Amuse bouche at Casona La  Yucateca Photo by Alex Uballez

It was a gastronomically exciting time to be in Mexico City. On the one hand are traditional restaurants and street foods, and on the other, places that serve light, well-conceived and respectful versions of traditional dishes. Case in point are two restaurants that feature the food of Yucatan: Hanal’ku and Casona La Yucateca.

Pan de Cazon at hanal Ku

At the first, we enjoyed traditionally prepared dishes such as sopa de lima (sorry no photo), a chicken soup seasoned with lima, a citrus fruit not available here at all …yet. The closest I can describe the flavor is like grapefruit juice with squirt of lime.

Salbutees con Relleno Negro

The salbutes, puffy fried masa “sopes” topped with pork in relleno negro, an intense sauce made with several blackened ingredients, pan de cazon, a casserole made with fried tortillas filled with baby shark in a tomato sauce, and papadzules, hard-boiled egg filled soft corn tortillas swimming in a luscious pumpkin seed sauce. Everyone agreed that I picked the winning entree: Pokchuk. A citrusy grilled pork cutlet

Dessert

The most fun was the dessert, a crispy crepe-like pastry rolled around Edam cheese. The ice creams were sensational and they have a surprising banana soft drink.

CASONA LA YUCATECA

La Casona La Yucateca features several dishes that reflect the Lebanese influence in the cuisine: The first thing on the table was a light as air braided bread topped with what I think is the sauce normally served on papadzules and four sauces ranging from hot, hotter, hottest, and unbearable, to me anyway.

There was also kibbee with crunchy pumpkin seeds (the seed of choice in the region,)

hummus made with pumpkin seeds served with delightful paper-thin pita triangles, tabuli (sorry no picture here). There was also a very good octopus “ceviche” (not a true ceviche because the octopus is cooked in water not in lime juice) and an excellent zik here madewith beef instead of the traditional venison. We were too full to do justice to the exceptional turkey (another traditional ingredient in the region) relleno negro and did not taste the desserts.

I had been there in March when it was still in baby stages. The food was good but not yet up to this level and the service was a disaster. Now everything is running smoothly. I recommend it highly.