First long weekend of the year begins with a trip to a warmer city! Mexico City has always been on my list on a list for a getaway and I was glad to be able to make this a girls’ work remote trip in 2024! Two of my girlfriends left on a Friday evening flight while I picked an afternoon flight (so I can take public transportation to the airport) and arrived in CDMX on a Saturday night. I made it through the airport and to our service apartment with minimal Spanish and the first order of business was to pig out.

Caldos de Gallina “Luis” is essentially a street food stand that serves the best chicken soup ever. This place was on all of our individual must do list and it did not disappoint. We ordered 3 chicken soups with chicken thighs and 4 enchiladas to take back to the apartment while we waited for our last friend to join us. I was starving after an afternoon of traveling and look how happy I am with the take out. The soup was amazing with the onions and spicy sauce and *The condiments they give you took up an entire bag and so does the bread*.

Breakfast and San Angel

The next morning we made impromptu plans to get breakfast at ENO in the Condesa neighborhood before our Alebrijes art class. My friend Tra’s cafe de olla - a spiced cold brew with cinnamon, cloves, star anise and dark sugar was the highlight for me but I liked all of our breakfast items especially the conchas.

After breakfast we headed to the San Angel neighborhood on an uber for our Alebrijes painting class. Our instructor Louise is French but has been living in Mexico for 4 years because she fell in love with the culture. She gaves us a history of Mexican handcraft traditions and introduced us to Alebrijes, a Mexican folk art of spirit animals. Alebrijes originated in the 1930s in Mexico City by an artist named Pedro Linares. He fell ill with a high fever one night and dreamt of mythical creatures and a voice repeating the word ‘Alebrije’, and he began creating these artwork. The ones we were painting were made of copal wood, often used in incense to purify the home. We each picked our spirit animal and got to work. Can you figure out which one below is mine?

We were so focused on the work that we didn’t finish till almost 2:30PM! After class we took Louise’s suggestion and went to Barbacoa San Angel, a barbecue spot in town for lunch. We ordered a variety of tacos and the pork rinds to share and it was one satisfying meal.

Since we were already in the area we decided to take a walk over to Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo, the studio and home of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. We walked about 20 mins only to find the main buildings - dual houses, one for each of the painter, closed for renovations and only a small portion in the back was open for the public. We ended up taking some photos outside and headed back to the main San Angel area for some handcraft shopping. The neighborhood is perfect for an afternoon stroll.

Handshake Speakeasy

One of only prep work I had to do for this trip was looking up restaurants and bars that we want to try and securing reservations. I knew food was great in CDMX but one thing that caught me by surprise was how difficult it was to get reservations! Given how popular Handshake Speakeasy is I did start looking about 3 weeks ahead of our trip and got us the only reservation available that whole week. If that means drinking at 6PM so be it.

I wish the whole experience of locating the speakeasy was there but as soon as we got off the uber, the line out the door gave it away. Since we reserved the downstairs seating there was still an element of figuring out where you’re headed (it’s not the same entrance as the main one and I won’t give it away). Coming in at number 3 of the World’s 50 Best Bars, Handshake definitely did not disappoint! We ended up getting 3 rounds of drinks and trying 14 out of 16 of their cocktails amongst the four of us, while snacking on 3 apps and chapulines (deep fried grasshoppers). My favorite cocktails were the fig martini, the salt and pepper, Once Upon in Oaxaca (the sparkles!), and the matcha one with the “snow” on top of the ice. The banana split with the lego chocolate was great as well.

