Another Mall, Another Restaurant Chain

Mexico City is certainly a blend of the old and new.  Yesterday I wrote about a house that is nearly five centuries old.  Today I am writing about a 21st century shopping mall that would not be out of place anywhere in the modern, developed world. 

Tuesday evening Alejandro and I met for supper at one of Mexico City's largest malls, Parque Delta.  The mall was constructed next to the inner belt freeway on the former location of a baseball stadium.

Of course the mall was decorated for Christmas.

The mall has a variety of restaurants including several U.S. chains such as the Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang's.  We met however at a Mexican chain called Toks.

I recently wrote about two of the largest Mexican restaurant chains, Sanborns and VIPS.  Toks is a smaller chain.  Although we like VIPS for breakfast, we think that the Toks is better for dining.  I'm not saying that it has out-of-this-world, gourmet food, but sometimes you just want ordinary food.  I have found the quality of the meals there to be quite good.  It is, however, more expensive than VIPS.

I started with "sopa norteña", a recipe from northern Mexico.  It was sort of a cross between tortilla soup and black bean soup, and it was served with garnishes of cheese, avocado, chiles, cilantro and chorizo sausage.  It was very tasty.

Alejandro had a mixed grill of steak, chicken breast and pork with guacamole on the side.

My dish was a mixture of chicken breast, strips of poblano chiles, corn, potatoes and cheese in a mild sauce, with tortillas on the side.  

The service was rather slow, but, all in all, it was a good meal.

A Corner of Coyoacán

I have been to the district of Coyoacán many times.  In fact we were just there this past weekend to visit the house of Frida Kahlo.  Nevertheless, yesterday I returned there by myself because I had read about a historic little corner than I had never seen.

As I have written before, Coyoacán was once a separate town from Mexico City.  In pre-Hispanic times it was a community of the Tepanec tribe on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco.  The Tepanecs were conquered by the Aztecs, so when the conquistador Hernán Cortés (known to us as Cortez) arrived on the scene, they allied themselves with the Spanish.  Cortés used Coyoacán as his headquarters for his final assault on the Aztec capital.  After defeating the Aztecs, the city of Tenochtitlan was in ruins.  While the Spanish were using the rubble to build the new city that was to become Mexico City, Cortés ensconced himself in Coyoacán, and for a short time it was actually the capital of the Spanish colony of New Spain.  

Yesterday, after I arrived at the center of Coyoacán, I followed a street that ran diagonally from behind the parish church of San Juan Bautista.  After a short distance, I came to a shady plaza known as Plaza Conchita.

At one end of the plaza is another parish church.  This one is called "la Purísima Concepción".

The plaza and the church stand on the site where the pre-Hispanic temples of Coyoacán once stood. Cortés had this chapel built, and it is said that the first mass in what is today Mexico City was celebrated here.

The present structure was frequently remodeled since the days of Cortés.  It now features a lovely baroque portal.

The church was closed, but I peeked through the crack in the door, and I could make out in the dim light what appeared to be a very old altarpiece.

There was one other building here which I wanted to see.  I had read that on this plaza Cortés had build a house for his native mistress, known as La Malinche.  The structure is called the "Casa Colorada" (Red House).  In spite of its antiquity and historical significance there is no plaque on the building.  Cortés is viewed as a "bad guy" by the Mexicans, and La Malinche is considered a traitor to her people.

I circled the plaza trying to figure out which house might have been the home of La Malinche.  The square is surrounded by old houses... but I was looking for a house that was red and looked very old... nearly 500 years old!

No, it's not red.

I'm mildly color blind, but, no, that's not red either.

Ah, this one is red, but it doesn't look old enough.

Hmmm, this one is a possibility.

I would put my money on this one.  It's reddish in color and everything about it screams antiquity...  the rough volcanic stone along the lower section, the Spanish design work above it, the drain spouts projecting from the top.  It even has stone rings for hitching your horse.

I went to a little ice cream shop facing the plaza and ordered a scoop.  The proprietor was an elderly gentleman who looked as if he should know the history of his neighborhood.  I asked him which house belonged to La Malinche, and it turned out that I was right.

