had planned to spend it walking around, but at that point, grabbed a cab and had them take...

Mexico City II

Let’s get some of the obligatory touristy stuff out of the way with. I hopped a subway to the Zócalo, the central plaza. While the buildings are what I remember from 30 years ago, I have a recollection of the plaza being constantly full of people and activities. This time, not much of anything, other than a little women’s health fair being put on by the city government for International Women’s Day. If I was home, I could dig out my old photos for comparison, and will when I get back – it...

Mexico City I

Last morning in Guadalajara and have to fortify myself for the long, one hour or so flight ahead of me. Los Chilaquiles, Av. Lázaro Cárdenas #2729, came highly recommended for their, well, chilaquiles, the traditional dish of crisp tortillas sauteed in one of various sauces and accompanied by, more various things. It’s not, at all, the dish that shows up in Mexican restaurants in the States, at least the ones I’ve had it at, where it seems to be wan strips of tortilla floating about in soup...

Guadalajara VII

An easy, breezy, Sunday, and a pretty relaxed day, foodwise, on our end of things.

We’d read a bit about Santo Coyote, Lerdo de Tejada 2379 – it gets good writeups as a place to try good, if not great, versions of local fare. And it turns out that on the weekends, they offer a buffet brunch of mostly all local dishes. We decided to start our day there. It’s a huge place, two levels, there must be seating for a couple of hundred people in a dining room that wraps around a central garden. W...

Guadalajara VI

I have mixed feelings about how our Tequila Day went. We’d originally been planning on joining a small group tour with a guy who’s got a pretty good reputation out there for a much more in-depth and, for lack of a better term, artesanal tour than most of the bus and such groups. But as I noted in my last post, we got a great vibe from the folk at the tequila museum, and after we showed them what our tour involved, they said that they offered a similar tour, but that it would involve totally s...

Guadalajara V

The chef of Cortéz, Nico Mejía, where I’ve eaten twice, gave us some recommendations for places to eat. Two of them were for breakfast, Jeff’s favorite meal of the day. I normally don’t eat breakfast, just have coffee, but part of that’s because breakfasts in Buenos Aires, bluntly, suck, consisting of coffee and overly sweet pastries, or ham and cheese on vaguely sweet pastries, and I don’t have the will first thing in the morning to prepare my own. We headed off to P’al Real, Lope de Vega...

Guadalajara IV

My youngest brother Jeff arrived early in the morning, and once he got settled in, we headed out to breakfast, his favorite meal of the day. A classic spot in Guadalajara we were clued into is La Chata, Av. Corona 126 in the center of town. Two plates of fried eggs with avocado, cheese, and we got them “mixto”, half green sauce with braised pork and half red sauce with chicharrones. Even decent coffee. Yum!

We did some obligatory sightseeing in the center of town. Mostly we have been c...