Oaxaca Post Day 2

Here's the patio from our AirBnB. IT was a sick spot, and had beautiful plants.

 Oh my god, why won't blogger let you position the photos better! This is ridic. Oh well, let's get into early 2000s nostalgia for this look

Patio pic. More after the jump.

NM will appreciate this picture, he recommended In Situ to us for mezcal. That's the owner Ulises who I surreptitiously snapped. We had a great night there. They were playing really good music, instead of the grunge that some other places tended to play. 

I learned a bit about mezcal on this trip, but on this second night I knew nothing, and In Situ repackages most of the mezcal into their own bottles so that made it even harder to choose. The bartender gave us recommendations.

The next morning in a series of misadventures we ended up running back to Tacos del Carmen to get some to go so that we could be on time for this English-language botanical garden tour. Let me tell you a taco filled with soupy chicken guisado does not make a great snack on the go! 

This garden is 20 years old, and was created on some adjoining grounds to a past monastery. The government wanted to turn it into a parking lot, but the arts community, led by local artist Francisco Toledo (who died a few months ago- the tour guide got choked up talking about how important he was to the community) resisted and led to the creation of this garden.

 Here's smiller posing for his contemplative Instagram shot

We were ready for lunch after that. It took us a few days to adapt to the idea that lunch is eaten at like 3. A local business owner (who had emigrated from Canada) had to explain it to us. Dinner is at 9-ish. It's hard to wait until that late!

This is a tlayuda from Dona Maria, which is one of the late night spots near us that I mentioned. It's hard to tell what its hours are but it seems to be open (but with no customers) around 5pm, and is maybe open all night some nights. Again, this was a very simple dish with just fresh cheese (I chose that over the shredded kind), a smear of black beans and good salsa.

For dinner we got reservations at a fancy place that had turned us away the night before. It's called Casa Oaxaca, I think there are three of them. One other one is out of Centro and one had a mysterious, exclusive looking entrance. We went to what seems like the most well-known one. The patio is beaitufl and the food was really good. Of course I had to get the veal tongue with caper mole sauce because they said it is usually only served at weddings and that pulled me in. 

This is the Templo de San Domingo De Guzman (the main church in the centro). I tried to capture how bright the moon was! Why did I think that sentence needed an exclamation point? Not sure.

Cortija La Mezcaleria ended up as our favorite mezcal spot. It has a dope patio as well. 

I finally got to try pulque, in all it's kinda-slimy, kinda-stinky glory. I tried to go to a pulqueria in Mexico City but it seemed intimidating so I didn't enter. We ended the night here.