The house appears to still be a private residence.  Imagine living in a house that is nearly five centuries old, and that was inhabited by a historical figure!

This house was here long before there was a United States... long before the English had even built their first rude settlement on American shores.

Nature's Christmas Decoration

Its scientific name is "euphorbia pulcherima".  In the United States we call it a poinsettia.  It was named after Joel Poinsett, our first minister to the newly independent nation of Mexico. It was he who introduced the plant to the U. S. in 1825.  In its native Mexico it is called "la flor de Nochebuena"... the Christmas Eve flower.  It was used by the Aztecs for medicinal purposes and to make red dye.  In colonial Mexico, Franciscan missionaries began to associate it with Christmas.  The plant's star-shape configuration of leaves represented the Star of Bethlehem and its red color symbolized the blood of Jesus.

While the shopping malls are being decked out with holiday decorations, Mother Nature is creating her own Christmas display.  This beautiful poinsettia, which reaches the second floor, is in front of a home just a few blocks from my apartment.

The "Good End" Approaches

As soon as the Day of the Dead was over, the shopping malls in Mexico City all put up their Christmas decorations.  Below are a few photos taken at the Reforma 222 Mall.

This coming weekend is more than just a long weekend.  (Next Monday is a legal holiday... Revolution Day.)  It is also "el Buen Fin" (literally the "good end" or the "good weekend".)  It is the official beginning of the Christmas shopping season and is copied after "Black Friday" in the U.S.  All the stores are advertising their special sales for that weekend.  Alejandro, however, says that the "Buen Fin" is a bit of a hoax.  He says that the stores hike their prices prior to the shopping season, and then make it seem as if they are giving bigger discounts than they really are for the "Buen Fin".

Breakfast at VIPS

There are two chains of restaurants which are ubiquitous in Mexico City... Sanborns and VIPs.  Neither one is a gourmet dining experience, although I would rank them higher than a place like Denny's in the U.S.  Generally, they are a better choice for breakfast than for dinner.

Of the two, Sanborns is the older.  It was founded in 1903 by two brothers from the United States as a pharmacy, soda fountain and lunch counter.  Eventually the chain was sold to Walgreens, and now it is owned by Mexico's richest man, Carlos Slim.

VIPS is owned by the same company that manages such U.S. chains as Starbucks, Burger King, and the Cheesecake Factory in Mexico.

Alejandro and I usually go out for breakfast on the weekends.  Most of the independently owned places in the neighborhood are closed on Sundays, so we have to go to one of the chains.  We have both a Sanborns and a VIPS within a few blocks of the apartment.  However, the food and the service at the nearby Sanborns are not up to par, so we usually go to VIPS. 

VIPS also has a much wider selection of breakfasts, and we have found the waitresses there to be very friendly.  A couple of them will come up and say hello to us even if they are not waiting on us.  

At the beginning of November we got two of their monthly loyalty cards.

 

On each return visit we get a higher discount until on the fifth visit the discount is 50%.  So each Saturday and Sunday morning this month we have been going to VIPS.  This coming weekend, my last weekend here on this trip, we will make it up to the 50% mark.  So the two of us will have a very hearty breakfast for less than $10! 

A Visit to Frida's House

This past weekend, an Argentinian friend of Alejandro was in here in Mexico City for  a couple days after vacationing in Acapulco.  He asked Alejandro if we could go to "La Casa Azul" (The Blue House), the home of the painter Frida Kahlo. 

Frida was the wife of muralist Diego Rivera, and during her lifetime she was overshadowed by her husband.  Now, more than sixty years after her death, she has attained the status of a cult figure and is arguably now the more famous of the two.  Tourists will find every kind of souvenir imaginable emblazoned with her image.  Whether or not you care for her art (personally, I appreciate her work, but she is not my favorite) there is no denying that her short life was full of drama.

