CDMX 2022 (1/8) – Day of Landing in Taco Heaven

Sipping on my iced espresso with soy milk in SFO’s Delta SkyClub, I was beginning my third vacation of 2022.

This trip was a bit different. I was taking a few days off by myself to hang out with Phil in a guys-only adventure in Mexico City. Hong had come up with this idea for each of us to take a solo trip and spend time with friends, and had gone by herself to New York last month to celebrate Yana’s 40th birthday. In exchange, I looked forward to spending some quality time with my college roommate. This was an exciting new way to vacation, partially powered by the kids now being independent enough that either parent could take care of them with ease.

At the conception of this idea, I called Phil on a weekend and let him know that I’d have several days to hang in August. I could simply visit him in SoCal, or we could hop over to Vegas or somewhere that commonly comes to mind for a “guys’ weekend trip”. He then began a mental list of US cities like Chicago, Seattle, and New Orleans that he hadn’t been to and wouldn’t mind checking out. As we brainstormed the possibilities, one of the biggest travel-related light bulbs had lit up… how about Mexico City?

What was in Mexico City? I had zero clue at the time. Every other person I work with had vacationed in Cancun or Cabo or another Mexican resort town, but I only knew of one person ever visiting the capital city of our southern neighbor. All I knew was, years ago, I had read about people climbing some really cool Mesoamerican pyramids just outside that city. With all these factors combined, Mexico City or CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico) seemed infinitely distant, physically and culturally. When I uttered it out as a suggestion for this trip, I was mainly imagining the two of us trekking through some tropical jungle to explore some giant ancient ruins.

Of course, 15 minutes into the research, I realized how skewed my perception was. CDMX was the largest metropolitan city in all of Americas. It had plenty in common with the oldest cities in the United States. It was also closer to us than most of the places we had been. Its accessibility was highlighted by the fact that, for this summer, flying to CDMX cost way less than flying to NYC! A foreign destination that’s both cheaper and closer than domestic destinations? Halfway into researching for this trip, I was already making plans to return…

After a short smooth ride, I met up with Phil in LAX, where we enjoyed a bit of the lounge before boarding our Aeromexico flight to CDMX. Of all the possible flights and connections for us to go to Mexico City, this was the only route operated with a Boeing 787. I was excited to enjoy its lie-flat seat and dimming windows.

It was ironic, though, that our 4-hour luxurious flight was followed by 4 hours of frustration at the Mexico City airport. Rain and airport traffic kept the plane on the tarmac for quite a while. Then the immigration scene was an hour-long zoo. Not to be outdone, scammy Uber drivers plus law-breaking Uber wasted another hour of our time. As we later learned, the airport had stopped allowing Uber to operate there. However, the app company wasn’t deterred and continued dispatching drivers, leaving only the scammers on the platform to accept jobs from unaware travelers. When we finally came to the realization, we had to reset the clock with another hour of waiting in the taxi line. Not exactly the best first impression of a city, if you ask me!

Taqueria los Cocuyos

The airport fiasco led us to arrive at the hotel close to midnight, rather than “shortly after 8” as I thought we would. Hungry and not willing to miss out on the original dinner plan, I asked the front desk staff about walking 3/4 mile to a nearby taqueria. Out of abundance of caution and given this city’s reputation of crime (which I still believe is more myth than truth), I specifically asked if it would be safe. His face turned very concerned and immediately stressed that he would not recommend stepping outside the hotel at this hour. At all. Period. But then he also didn’t seem familiar with the immediate surroundings (which is something in common I’ve noticed among hotel workers around the world) and deferred the recommendation to the concierge guy, Daniel. Daniel looked up the taqueria on his phone and told us it’d be ok to go there if we followed a very specific path of major roads and didn’t stray from it. Sounded like those fairy tale obstacles only true chosen heroes could overcome. What an upgrade from the first recommendation! Though not exactly an endorsement of the neighborhood either. Eh, good enough for me!

We were good and stuck to this path

While in hindsight there were plenty of signs of a safe neighborhood (such as old ladies selling street food), it was eerie to walk 15 minutes in the dark in a brand new city. Random hustlers would approach us offering to help us get into clubs, or so we thought was what they were doing. Some parts of the streets had random pedestrians while other stretches would be entirely devoid of life. Then we arrived at Taqueria los Cocuyos, an (almost) around-the-clock operation that was a popping oasis in the desert of the night.

The taqueria itself was no more than 40 square feet in space. There was the chef and his helper on the inside, and a customer manager on the sidewalk. A dozen or so people stood or sat on plastic stools with their food, and just as many waited eagerly in line. It was a sight that’d make your mouth water. We got in line.

This taco joint was the shit because it was endorsed by a bunch of bloggers, Mark Weins, and the Mexican-produced Netflix documentary Taco Chronicles. The word suadero, my favorite taco meat, entered my vocabulary from the same episode of the Netflix show that featured Los Cocuyos. Thus it was a pilgrimage of sorts for me to come here. Did this meet this mountain-high expectation? Nah… it left the expectation in the dust. I was wowed by the best suadero I had ever had… and tripa, and lengua, and cabeza, and more. Phil was far less obsessed with tacos and he was blown away, too. I set out to eat 8 tacos and he set out to eat 4. A couple additional orders later, we left after having 10 and 8.

Words can not describe the feeling of chilling among complete strangers speaking a different language, in the middle of the night, while savoring bite after bite on the most amazing version of a food that I thought I had known well. That moment completely cancelled out the earlier frustrations at the airport and hesitations about venturing out in the dark. I shall re-declare my first impression of CDMX to be overwhelmingly positive!

CDMX 2022 Trip Index

1. Day of Landing in Taco Heaven
2. Day of Teotihuacan Pyramids
3. Day of History Museums
4. Day of Instagram Destinations
5. Day of the James Bond Hotel
6. Day of Last Hurrah
7. Food Adventures
8. Random Observations