Friday, September 25, 2009

Anthony Bourdain - No Reservations - Mexico City

Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel is one of my favorite TV shows. Here's an episode from last year of him coming to Mexico City. He had David Lida, a great American journalist living here, as a behind the scenes consultant during the episodes.






During the episode, he visits the nearby state of Puebla and tries mole negro, a chocolate-chili sauce extremely famous here. Chicken with mole negro might be my favorite dish here.

My biggest criticism with the episode is that he doesn't visit any high-end restaurants in Mexico, even though he often visits several high-end restaurants in other cities. I think it's too simplistic when talking about food in Mexico to just focus on the street food or the simple family eateries, especially when earlier this year a Wall Street Journal reporter went to great lengths to highlight the amazing fine dining options here. I remember watching some idiot on 'Top Chef' once claiming that Mexican found cannot be haute cuisine. Fortunately, he didn't win, and fortunately for Chicagoans, there's some amazing high-end Mexican food in the city, most notably the restaurants of Rick Bayless. Unfortunately, even some Mexicans don't realize their food can be like this (I remember a student a month ago commenting to me that Mexican food can't possibly be gourmet).


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