Mexico City, gone 36 hours but now back for 48

We moved hotels because like Los Angeles, the city is sprawling and we found ourselves on the other side of town more than the side where our hotel is.  Although our hotel was fabulous (Las Alcobas) and there is nothing like it on the Condessa/Rosa side of town, we made the switch.  Thinking I might have preferred to deal with the traffic.

After the switch we headed downtown for breakfast.  Downtown is your typical gritty business area.  We went to El Cardenal.  Seriously old school vibe with no doubt the majority of business people having breakfast or lunch there.  I took this photo of the kitchen on the way upstairs for our meal.

This roll is called concha.  So good.  Soft and sugary.

We both ordered Hacienda de Puebla.  Sunny side up eggs with a tomato sauce, cheese, cilantro and chilis over a crispy tortilla that gets soft over time in the bowl.  This was fantastic.

As we left I noticed there was a serious line across the street for lunch.  If I wasn’t so full I would have jumped in and seen what everyone was eating.

Our next move was down the street to see the Diego Rivera murals but we stopped at San Felipe de Jesus, an old church that sits around the new buildings that have been erected in the area.

We got to Palacio de Bellas Artes which is an absolute must see.  There is theater here as well as art.  It is also an UNESCO site.  On the top floor there was huge Diego Riveras murals.  Also a few from Orozco’s and Tomayo’s too.  It is quite jaw dropping.  One of the main draws is the piece, El Hombre En El Cruce de Caminos, showing hard drinking white capitalists with the social workers, the red flag and Lenin.  This piece was originally commissioned for Rockefeller Center.  John Rockefeller was not pleased since he was in it as one of the white male capitalists and had the original painted over and destroyed.  Rivera remade the piece and it now hangs in this museum.

Museo de Arte Poplar was next.  I really liked this museum.  It is all about Mexican art from the pottery.

To the pinatas…I have always loved a good pinata.

To the clothes.

These are hanging paper mache sculptures.

A fully beaded Volkswagon.

We loved this map of Mexico showing all the arts in every section of the country.

The streets downtown are packed.  The crosswalk is super wide to get throngs of people across with ease.

We could not leave the neighborhood without making a stop at Churreria el Moro.  Went in for them churros and some chocolate dip.

We actually preferred the ones we had at Cafe Sabor y Roma de Coyoacan.

Back to the hotel to regroup and think about the evening ahead.  We went up stairs to the roof deck at Hotel Condessa DF where we are staying for one night and had a drink before heading out.

We walked to dinner which is one of the reasons we moved hotels.  Fonda Fina.  The food was quite good here.  This is the sister to Quintonil, the more down scale version and honestly more memorable.  This was one of the best things we had on the trip.  Dried noodles with chilaquiles.  Essentially dried noodles as the base and topped with chopped tortillas with cheese over the top.  Really delicious and different!

We walked back to the hotel after dinner.  There are definitely some blocks where we did not feel entirely comfortable.  Reminded us of the 1980’s in parts of NYC.  Very gritty and dark.  We returned to the roof to meet our kids for a drink before departing which was a nice treat.  We were all mesmerized by Trump’s sexual assault that was exploding on Twitter.

As a whole we loved Mexico City.  The best places for eating were the down and dirty spots.  We were not that wowed by the top restaurants.  Like NYC I’d rather to go the Spotted Pig then Jean Georges.  The best food was in the market although Nico’s and Fonda Fina were quite good our tostado at the market was perfect.  We will be back..