The staff at Casa Goliana made my day: tamales for breakfast! We shared one green corn and one red mole tamale, and I was transported to the days of my youth, when our neighbors would bring us green corn tamales and menudo for Christmas. My mother used to send care packages of the tamales, the stuff of my dreams. The menudo…well, that was another story. We discreetly fed that to the cats.
We had seen the “sights” on our last trip, and we decided to stay local and explore the two neighborhoods near us, Roma Norte and Condesa. Roma was built in the nineteenth century, and the northernmost section along and north of Avenida Obregón is full of remarkable colonial architecture. We started at a gorgeous small square, Place Rio de Janeiro, ringed with beautiful buildings.
The streets around the square are full of old mansions, many of them turned into apartment buildings. As you walk the side streets, beautifully restored houses alternate with decaying structures, giving the quarter a somewhat raffish charm.
Back on Avenida Obregón, we went into the Casa Lamm, an early 20th century mansion that has been turned into a cultural center.
The center contains several galleries, and we saw a beautiful show by the contemporary Mexican artist Virginia Chevez.
After a restorative cup of coffee, we strolled down through Roma to a newish enterprise, Mercado Roma. This is a kind of downmarket Eataly, a mishmash of food stands from all over Mexico. We had been longing for a churro, the crispy deep fried Mexican doughnut (far superior to anything we get at home!). We were in luck, since the most famous Churraria in town has an outpost here, and we indulged.
Next stop was the really lovely neighborhood La Condesa. Built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it is full of interesting Art Deco houses. We have been continually struck by how leafy the entire city is, and Condesa is probably the greenest we have seen. The Colonia is organized around a large oval park at its center, the Parque de Mexico, which means that the streets run in circles around the park.
The main residential street, Avenida Amsterdam, is boulevard like, with a green island and walkway in the center.
The park itself is one of the loveliest we have seen: the mixture of tropical and subtropical vegetation gives it a deep, enticing greenness. And, like so much of the capital, it is full of life.
It is also a favorite spot for the coming out parties that Mexican girls have when they turn 15.
We finished our walk with lunch at Enrique Olvera’s tortilleria, Molina el Pujol, where we had sublime quesadillas and wonderful tacos. A very simple place, with a standup counter inside and two tables outside. But heaven!
After a bit of a siesta, we took a car to Polanco, the richest and dullest neighborhood in the city (think Upper East Side— sorry Jack!).
I had made reservations at a fancy place, Amaya in Polanco, which we regretted immediately. It was very international, we could as well have been in Hamburg. Not that it was bad, just uninteresting.