Service in restaurants in Mexico City is, to say the least, idiosyncratic. The other day I went to a place called Matisse in the Colonia Condesa. There were various salads on the menu, and I asked the waiter if they were appetizers or main courses. He looked at me with an inscrutable expression for a long minute, as if trying to figure out what I had really meant by asking that question. Finally, he said, "yes."
What century is this?
This photo was taken the other day across the street from the Alameda Central.
The same, but cheaper
The owner of the chain, Victor González Torres, is widely ridiculed in Mexico City, which sometimes puzzles me. Prescription medication is prohibitively expensive for most of the population here, and only sporadically available at clinics. So you might think that selling drugs cheaply would qualify someone as a hero. However, as a public figure, González Torres has not helped his own cause. For the longest time, he tended to appear in his own advertising billboards, alongside eye-candy “actresses” of the has-been or never-were variety, who were widely referred to as Simichicas. (The same but cheaper?)
To make matters worse, in 2006, failing to consolidate an agreement with any political party, he ran for president as a write-in candidate. The best he could say for himself during the campaign was that he was using his own money to run, rather than public funds, to which the established parties are entitled. Thus, he was Mexico’s “cheapest” candidate. Beyond members of his own family, he didn’t garner many votes. Wags said that if he’d won, we’d have ended up with a simicountry – the same, but cheaper.
Insecurity
Last Saturday, August 30, approximately 100,000 people marched in downtown Mexico City, protesting the climate of danger and mayhem that is plaguing Mexico today. While it is true that there is an incredible amount of violence related to drug trafficking (almost all of it in cities along the border), drug traffickers, soldiers and cops – who are sometimes indistinguishable – have been very good at keeping the violence among themselves, with only the occasional tragic civilian fatality. My research (outlined in the crime chapter of my book First Stop in the New World) indicates that the perception of danger in Mexico (particularly Mexico City) is far worse than the reality. About half of national TV news broadcasts are devoted to crime and violence, as if nothing else of importance was happening in the entire country.
daniel-hernandez-marcha3
Photo by Daniel Hernandez (see link to his blog on list of Friends at the right-hand side of the page)
Here in the capital, murders, and even deaths related to traffic accidents – incidents that in most cities would be relegated to the Police Blotter in the newspaper – are given front-page treatment in the tabloids, with headlines in 72-point type and graphic, bloody photos. Don’t get me wrong. Mexico City is a tough town, and you have to watch your back here, much as you would in any big city. But according to FBI homicide statistics you are more likely to be murdered in Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Philadelphia, Dallas, Las Vegas, or any number of other U.S. cities than in Mexico City.
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Insecurity is big business here – people make a lot of money from sales of armored cars, construction of panic rooms, and a whole menu of “risk management” services (from screening bodyguards to the negotiation of kidnappings). Above is a photo of Miguel Caballero, the only boutique in the world which sells exclusively bullet-proof fashions, located in the posh Polanco district of the city. When I interviewed one of the owners of the store (who are Colombian), he admitted that Mexico City was a “paradise” compared to other, much more dangerous places (he mentioned Israel as an example). He said they opened the store here because business in Colombia had slowed down 60 per cent in recent years, as that country has become much safer. He wouldn’t cop to taking advantage of Mexico City residents’ exaggerated fear, though. “Sadly,” he conceded, “the weakness of some is an opportunity for others.”
Chinatown puto
In Mexico, the harshest slang word for a homosexual is puto. Therefore, if you are ever in New York with a Mexican, it is always an easy laugh to take him to Chinatown, where you can pass by this store, which offers the Far Eastern version of puto.
Nonetheless, in all the years I divided my time between Mexico City and New York, it never occurred to me to actually go inside and ask anyone what Chinese puto is. On my last trip I did.
The cakes inside the plastic boxes, which are of a jelly-like consistency and look like they would be the preferred meal for a baby, someone over 90 years old, or a space mutant, are made of puto.
When I saw this man sitting inside the store, I was hoping that he would be able to tell me something more about puto, but I was afraid that he would turn out to be a recent Fujianese immigrant with no English skills. It turned out that he spoke with a thicker New York accent than my late Aunt Sadie, who was born and raised on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. He told me that puto is sweet. I asked if it was eaten as dessert. “Some people do it that way,” he said. “But a lot of people mix it up for breakfast with salty sliced pork. That’s the good stuff.”