January 19, 2014

Dinner at La Tecla

If you have heard anything about Mexico City, it is probably that it has very bad air pollution, and very bad traffic. Since we are here over a weekend, the air is not too bad. But the traffic is.

We had 8:00 PM reservations at a place called La Telca in the Roma neighborhood - not too far, maybe five miles from our hotel. We thought it should take no more that 10 minutes to get there.

But it was stop and go, well, stop and stop and go traffic from our hotel. Luckily, nobody in Mexico City takes time too seriously, and few people eat as early at 8:00 PM.

We walked straight by the restaurant even after the taxi driver told us where it was. But once we got settled, it was a pleasant little place with a nice wait staff ready to serve.

We each started with a glass of Reserva de la Famila tequila, and I have to say, it might have been the best I have ever had. I will seek that out again.

We took some time to tease out the menu. My Spanish is not bad, but it has been a very long time since I have had to use it every day. (More on that in a later post)

We liked the idea of sharing some little plates, so we started by ordering the gorditas with beans and pork, along with the figs stuffed with goat cheese and serrano ham. We can get the gorditas in Houston at a place called Hugo's, which is really a Mexico City restaurant more than a TexMex restaurant. 

We were intrigued by the category of "Bajo en Grasa". I really struggled with what this meant. "Bajo" is "below" or "low" and "Grasa" is "Fat" or "grease". I kept thinking to myself, "Below the fat, below the fat" and I decided that it meant "Deep Fat Fried"! Good thinking! But totally and completely wrong. Bajo en Grase means, of  course, when you think about it for just a second more than I did, "Low in fat". 

From that section, we ordered the portabella mushroom carpacio (that should have been a clue) and the stuffed squash blossoms (That is what I used to make my brilliant, yet wrong, deduction. Many places have fried squash blossoms!)

Both were outstanding, but the stuffed squash blossoms (stuffed with goat cheese and walnuts) were the best thing of the night.

We then shared the cazuela of beef, sort of a braised beef recipe. Very good. At this point, we thought we were done, but I ordered one more dish - the albondigas (meatballs) a special for the evening.

Then to top it all off we had a strawberry meringue. It was a TOWER of meringue.

The cab ride back to the hotel took ten minutes. 

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