Mexico City, Day 3 - art, Pujol & beer

The day began with finding some postcards and mailing them from the downtown postal palace, then getting an Uber down to MUAC - the University Museum of Contemporary Art. The space is full of light and wonderfully creative exhibits.

MUAC lobby

One of the exhibits, by Ben Vautier, challenged what art could be, and wondered how to change art.

Ben Vautier exhibit

Another exhibit, by Francis Alÿs, showed videos of children playing in countries around the world over a 20-year period. It was delightful, but also sad, as you see the final ones in war-torn countries.

On our way back up to lunch, we saw pillars covered with hanging plants, which I discovered was called the Via Verde:

Via Verde

The plants and project are somewhat controversial, as they are beautiful and a nice step in the right direction to "make a gray city green," but others have pointed out that it's an example of greenwashing and doesn't really help the city alleviate its dependency on cars and gas. Very interesting.

A late lunch included one of the aims of our trip, and in fact we scheduled the entire trip around the reservation availability: Pujol. 

The meal was truly worth the trip - novel takes on classic Mexican regional favorites, all of which were delicious. Dave's favorite course was a mind-bending mole, presented simply with some tortillas for dipping. One was a fresh mole, the other aged and revived over +3,000 days. Wow!

Dessert at Pujol

The restaurant deserves a Michelin star, but apparently no Mexican restaurants have one - which seems fairly shocking and problematic. 

We also visited Que Bo! around the corner, a vibrant chocolate shop where we bought a couple of truffles to go. Far too hot that day to take any home.

From there, no more food, but we did want to taste some more drinks. First stop was Almacén Monstruo de Agua, a brewpub with nice local beers, and also some food if you are hungry (which we were not).

Beer flight at Almacen del Monstruo

Not far was another brewery, La Roma, which seemed to be on a fairly hopping street. Then we walked to Vigneron, a spot with great wines. We were able to be on the sidewalk seating in the cool night air.