Sight seeing and eating well in downtown Mexico City (weekend day 1)

First time in Mexico City y'all!

I'm super excited for this couples trip. Me and

teamed up with the usual suspects to check out the most fun and delicious places around the city. Here's a little recap of what we did on our first day in Mexico.

San Juan Market

Part of the reason we're in Mexico City is because chef Pete is a guest at a friend's restaurant in La Roma Norte, so the first order of business was to get some supplies like fresh produce, seafood, cheese and a few ingredients for him to cook. We went to Mercado San Juan, one of the oldest public markets in Mexico City and a sight to be seen.

If was very well organized, clean and full of colorful spices and fruit stands everywhere.

There were also lots of stands with exotic meat and even chocolate-covered insects, if that's your kind of thing.

It was getting close to Beer O'clock and everybody knows what happens at Beer O'Clock.

I walked up to the friendly lady in her stand and ordered two beers. A tallboy for me and a regular Modelo for my friend Ana.

This is my very first beer in Mexico

The colorful piñata stands looked amazing, so I had to get a picture of that

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Walking around Mexico's historic district

The architect behind the design of the Palacio Postal,

, was also responsible for the design of this gorgeous building, The Palacio de Bellas Artes, one of the most iconic buildings in Mexico City and a place where countless artistic performances have been hosted.

The inside of Palacio de Bellas Artes is quite literally a museum with hundreds of murals, and paintings by renowned artists such as Jorge Gonzalez Camarena
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/MuralCamarenaBellasArtes.JPG/2560px-MuralCamarenaBellasArtes.JPG

And Diego Rivera (more about him in an upcoming post)

Absolutely spectacular!

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Flying internationally with cleavers and sharp blades seems to be an issue for some reason, so we also visited China Town (Barrio Chino) to look for some knives for Pete's dinner. While we were at it, we might as well have a few beers and some shop around for other bits and bobs.

We continued to El Zocalo. Formally known as Plaza de la Constitución. At 46,800 square meters it's the largest plaza en Latin America. Today, they were getting ready to host a concert by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs! One of the most famous reggae/ska bands in all Latin America

It's a free concert, and I would have loved to stay, but at 300,000 attendees, it would have been impossible to get out of there. But I'm sure it was one hell of a show.

This is more or less what it looked like 😮

So much walking around can make you hungry!

We stopped at La Opera, a place known for having a gun shot hole made by Pancho Villa, commander of the Northern Division and iconic figure in the Mexican Revolution. It's said that there was a bar brawl going on when Pancho Villa entered La Opera. He looked around and fired up at the ceiling to get people's attention. Told everyone to be quiet because he wanted to have a drink 😄

Talk about wild west!

We had some piglet in Chinese roast box.

Absolutely delicious and got my very first Mexican pepper burn!
(totally worth it)

Bitcoin Embassy bar in La Roma

We finished our day at a bar close to our Airbnb. It's called the Bitcoin Embassy and as you can imagine, they happily accept payment in Bitcoin.

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Dinner with Chef Pete

After a few beers at Bitcoin Embassy and a nap we went to the place where chef Pete was going to be serving his specialty hams and sausages. It was a small little restaurant-bar in a lovely place called La Roma. The place was packed to the brim! Tables had to be brought out to the sidewalk so people could have a place to sit.

I'd say my day one in Mexico City was an outstanding success!

Let's see what day two has in store :)