Needless to say we all came out pretty tipsy after our rounds of drinks, and on our way back when we stopped to grab food and water I accidentally dropped a bottle of water at the convenient store and it BURST OPEN and spilled everywhere. How embarrassing…

Teotihuacan, CITY of the Gods

Morning call was at 4AM to make sure we pack our bags, put them in storage and checkout before we get pick up at 5:05AM from our service apartment for our sunrise hot air balloon ride over Teotihuacan, about 50 mins away from Mexico City. One of our friend was feeling under the weather and decided to stay back, but that wasn’t the only hiccup to our morning. The driver who was supposed to pick us up went to the wrong service apartment location (there are a few within CDMX) and had to leave us as there were other guests, so our airbnb experience host Geovany had to get us an uber to Teotihuacan (not us getting into an uber that someone else called at 5AM in the morning in a foreign city). At this point we were already 40 mins behind schedule but by some miracle…. we made it on time and caught up with the rest of the group at the take off site.

We got our obligatory photos taken. I complied to all the poses our guide asked us to do (this is a once in a lifetime opportunity so I don’t care how stupid this might look), and in we go the basket! We were arranged in groups and by weight, and there is no fancy way of getting in - there are no doors to the basket so you climb over the side of the basket using the foot holes. Once everyone is in, we go through the safety briefing and it was a very smooth take off.

I had imagined the hot air balloon ride to be at least a little bit turbulent but it was a smooth ascend and so soothing up in the air. We watched all the other balloons climb in altitude around us as we gradually made our way over the Teotihuacan Mesoamerican Pyramids. The photos I took look like what you would see in a video game - it almost look unreal. I am so glad I finally got to go on a hot air balloon ride after failing to do so in Myanmar and Turkey! It was our friend Tra’s birthday and what a nice way to celebrate the sunrise up in the air!

After being in the air for about 40 mins we prepared for our landing and landed in a big open space. The basket needs to land on a tractor and we watched the crew member pack up the giant hot air balloon into a cube maybe the size of a 4ft x 6ft cube. We shared a toast - a tradition after any hot air balloon flight - to celebrate the successful fight, and a van took us back to our took off spot.

A virtual reality video of the Teotihuacan Pyramids revealed that the city was once home to 200,000 people. In 2003, after a heavy rain storm, a tunnel was discovered by archeologists beneath the pyramids. They believe the tunnel was made to represent the underworld, with miniature mountainous landscapes and tiny pools of liquid mercury representing lakes. Since we saw the pyramids up close over the air already we decided to skip the walking tour on the pyramid grounds and headed back to Mexico City. We hit the morning traffic so didn’t get back until around 11, and we were joined by our friend before we head to lunch.

Lunch and Artisanal Market

Lunch was at Cafebrería El Péndulo, a cafe and bookstore. We ate in the outdoor area and went inside to browse the two-story, bright lit bookstore (instagram worthy but you can only take photos with your phone).

There wasn’t much to do on a Monday afternoon as most museums are closed on Mondays, so we took an uber and went handcraft shopping at Mercado de Artesanías La Ciudadela. We ended up spending a good part of the afternoon here browsing for souvenirs and even got coffee and cocktails at Ocelotl located inside the market. I had the Necupatli which is a cold drink with ginger, honey, lemon and Espadin blue mezcal and it was just refreshing. There is also a taco lady and of course we had to get an afternoon chicken and chicharrones taco snack.

Neighborhood Walk and Dinner

With our bags filled with gifts, we left the market and went on a walk in the non touristy part of Mexico City. We walked through the Juárez neighborhood through whole street of parts and repair shops, and then through Chinatown. This part of town feels so much more lively compared to the more touristy spots we’ve been seeing so far, so it was a really nice change.

The town square with the cathedral and the large Mexican flag marks the end of our walk in the middle of the historical district and we headed to Itacate del Mar for a light dinner. It turns out to be a sister restaurant to Contramar and Entramar, both seafood restaurants we weren’t able to get a reservation for on this trip so it was great we got a chance to give the sister restaurant a try! The food was great and I loved the seafood options. We also checked out the rooftop bar that’s part of the hotel in the same building (see the rooftop pics!) but weren’t really feeling the menu so we went for dessert instead.

