Mexico through the eyes of a Californian chilanga
I first moved to Mexico City in late 2009. I had just finished graduate school in San Diego and had a job offer with the tax firm where I had interned the previous summer. My first year in the city was difficult — I was living on the edge of Ixtapalapa, one of the poorest sections of the city, and working in Santa Fe, a newly developed area of corporate offices and high-rise apartments, which meant that each day I not only crossed the city geographically but spanned its socioeconomic divide. When my family back home asked about life there, I described the hours in traffic to get to work and the air pollution that I was convinced had caused a chronic case of tonsillitis. “This city is a Beast,” I would say.
In spite of all of that, I stayed for almost six years. I met my husband at that firm — he grew up in Oaxaca, has family there still, and introduced me to a Mexico I had never encountered: the food, the mezcal, the long Sunday lunches, the roads through the agave valleys east of the city. We were married in 2014. In 2015 we moved to Washington, DC for his master’s degree, and to my surprise, as soon as I left Mexico I started missing it. Birthdays were not celebrated in my DC office. There were no comidas. The weather was worse. The food was — I’ll just say it was also worse.
By the time we left Mexico City I had gotten to know the Beast. I had found the tree-lined streets with the design shops and the sidewalk cafés and the restaurants that required a reservation weeks (or months) in advance. I had learned which market had the best cheese and which restaurant has the best tamales. The city that had been impossible to navigate had become a city I knew how to live in.
We came back. And then Encuentro began.
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The blog started as a record of Mexico City — the restaurants, the neighborhoods, the things worth knowing if you are new to it or visiting it or just trying to understand it. It has grown into something broader. We travel to Oaxaca several times a year; we have spent time in Mérida and Querétaro and up and down the coast. Mexico is a very large country with a very complex and layered culture, and the more of it we see, the more there is to write about.
What you will find here is not a comprehensive travel guide — there are plenty of those. It is a record of specific places, specific meals, specific moments. Recommendations I can make from experience rather than research. Opinions about neighborhoods that have changed and restaurants that have earned their reputations and a few that have not. The things I would tell a friend.
A quick note on the images – the photographs are my own, but the illustrations throughout the blog are generated with AI tools, prompted and directed to reflect the specific places and experiences described. If you’re looking for an artist who can actually sketch this beautifully, reach out, I know someone.
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Where to start
If you are new to Mexico City, the neighborhoods guide is a good orientation. The Day Trips from Oaxaca City post is the most recent and the most comprehensive thing on the blog right now.
If you are coming to Oaxaca, start with the Day Trips post and the Semana Santa piece.
If you are looking for somewhere to eat tonight, the Romantic Dinner post is a good place to start. My guide to the Juárez neighborhood also has some suggestions if you’re nearby.
If you want to know where to find good yoga, natural skincare, or organic groceries in Mexico City, the Wellness section has all of it.
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I’m glad you’re here. Mexico is worth your time.