In with the New

Here in the Mexico City neighborhood of Nápoles where I rent an apartment, the pandemic and its economic downturn have led to the closure of many businesses, including quite a few restaurants.  On the upside, however, quite a few new businesses have appeared.

First, here are some of the places that have disappeared from my neighborhood...

"La Caraqueña" was a Venezuelan restaurant where I ate a couple of times.  It appears to have been closed for violations of some sort.  If you look carefully you can see what is left of a couple of torn government placards saying "Suspensión de actividades".

"Loma Linda" was a new branch of a chain of very expensive steakhouses.  I went there once, ordered the cheapest steak on the menu, and it was still perhaps the priciest meal I have had in Mexico City.

This used to be the entrance to a place called "The Food Trade Center"... a play on words since the World Trade Center is just a block away.  It was another pricey place, but the food was good, and Alejandro and I ate here a couple of times.  All that is left is a sign saying "Restaurante" over the door.

I ate once at "Tortas Don Beto", but it was nothing special.  There are other places with better "tortas", traditional Mexican sandwiches.  The sign says that the business premises are for sale.

And now for some places that have recently appeared in the neighborhood...

This used to be the location of a branch of the taco chain "Taquearte", but then it moved to bigger and fancier location across the street from the World Trade Center.  Now we have a small café called "La Exquisita" that serves light meals.  Alejandro and I have already tried it out, and the food was quite good.  It's just down the street and around the corner from my apartment.

I'm not sure how new this place is, but I have never noticed it before.  "Frankfurt" sells sausages and beer.

Just a couple doors down from "Frankfurt" is another place I had not noticed before, a vegan taco joint called "Tacomido".

The original "La Parroquia" is a famous café in the port city of Veracruz.  There are a couple of branches in the historic center of Mexico City.  It's a great place for a traditional "café con leche" (coffee with steamed milk).  Now there is a shiny new branch along Insurgentes Avenue not too far from me.

Alejandro and I have already tried out this new place.  "OK Flautería" sells "flautas"... a tortilla wrapped tightly around a filling such as chicken or cheese and then fried in oil to a crisp.  Not bad.

In this spot across from the World Trade Center, there used to be a little restaurant / French bakery.  When my friends Nancy and Fred came several years ago to visit me, we ate breakfast here a couple times.  Nancy really liked their avocado toast.  Unfortunately, that place closed, and the spot is now occupied by a restaurant called "Paparilla".  They serve baked potatoes stuffed with grilled meat and cheese.  They also serve breakfast, so I tried it out yesterday.  The menu was very limited, and my breakfast was cold by the time it was put on the table.

This new place, called "Mi Corazón de Maíz" (My Heart of Corn), is not a restaurant but a "tortillería", a store that sells tortillas.  Throughout the city you will find loads of "tortillerías", but there was not a single one in my neighborhood of Nápoles.  This is an affluent district, and I guess serving a stack of tortillas with dinner each day is too plebian for the housewives here.  However, this is not the typical place that you would find in working class neighborhoods.  This shop is a gourmet "tortillería".  Here they offer fancy products such as "tortillas de maíz azul" (blue corn) or "tortillas de nopal" (cactus is added to the corn dough).  I haven't checked it out, but I suspect that the average Mexican housewife would find the prices exorbitant.

Finally, across the street from the "tortillería" there is this new bakery called "Alpaca Bakery and Creampuffs".  Businesses sometimes use names in English to give their establishment a cachet of upper class snobbery.  I went to this place yesterday and bought three pieces of pastry.  They cost 90 pesos... $4.50 US.  I told Alejandro, and he was shocked by such an outrageous price.  However, I have to admit that the baked goods were really, really good! 

Faded Glory

Mexico City is a place full of fascinating architecture, from the Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical styles of the colonial era to shiny glass 21st century skyscrapers.  Sadly there are many architectural gems that have seen better days.

Take for example this Art Deco building along Insurgentes Avenue.  Shaped like the prow of the ship and sporting porthole windows it must have been quite innovative when it was built.

As I was walking through the Juárez neighborhood on my way back from the Ciudadela Handicrafts Market last week, I saw quite a few interesting buildings that must have been the height of elegance when they were built.

Here is another Art Deco building, which differing sculptural details under the windows.

Many of the fine, old buildings date back to the beginning of the 20th century during the "Porfiriato" (the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz).  The architecture of the era mimicked the styles of France.

Here are a couple of once elegant structures...

Sadly, this house appears to be beyond repair.

I was especially intrigued by this old building which takes up an entire city block.  It was completed in 1913, shortly after the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, but it still follows the elegant European style of the "Porfiriato".

I was able to find an article about this building on the internet.  The structure is called "La Mascota", and the article refers to it as the first condominium building in Mexico.  It extends over 300 feet along Bucareli Avenue and contains 174 apartments which after more that a century are still occupied.  

It was built by Ernesto Pugibet, a French-born businessman who owned a major tobacco company in Mexico City.  The housing complex was constructed for his workers.  Within the complex there are three streets... actually gated courtyards... around which the apartments are situated.

Peering through the gate into one of the courtyards

Although the exterior is marred with graffiti, the interior "streets" appear to be quite pleasant and well maintained.