El Moro opened in 1935 and have multiple locations around the city - it’s Mexico City’s oldest churro shop, and if you’re dying to try but are in New York, there’s this one that looks at least visually similar to the original.

Our friend Nike took a red eye flight back home and it’s now three of us for the rest of the trip!

Start of Remote Work and Lunch Break 🌮

This is a work remote trip after all so after the MLK long weekend it’s back to the grind in a lovely foreign city. The only bad part about working from anywhere is the timezones but it was only a 1 hour difference this time so it wasn’t too bad. The morning of meetings went smoothly and for lunch I took a slightly longer lunch break to stop by Taqueria “Orinoco”. They open at 1PM and a line started forming pretty quickly about 10 mins before opening. Between me and my friend we ordered five tacos, one with cheese, a campechana (big tacos with beef) and papas aplastadas (crushed potatoes - basically more carbs), and a guava and hibiscus juice. Since the weather was nice we grabbed a table outside and proceeded to pig out. The tacos were amazing and the chicharrones is the fried pork belly kind that we wanted. My favorite of the meal though was the Res and the pineapples added to the tacos 😘 I was also able to use my limited Spanish to figure out the spice levels of all the salsas and it solidified my desire to actually learn Spanish.

I took the leftovers home for our other friend stuck in meetings while my friend heads off to a museum, and had a few more hours of productive work before it was time to log off and meet back up with my friend.

Museo de Arte Moderno

Thanks to the time difference I had a few hours before our dinner plans and I decided to meet up with my friend at Museo de Arte Moderno for an afternoon at the museum. They have an outdoor sculpture garden, a Frida piece, an exhibit on Mexican architecture and a pop art exhibit that I really enjoyed.

Pujol

Our highlight of the night was our 7-course Mexican tasting menu at Pujol, sourced with local ingredients. Prices did indeed go up (thanks inflation) but I thoroughly enjoyed the meal! My favorites were the corn snakc and the black truffle tlayuda with sheep cheese. The 3305-day mole (I didn’t know you can keep mole for that long..) was excellent as well. We finished up our meal in the terrace and celebrated our friend Tra’s birthday with a dessert.

Fonda Margarita

Took the day off middle of the week so I can do some exploring around Mexico City and the first order of business was breakfast at Fonda Margarita. The place has been recommended by Anthony Bourdain and it’s very local - they start serving breakfast as early as 6:30AM and if you show up past 9:30AM chances are items on the menu would be sold out. We ordered the pork in green sauce, eggs in pasilla sauce, beans with eggs from the pot and pot coffee (it’s sweet!) and everything was *chef’s kiss*.

Museo Nacional de Antropología

Our morning activity to burn off the calories we ate was the anthropology museum. We only have about an hour and a half here before our lunch reservation so we had to pick out the specific exhibits we wanted to see with the limited time. We headed straight for the Mexica section which featured the Stone of the Sun (Piedra del Sol), a large sacrificial altar that features the god of fire (Xiuhtecuhtli), four suns and 20 day signs. The Maya section covers both indoor and outdoor and that section on its own can probably take a good 1-2 hours. The museum space itself is also beautiful with a waterfall in the middle.

Lunch at Maximo

I wished we had more time for the museum but we did have to head out for a 1PM reservation at Maximo. I actually found this place in the Anthony Bourdain World Travel guide book - the restaurant blew up via social media when it was forced to shut down after the spoiled daughter of the head of Mexico’s consumer protection agency went and demanded a table but was turned away. The food, I can confirm, is definitely worth getting a reservation for. The space is beautiful with an open kitchen and bright with direct sunlight through the sunroof, and every dish we had were delicious. We had a bread with eggplant and sesame spread, a roasted beets salad with goat cheese that was my favorite (I don’t even like beets that much), the kampachi with kimchi, creamy cauliflower with mustard green and pistachio, and a wagyu beef tongue with mole. I have to say the mole at Pujol was better but this meal wasn’t far off.

