Lunch at a Department Store

One of my childhood memories is taking the bus with my mother and going to downtown Cleveland to the big department stores to shop for Christmas presents.  We would always stop for lunch, often at a restaurant in one of the department stores, such as the elegant Silver Grill in Higbee's.  (I bet that some of my readers of a "certain age" have similar memories too.)

Nowadays there are no department stores in downtown Cleveland, and the ones in the suburban malls do not have restaurants.  On Wednesday, I sort of recreated those memories when I went to the Liverpool Department Store to do some Christmas shopping.

I didn't go the original Liverpool downtown, but to a branch located about 1.5 miles down Insurgentes Avenue from my apartment.  

This branch is one of the larger Liverpool stores with five floors (including the basement) with almost everything you might be looking for, from clothing to appliances to furniture to exercise equipment to dinnerware to toys and more.  They even have a fancy barber shop and a travel agency within the store.  Liverpool is not the ritziest department store chain in Mexico City, but this store in particular was quite upscale.

"Bolo" is the mascot for the toy department at Christmastime.  Each year Liverpool has a parade in December called "Bolo Fest".  You might say that it is Mexico City's version of Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

I explored each floor of the department store and did a bit of Christmas shopping.  The top floor of the store is largely devoted to what they call an "Experiencia Gourmet".  There are stations selling various kinds of food... Italian, Spanish tapas, shellfish, etc... that you can eat there.

I was ready to eat.  However, I decided to skip the "Experiencia Gourmet", and go to the store's restaurant which was located on a mezzanine overlooking the ground floor.

The menu is fairly extensive.  I ordered Aztec soup, and, deciding to have something healthy as a main course, I ordered "pescado empapelado" (a fish fillet and vegetables wrapped in aluminum foil and grilled).

(Those are slices of plantain, not bananas, on the rice.)

The restaurant did not match the elegance of the old Silver Grill in Cleveland.  But the service was excellent, and the food was good.  I would return here to eat if I should be shopping at Liverpool at lunchtime.