One of the courtyards is named Gardenia Street.  Pugibet named it after his wife's favorite flower.

In addition, throughout the building you can supposedly still see the initials "G.P" engraved in honor of his wife, Guadalupe Portilla.

The internet article included this cool photograph showing the building as it appeared in 1967.

Shopping Day

One day last week I went to the Ciudadela Handicraft Market located at the edge of Mexico City's historic center.  This market was established in 1965 in preparation for the 1968 Summer Olympics.  The government wanted it to be a showcase for Mexican handicrafts.  The building, with an area of over 17,000 square feet, houses over 350 vendors.

I have written before that this market has a lot of tourist kitsch, but if you look carefully you can also find some nice handicrafts.

I came here because I wanted to buy a present for my friend Irma.  I have mentioned her on this blog before.  She was born in Mexico and was the wife of one of my college Spanish professors.  Shortly after I return to Ohio in September, she will celebrate a milestone birthday.  I wanted to get her something nice as a present, and I knew exactly what I wanted to buy, and I knew exactly where to find it in this market.

This is where I bought her gift, but I won't mention what I bought in case she might be reading this blog!

After completing my purchase, I did some more wandering through this large market, and I ended buying a few more items as presents for other friends.

I had to take a picture of the sign on this shelf filled with fragile items of clay pottery...

The sign says:

"Our best customers are children because

their parents pay for what they break."

Singing in the Street

One day last week this fellow was singing in front of one of the supermarkets in my neighborhood.  I thought he had quite a good voice.  He is singing "Solamente una vez" (Only One Time), one of the songs written by the famous songwriter Agustín Lara that I mentioned in an earlier post.

A Change of Pace

Last Saturday Alejandro and I took a break from Mexican food and went to a very good Italian restaurant called "La Posta".  We had been there before a couple of times on previous trips.  It is located on a quiet side street just a five minute walk from my apartment.

We ordered a pitcher of "clericot", a red wine drink that is similar to sangría.  I began with lentil soup and Alejandro had an Italian-style onion soup.

For his main course Alejandro ordered cannelloni.

I had something called "penne Firenze".  The penne pasta was mixed with bacon, chicken and mushrooms.  I'm not sure how authentically Italian it was since the sauce had a Mexican touch with a kick of chipotle peppers.  It was very tasty, authentic or not.

Our desserts were definitely not Italian.  Alejandro had apple strudel, and I had crème brulee with pistachios.

It was a delicious meal.  "La Posta" is one of our favorite non-Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood!

Interesting Sculpture

Mexico City's famous boulevard, el Paseo de la Reforma, is the location of numerous monuments, and in recent years smaller pieces of sculpture have graced the pedestrian walkways along the boulevard.  Last week as I walked from the Anthropology Museum back to my apartment I noticed an interesting bronze statue on the Paseo close to the entrance to Chapultepec Park.  The work was done by Miguel Peraza, a noted Mexico City sculptor.

A life size sculptor with hammer and chisel is portrayed sculpting a giant chess piece, the knight, out of a block of stone.

As I walked around the statue, I noticed a humorous element.  The sculptor's jacket is hanging as if from a hook in the piece of stone.

I don't know if there is any message that Peraza is trying to convey through this work, but it is certainly an interesting sculpture.

The Peoples of Oaxaca

Last week I wrote that I had visited a couple ethnographic galleries at Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology.  The second hall that I visited was devoted to the peoples of Oaxaca. 

The southern state of Oaxaca has the highest percentage of indigenous peoples in Mexico.  About one third of the state's population speak native languages, and about half of those do not speak Spanish.  The two most important tribes in the state are the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, both of which had important civilizations in the pre-Hispanic era.

 At the entrance to the hall is a statue of a "feather dancer".  The "danza de la pluma" (feather dance) is one of the best known folkloric dances of Oaxaca.

Oaxaca is one of the poorest states in Mexico, but it is one of the richest in native handicrafts.

Many different styles of pottery come from different towns in the state.  Oaxacan pottery has gone beyond utilitarian uses, and has become highly prized by collectors.

The best known is the black pottery from the town of San Bartolo Coyotepec,

"Alebrijes", fanciful wooden carvings of animals, have become an internationally popular handicraft.  The economy of a couple towns in Oaxaca is based on the creation and sale of these items.

The women of Oaxaca traditionally wear gold filigree jewelry.  Some of the designs are based on items found in pre-Hispanic tombs.

Other states such as Guerrero and Michoacán are better known for their lacquerware, but it is also produced in Oaxaca.

Basket making is an important utilitarian craft.

Decorations made of tin are a popular handicraft sold to tourists in the markets.

Textiles are an important craft.  They range from handwoven woolen blankets to the apparel which is unique to each village.

A wide variety of masks are created as a part of the costumes used in traditional dances.

One such dance is the dance of the tigers.  Its origins go back to before the Spanish conquest.  The jaguar was an animal associated with Tezcatlipoca, a god that was both good and bad, a creator and a destroyer.  The dancers still make offerings of corn and beans.

There are still more galleries on the upper floors of the Anthropology Museum.  I will save them for future trips to Mexico.