The house where she was born and died is located in the picturesque neighborhood of Coyoacán and is now a museum.  I told Alejandro that if we were going to go there, we should buy tickets online ahead of time.  The last few times that I have been in Coyoacán, the line to enter the house has stretched down the block.  Alejandro purchased the tickets and was rather shocked at the price.  The admission was 220 pesos for foreigners... around $11 dollars U.S.   While that might not seem like much when compared to admission prices in other countries, consider the fact that entrance to the Anthropology Museum, one of the great museums of the world, is 70 pesos.  Whereas the Anthropology Museum is so huge that it would take days to see everything, "La Casa Azul" can be easily seen in less than an hour.  And if you are expecting to see Frida's artwork you will be disappointed.  Only a few of her minor works are on display here.  It truly seems that the museum is milking Frida's fame for everything it is worth.  (I wonder what Frida, an avowed Communist, would say about the fact that her name has become a money-making machine.)

Our tickets were for 1:00 on Saturday afternoon.  We went to the hotel where Alejandro's friend was staying, and we drove to Coyoacán.  We still had plenty of time before our admission time, so we wandered around a bit through the neighborhood.  Coyoacán was once a separate town from Mexico City, and it still has a small-town atmosphere that is quite different from the big city.  It is also, in large part because of "La Casa Azul", one of the most popular areas with tourists.  I heard more English being spoken here than in any other part of the city.

The center of the former town has two adjoining plazas.  One of them faces the beautiful Church of San Juan Bautista, one of the oldest parish churches in the city.

The other plaza faces the former town hall, which reputedly was the site of the home of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés immediately after the conquest of the Aztecs.  (His home was in fact probably elsewhere in Coyoacán.)

When we arrived at "La Casa Azul" the line for the visitors who had not purchased tickets ahead of time stretched down the street.

In the courtyard of the house there was still a Day of the Dead "ofrenda" in memory of Frida.

In an annex to the main museum there was a display of some of Frida's clothes.
When she was six years old Frida contracted polio which left her right leg withered.  For most of her life she had to wear a leg brace.

When she was eighteen she was in a nearly fatal bus accident in which she impaled by an iron handrail.  Because of damage to her vertebrae, she had to wear a harness for support.

Frida chose clothes, such as long skirts, that would hide her disabilities.  She also made a habit of wearing traditional, indigenous attire that became a part of her persona.

The main portion of the house is furnished as it was when Frida and Diego lived here.  Because of the crowds you are in a line of people moving slowly from one room to another.  You are required to pay an additional 30 pesos to take photographs, and you are given a sticker to wear.  Museum employees were checking to make sure that the people taking pictures had stickers.  Somewhere along the way, I lost my sticker, but somehow I managed to avoid the scrutiny of the employees.

This is Frida's studio.  Near the end of her life she had to have her leg amputated.  She then painted from a wheelchair.

This is the bed where Frida died in 1954.  (Her death mask in on the bed.)  She was only 47 years old.

Gone Shopping

I rarely travel to Mexico City without visiting the Ciudadela Handicrafts Market.  Last week I hopped on the Metrobus and took a shopping trip.  The large market with aisle after aisle of stands is located a few blocks south of downtown.  A lot of the what is for sale... OK, maybe most of it... is pure tourist junk.  But there is also plenty of quality merchandise, and perhaps part of the fun of going there is seeking it out.

It seems as if it is always the "Day of the Dead" here.  The skulls and skeletons of that celebration are popular with tourists and will be found here any time of year.

My Christmas shopping is already done, and I had planned only to buy a couple presents for friends back home.  But by the time that I was done, the large shopping bag that I had brought with me was full.  I was afraid that I would not be able to fit it all in my small suitcase, but I did a trial run of packing, and fortunately there was room to spare.

From the market I walked to Insurgentes Avenue from where I would take a different Metrobus line back to the apartment.  My route took me along Bucareli Avenue.  There, in the middle of one of the intersections, is the "Chinese Clock".  It was a gift from the Chinese community of Mexico City in 1921 on the centennial of the end of Mexico's War of Independence.  It was recently restored and is once again telling correct time and chiming on the hour.

Near the clock there is an apartment building probably built at the beginning of the 20th century.  It is a bit run down, but still is quite a striking piece of architecture.

Along the roof line there are crests with the coats of arms of different Mexican cities done in tiles.

Along the façade there are tile portraits of the viceroys of colonial Mexico.

There are so many architectural gems to be found along the streets of Mexico.  If only there were unlimited resources to restore them all to their original beauty.