Covadonga

My tour of D.F.’s hip bar scene continued on Friday night when I spent an evening at Covadonga, a Spanish style restaurant that’s basement turns into a full-on bar at night. From what I’ve read and heard about Covadonga it’s one of those places that many claim they “used to go to before it got popular.” However, from what I saw, Covadonga still seems like a pretty cool place to be as wellas a cool place to be seen.

My buddy Emilio and I arrived to this bar around 8pm and decided to get a little food. The restaurant is Spanish but like any establishment its environment is evident in everything. I looked at the menu and saw what I thought to be Spanish dishes. My rationale went something like this “Well all these words are in Spanish, but I don’t recognize any of them so it must be Spanish.” The Spanish dish we ended up getting was called Chistorra. This is a Spanish style sausage, and it is available in a white cheese (I think Panela).

Chistorra may sound exotic, but in the end it is exactly what it sounds like, sausage in melted white cheese. It was good, but because I rarely get to do this, I have to say that I believe this Spanish food was quite “Mexicanized."* This Mexicanized Spanish dish came with a red salsa and tortillas (Mexican style not Spanish). These sides, tortillas and salsa, I’m pretty sure, are not characteristic of Spanish food. However this lack of adherence to authenticity did not stop Emilio and I from devouring this dish because it was good and we were hungry. The food came with white bread that we dipped into the salsa, and later in the meal we got some beer nuts.

Halfway through our night we got a Spanish style tortilla which is kind of like a quiche. Ordering this dish created the awkward moment where the Mexican tortilla was next to the Spanish tortilla as if they had mistimed their appearances and ended up at the same place. This reminded me of the first time Emilio (the “real” Mexican) and I (the “real” Mexican in my group of friend) first met, and I had to become the Tejano in the group. Maybe the Spanish style tortilla and Mexican tortilla will go on to be good friends too. Moving on from the food.

Covadonga is a good example of one of the big differences that I have begun to notice between D.F. bars and the one’s I am used to frequenting in the U.S. This difference is based in the popularity of “table service” over “bar service” in the choice of community watering holes.In my well researched experiences in the U.S. bar culture I have noticed that most places in the U.S. have a bar that one can go to, sit and get a beverage alone with regularity.** This is not so in Mexico City. In D.F. it is much more common in a cantina (bar) to sit down at a table. In fact I have yet to see a place with a bar that people are occupying. The actual “bar” part of the bar is used more for functionality and rarely has stools.

These “barless bars” have both their advantages and disadvantages. One point for the Mexico City style bars is that conversation among big groups is much more manageable. Anyone who has ever sat at a bar knows how getting stuck next to someone you don’t want to talk to, can make for a bad experience. In a Mexico City bar one can navigate amongst many conversations, or just have one big conversation (except if you’re on the end, then tough luck).

On the other hand, the beauty of bar service is that you always know there will be at least one person that you can talk to… the bartender. Servers rarely are able to offer the same kind of conversation that a bartender can offer which makes sitting at a table alone as lonely an experience as it looks. Luckily, my experiences in Mexico City have so far always been with other people making this a moot point, however I’m sure soon enough I will make an awkward move and pony up to a bar by myself and see what happens.

Back to Covadonga. The large room with neon lights and large tables, some adorned with white table cloths, reminded me of a High School cafeteria. Although, this particular cafeteria was way cooler and had much more alcohol flowing through it than my high school, it still had this “clique-ish” feeling. At one table you could see all the “emo” kids with their piercings, tight jeans and framed glasses; across from them were the old men playing dominoes; and at another table you saw the business types getting stoned on their tonic and gin.

However, where in high school this all combined for an uncomfortable feeling, here it mixed into a really exciting place to drink. The myriad of people created a feeling of community within the large room. The countless conversations in the room combined to form a pub like soundtrack in a bar that was absent of music. I was happy to be here and my company made it better.

The people I was sitting with were my buddy Emilio’s friends from college. They were good examples of the type of people you might run into in Covadonga. They had all gone to the important D.F. college Colegio de Mexico (COLMEX) with the exception of Paul, who went to U.N.A.M arguably the most important university in the country.

As I talked to this group in my accented Spanish, I learned that they came from a variety of jobs. In the group there were government workers, freelance writers, artists, graphic designers and students. What’s more is that they all had something interesting to say about everything. We talked about food, the U.S., Haiti, World Cup, violence in Peru as well as Paul the octopus.

I took it all in, and by the time it was 2:30 am my body was buzzed, my Spanish was broken and I was ready to leave the bar. We got into a cab to take us home. As we drove down Insurgentes I could see one of Mexico City’s multiple business districts with tall buildings, and countless stores. Along the street I sawpanaderias (bakeries) taco restaurants, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, malls, banks, and much more all packed side by side. But it seemed neither Mexican nor American but rather something altogether unique. And as we drove home that night I couldn’t help but feel like I was in the future. A place that had gotten so big so fast, that modernity and tradition were struggling to fit together side-by-side. Or maybe I just had a few too many beers.