The Place Where No One Knows My Name

So like every new place I go to, I like to find the community watering hole, where I can go and rub elbows with the people of the area. I found the establishment I was looking for in the centro de Tlalpan and it is called La Jalisciense.

La Jalisciense is a shot-gun bar with about 7 four person tables, and one big table where 10 people can sit towards the back. There is a little kitchen area connected to the entrance on the bar side where there will usually be a big pot with a soup or rice for the customers. There is also a comal to do some small cooking of meats and veggies. Like many other cantinas, when you come to this place and drink you will usually be offered a little snack (botanas) like raw veggies (carrots, cucumbers) with lime and ground chile or some chicharrones (pork rinds). Even when I don’t think I’m in the mood, I almost always end up eating this stuff.

I have recently commented on the lack of bar-service places in Mexico City where one can go up to the bar and drink. Though the tables are much more common, in La Jalisciense there is indeed counter service. The rub here is that there are no stools, so if you want to order at the bar you had to stand. I was cool with this minor inconvenience, because I figured if I didn’t drink at the bar, I would pass the whole night without saying a word to a single soul.

So, I ponyed up to the bar and order a Negra Modelo. This is one of my favorite Mexican beers because it has some flavor, but still retains that quality of a lighter beer. This beer is just what I needed after doing a whole lot of reading all day.

I drank my first beer and noticed that the guy next to me was eating some hot wings. I asked the bartender if they were serving food, and he said they had a nice “sopa de camaron” (shrimp soup) if I was hungry. I really wanted the hot wings, so I tried not to look too disappointed and politely declined the soup. Maybe noticing my disappointment or putting my accent together with the inclination of Americans and their hot-wings, he quickly offered me the wings which he thought were second rate compared to the soup. I said “yes” with all the excitement that the fat kid inside me (or outside depending on if you're cool or not) was trying to contain.

The next move was to order a nice tequila. I’d only had one since I’d been in Mexico City, and felt this was a shame. I ordered my usual Don Julio reposado and asked the bartender if he could do it bandera style. Having worked for a while on the other side of the bar, I know this can be a pain, but I waited for a calm moment, and order it only after I’d seen him make one earlier.

Bandera is probably my favorite way to drink tequila slowly. What you get with this preparation is a shot of limejuice a shot of the tequila of your choice, and a shot of sangrita. Sangrita can be made in different ways. Here at La Jalisciense, they used clamato, salt, pepper, jugo Maggie, and hot sauce. The three shots, lime (green), tequila (white) and sangrita (red) combine to form the colors of the Mexican flag, thus the name bandera.

There are many ways to drink this multi-coursed spirit. Here’s mine. First, you take a sip of the lime juice to awaken the palette; then, take a drink of the tequila, swashing it over the different taste buds then swallowing; finally, when you feel the warmth of the tequila going down your throat take a swallow of the sangrita. The sangrita is not supposed to act as a chaser, but rather more like a “re-setter” to get you and your palette ready for the next cycle of this process. The cool thing about drinking tequila this way is that by the end of the shot (or second or third) you are taking less of the lime and sangrita and just enjoying the tequila.

Speaking of tequila, I love tequila. It is a wonderful drink that I have always thought is quite magical in that it is a depressant, yet can stimulate the mind, body and conversation while at the same time loosening the moral constraints that we sometimes find ourselves in. However, tequila was not the only Mexican spirit I wanted to imbibe on this night. The Mezcal in the bar was calling my name.

Mezcal also originates from this wonderful country and it is a whole different animal. In trying to think of the difference between tequila and mezcal I could only, in my limited vocabulary, find the word “gamey” as an accurate adjective to describe the difference. Mezcal is more "gamey" than tequila. The same way one can taste a steak made of beef and a steak made of bison and know there is something very similar yet very different, I think one can similarly compare tequila and a lot of mezcals and differentiate them in the same way. Mezcal to me just has something a little wilder, less refined about it. This is not at all a judgment on quality. There are plenty of expensive, well-made mezcals, and to tell you the truth, I don’t know enough about this particular spirit to tell the difference. But there is something a little more “gamey” about this liquor.

The mezcal I had was “de la casa” (house mezcal) and I can’t quite remember the name, nor make out what it is from this photo. All I know is that I drank it a lot more slowly than I did the tequila and afterwards I felt like I had a little more “gitty-up” in my step.

By the time I had gotten to this hard liquor portion of the night, the bar had become packed with a variety of people old and young. I got up to chatting with a fellow who worked at U.N.A.M. With him, was his girlfriend/wife, who had just gotten back from doing some work in Europe. They asked me where I was from, what I was doing and the like. I told them about my project on food and how I was interested in the cultural differences between Mexican Americans and Mexicans. They seemed at first distant towards me, which I found odd because they were the ones that started talking to me first. I later figured out that they were in some sort of lover’s spat and I guess I was serving as a middle-man, keeping the peace and what not. I thought it entertaining the way they would give each other quick nasty glares, then turn to me, contrasting their emotions dramatically with a big smile and start making polite conversation with me asking me questions about my life and the such. I didn’t really mind because I was just happy to be talking to someone.

I left around midnight and walked home with a confident strut that came from the magic of the tequila and mezcal. On a “heavy” night like this one I had on Friday it is always nice when I get to the top of the hill where I am staying and see the gates to my casa in Mexico. When I see this picture I am assured that I’ve made it home, which in this huge, exciting city is always a bit of an accomplishment.