Last Friday Mario and I had more than one invitation to lunch with friends, but I selfishly asked for some alone time. Between the trip to Oaxaca and a late night at the office on Thursday, we had missed several date nights and I felt like I needed some time for the two of us. So, instead of heading off to meet friends when we left his office (late) on Friday, we walked towards Polanquito to see what we could find. There are lots of options in the neighborhood, from Bistro Bec to Butcher & Sons, but we eventually settled on a new one – at least new for us – La Única, right next door to one of our favorites for a special occasion, Dulce Patria. Of course, when I did a little reading online, I discovered that La Única has been open since 2014, so it appears that our idea of “new” was a little off-base.
We sat at one of the tables towards the front of the restaurant, facing the street, to take advantage of the wide open floor-to-ceiling windows and the afternoon breeze. Apparently the cocktail menu was being updated, so they didn’t have a menu to show us, but offered us a little “cocktail week” booklet to give us some ideas. We decided on a mezcal cocktail with agua de jamaica (sweetened and cooled hibiscus tea), which was very good.
The food is Mexican gourmet with a focus on dishes from the northern states – Nuevo Leon, Sinaloa and so on – so the menu features atropellado (dried meat in a spicy sauce), barbacoa (not to be confused with anything coated in barbecue sauce, barbacoa is meat that is slow cooked, traditionally in a pit over coals) and seafood. We ordered a grilled artichoke to start, which I loved. It’s served with fried leeks, sea salt, and spicy mayonnaise that we enjoyed so much, we scraped the first bowl clean and asked for a second.
After the artichoke, we ordered barbacoa, which was served in a hot stone bowl, and lit on fire with heated mezcal before being served – yes, those are flames you see in the picture! It was delicious, though we didn’t manage finish it – had to save room for dessert! We took the leftovers home to the dog, whose eyes just about popped out of his head when I gave them to him. In full disclosure – we also tried a roasted beet salad with goat cheese and croquets and we wouldn’t go back for those; I’m sure there are lots of tastier things on the menu to try next time.
Dessert for me was a salted caramel chocolate cake, which was basically a sugar bomb, if a delicious one. It was so sweet I couldn’t finish it, but I might have taken it home and eaten it at breakfast on Saturday morning… Mario’s guava cheesecake was good – or so he said, and I believe him because he ate the whole thing.
We lingered at the table for another hour after we finished eating, looking out at the street, chatting and sipping on our digestif. One of the great things about eating out in Mexico is that no one is ever in a hurry for you to leave, so there is no pressure from the waiters to take care of your bill until you ask for it. It was an unusually warm evening and after leaving we walked along Mazaryk and up to the huge new Palacio de Hierro on Moliere before heading back to the office to pick up the car and go home.
Location: Anatole France 98 Polanco, Ciudad de México