Frida Kahlo Museum

The highlight of the afternoon is the Frida Kahlo Museum in Coyoacán. It’s Frida’s childhood home where she spent most of her life, and definitely one of the main attraction in the area. We had to get tickets in advance (they sell out pretty quickly so book ahead!) and purchased the photo pass to take photos inside the museum. We started with the exhibit on her wardrobe, exploring how she used fashion to disguise her disability and physical imperfections. She lived a tragic life and the tour around her home with Rivera was very interesting. The house is painted blue and the garden was a great photo op. They got really cute souvenirs as well and of course I got postcards and magnets.

Hanky Panky and Dinner at Puerto Prendes

Another top bars in the world coming in at number 12, Hanky Panky was the other speakeasy we were going to check out on this trip. My friend specifically told us not to look up how to enter and let’s just say I ended up looking really confused when I got off the uber. They have shared booth seating and drinks are named after cities. We met a couple living in Mexico City and they gave us even more food recs. I won’t spoil the entrance of the bar but here’s a look at where the exit is.

We had a late dinner at Puerto Prendes, a very pretty restaurant designed by a friend of a friend. Needless to say we ate too much.

Rest Day and Eat Like a Local Food Tour

Thursday was supposed to be a full work day but a few hours into the work day I started feeling an upset stomach and chills. I decided to take a nap but couldn’t fall asleep and the fever and chills hit me. I started feeling nauseous as well and that’s when I knew I had the stomach bug. I took the rest of the day off and my friend went to the pharmacy to pick up meds as well as a really nice chicken soup from La Casa de Toño since I hadn’t had any food. I still am not really sure what it was that I ate because my friends and I all shared the same food but thankfully I was feeling well enough to go on the food tour we had scheduled for the evening.

We met our guide Alejandra at Tortas Al Fuego and started off our tour with tortas, a sandwich loaded with beef and definitely a heavy start to the tour. We were originally planning to take the autobus to our next stop but all the buses were packed, even in the women and children only section. We waited for four buses before abandoning ship and took an uber instead. It turns out there was a march/ protest going on and traffic was really bad - even the uber ended up taking 40 mins. It was actually better for me because the nausea hit again and I needed a nap. Our next stop was a taco stand Taco “El Betin” featuring all very unique body parts like eyes and brain. We tried the lengua (beef tongue) and tripe and the flavors were amazing and I totally would have eaten more if I wasn’t feeling under the weather.

Our 3rd spot is walking distance away at Tacos “El Paisa” where we tried the suadero and longaniza (a Spanish sausage similar to chorizo) cooked in hot oil for long hours. It was fascinating to watch them cooke in a giant pot and it goes so well with the pickled onions and Mexican arugula to cleanse your palate.

The 4th spot is a fried food spot that’s right in the mercado. We passed through stalls of nail ladies and rows of people getting their nails done. It’s a popular night time activity after work and people also stop by the mercado for the deep fried quesadillas. I was beyond full at this time but we had to get one more in, and that was Taqueria El Califa de León serving beef tacos with such tender and juicy beef! We ended the night with churros as desert and I was very proud of myself for finishing the tour while recovering from the stomach bug.

Final Day

On the final day of the trip I did wake up feeling better but decided to take the day off so I can sleep in and rest up before we fly back home. My friend and I walked over to the closest post office to mail our postcards and we checked out of our service apartment to head to Panaderiá Rosetta, the famous bakery. We got a seat at the bar and I needed something light for my fragile stomach so I went with a salad and juice. Their famous concha with lemon and pastry cream and berries locho were also very good.

We walked around the neighborhood, checked out a second-hand bookstore and some local shops including a vintage furniture store and records store, before it was time to grab our bags and head to the airport. The ride to the airport was a little scary because our uber driver clipped another car and got into a whole altercation with the other driver, and for a second I thought we would be delayed or see someone get hurt. Thankfully that did not happen and we got back home safely!

Mexico City. January 2024