Lunch Downtown

After visiting the exhibit at the Palace of Fine Arts on Thursday, I decided to have lunch at "Café El Popular".

"Café El Popular" is something of an institution in the "Centro Histórico".  It's been around since 1948, and it is one of the few restaurants that is open 24 hours.  It's definitely not a fancy place, but I ate there once before, and I thought the food was pretty good.  The name is fitting since the place is very popular.  Often there is a line outside waiting for a table.  However, I was there at 1:00 PM, a little early for the typical mid-afternoon dinner.  I was seated immediately.

In addition to their regular menu choices, they had a number of special items for the Christmas season.

  

From the Christmas specials, I ordered the "Duo de Tortitas"... two little sandwiches, one filled with spicy, shredded pork loin, the other filled with "bacalao a la Vizcaina", Basque style cod, a very traditional Christmas dish here.  The sandwiches were very good.

I decided to order dessert.  The Christmas specials included fruit cake (written on the menu in English).  Unfortunately, it was quite dry, not that good.

After I had already ordered my meal, I noticed an item on the Christmas menu that sounded really good... pork loin in pistachio mole.  On Saturday, Alejandro and I went downtown again.  When I told him about the pistachio mole, he agreed to go to Café El Popular.  He had never been to the place before.  Surprisingly he had never even heard of it before.  This time there was a twenty-minute wait for a table, but the wait was worth it.  We both ordered the mole.  Alejandro, who is something of a mole connoisseur, agreed with me that it was excellent.