The Various Eats in Mexico City

• Introduction to Mexico City
• W Mexico City Hotel Review
• Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel & Towers Review
• Le Meridien Mexico City Hotel Review
• Is Mexico City Safe for Tourists?
• The Sights And Sounds of Mexico City
• Scam City: Mexico City Edition
• The Various Eats in Mexico City
• Amex Centurion Travel Lounge in MEX

The best thing about Mexico City is definitely the food. You can find food served on the streets, a roaming vendor, shopping cart, or in a traditional sit down style restaurant. If you’re on a budget, you can definitely stretch your dollar on street food where tacos can cost as few as 6 pesos each, which is the equivalent of $0.47 USD. The best deal I found was 5 tacos for 25 pesos ($1.96 USD) off of a street cart in Zona Rosa. You can find numerous 7-11’s and OXXO stores in Mexico City selling a canned soft drink for 7 pesos. I will show you the eats around Mexico City ranging from the street food scene to the upscale and expensive side of District Federal.

On the first night of exploring the Polanco District, I was walking around to look for an upscale Mexican restaurant. It’s pretty tough to find a Mexican restaurant in the Polanco District because it’s the Mexican Beverly Hills. There were a ton of upscale Italian, French, and Japanese restaurants in the area. I finally found the restaurant I had been looking for that wasn’t a Mexican Cantina joint or fast food restaurant. I found a quaint place called Casa Regia and the owner pleasantly greeted me to welcome me in.

Casa Regia in Polanco

Entrance to Casa Regia restaurant

View of the dining room inside Casa Regia

I was looking at the “Los Favoritos” which means The Favorites in the menu. I went ahead and ordered the Delicioso Cabrito “Casa Regia” Al pastor estilo Monterrey for $290 MXN which is the equivalent of $22.80 USD. As I sat down on the table, I saw a bottle of red wine that was eloquently placed in the middle of the table along with wine glasses. If it’s too good to be true, then it usually is. The waiter decided to come over to open the bottle of red wine in which I politely declined and ordered a beer instead. I ordered a local Mexican beer called Carta Blanca to go with my meal.

Menu

Bottle of red wine and Carta Blanca beer

The great thing about eating at any Mexican restaurant in Mexico is that they bring you all the condiments that you may need for your meal right in front of you. I love being able to have both red and green salsas along with ciltantro, onion, and a handful of limes. My meal was presented beautifully with homemade torillas and warm deep fried tortilla chips. The Carta Blanca beer paired up really well with the meal and if I had more guests, I would definitely have had that bottle of red wine.

All the condiments, salsas, and chips to go with my Delicioso Cabrito “Casa Regia” Al Pastor estilo Monterrey

There were many vendors during the morning around the Auditorio Metro Station in the Polanco District. Many of them are street vendors selling hot arroz con leche out of a metal canister.

Hot arroz con leche

Bread vendor with hot arroz con leche

There were also many street taco vendors that served up pretty much served up any type of animal part that you can think of. My favorite is the lengua tacos.

Street vendor selling any type of tacos you want!

Street vendor selling tacos

I don’t know how clean this is, but there was a vendor prepping and getting ready to make chicharrones.

chicharrones prep

There is a restaurant chain in Mexico City called VIPS. There is nothing important about the name and the restaurant certainly doesn’t treat its customers like a VIP. Think of the VIPS restaurant chain as your local Mexican Diner, which is like Dennys, iHOP, Carrows, Marie Calendar’s, and Coco’s. VIPS primarily has Mexican food, but also a good mix of French and Italian as well.

VIPS restaurant chain in Mexico City

When I sat down at the table, the waitress brought me a basket of Mexican bread and pastries. Again, never eat or drink anything that you never ordered because it’s never complimentary in Mexico. I ordered chicken enchiladas and again the waitress brought a basket of goodies, which was plain bread. I was super hungry so I ate everything that she brought to me. In the end, I was charged 13 pesos for each basket of bread and pastries for a total of 26 pesos ($2.04 USD). Did I mention that everything is pretty cheap in Mexico?

Concha, Apple Strudel, and Pain au Chocolat

Mexican bread

Chicken enchiladas with refried beans and potatoes

If you want a greatly concentrated place of cheap eats near El Centro, there are plenty of street vendors in the La Lagunilla area of Mexico City to fulfill your needs. You can find pretty much any type of taco, menudo, pozole, tortas, tamales, enchiladas, tostadas, and quesadillas for sale. There are also seafood dishes and freshly squeezed orange juice served right out of a shopping cart.

a makeshift restaurant made up of tables and chairs

Street vendor selling Mexican seafood dishes

Street vendors selling tacos and tortas

Freshly squeezed orange juice from a shopping cart

One night, I had dinner at El Rincon de Periban in the Zona Rosa district of Mexico City. I was craving a hot bowl of pozole and some tacos so I decided to try it based on their large advertisement outside their establishment. Pozole was $43 MXN ($3.37 USD) and each taco was going for $17 MXN ($1.34 USD). I decided to order a pozole de pollo (chicken soup), a taco de birria (goat meat taco), and a horchata.

El Rincon de Periban in Zona Rosa

Menu at El Rincon de Periban

I was brought all the condiments needed for the taco and pozole which consisted of red salsa, green salsa, onions, cilantro, lime, cabbage, and radishes.

All the condiments you need for tacos and pozole

The horchata came in a large round goblet glass!

a large goblet of horchata

The chicken pozole and taco de birria were amazing. The server also brought me a complimentary side of chips (not shown)

Chicken Pozole

Birria taco

On the last night, I decided to try a restaurant on the side streets of Paseo de La Reforma. I was in the mood for more Mexican food so I stumbled upon Las Migas which had a menu displayed outside the restaurant. I love it when restaurants do that because I can immediately get a feel of what kind of food is offered and if the prices are reasonable. I was in the mood for a quesadilla so I saw that each one was 14 pesos which was pretty cheap. I ended up ordering two chicken and cheese quesadillas along with a chicharron and cheese quesadilla. In addition, I ordered a fresh watermelon juice drink since they were all out of horchata. It’s kind of sad when the drink costs more than the entree itself which is in most cases in Mexico City. The watermelon juice came in a huge pitcher and since I was walking around most of the day, I finished the whole pitcher and the waiter gladly refilled it!

Las Migas Restaurant

three quesadillas

Near the Bosque de Chapultepec and the Chapultepec Metro station, you can find a lot of street vendors selling all types of Mexican food, fruits, and vegetables. Mexican candy can also be bought from various vendors who sell newspaper and magazines.

Street vendors near the Chapultepec Metro station

Food vendors in the bustling Chapultepec area

a variety of Mexican candy

In the Centro Historic section of Mexico City, you can find grilled Mexican corn at a street vendor in almost every block.

Grilled corn vendor in Mexico City

This isn’t a comprehensive list of Eats in Mexico City, but the next time I visit, I will definitely need to try out different types of food and explore more neighborhoods. Overall, I was delighted and satisfied with the food and of course, the prices made it all worthwhile. If you’re a foodie, you will definitely need to visit Mexico City to explore your palette.