Mexico, mi amor

One way to fall in love with a new city is through its food, which is how it worked in our case with Mexico City when we visited it last Spring. We especially enjoyed the street food, specifically the tacos and chilaquiles, which excelled both in terms of flavor and price. 

Chicken in Mole sauce at Villa Maria

The most memorable fine-dining experience was at Villa Maria, which is where I tried mole chicken (chocolate-based sauce) for the first time while watching a Mariachi band. While somewhat touristy for my taste, it was worth it, for mostly the live music. The food wasn't terrible.   

Enchiladas in verde salsa

Flan

Some of the fancier neighborhoods like Polanco or La Condesa boast high-end, yuppie restaurants that you might want to treat yourself to at some point during your trip. We tried multiple such places for brunch and dinner, including Madre Cafe and a Latin-Asian fusion restaurant whose name escapes me, where I had a delicious baos with crunchy crab, along with dumplings with mole sauce, and a whole crispy red snapper in a sweet and sour sauce. All dishes were well executed, and we loved the flavors. 

Another of my favorite meals in the city were the enchiladas. Enchiladas, a traditional dish, are stuffed corn tortillas, mostly with a protein and served in copious amount of a savory sauce of your choice (red/roja or green/verde) with grated cheese on top. To my palate, this dish resembled an Indian curry due to the salsa. We had it several times during our short visit.   

Finally, owing to not having a much of a sweet tooth, I am usually not very curious about desserts. But I did try Mexican flan, mostly because it resembled caramel pudding, one of my favorite Indian dishes along with guava pastries. The flan didn't disappoint me with respect to taste (well sugar never does!) although I preferred it in street shops more than dine-in restaurants. 

All in all, this trip was worth it for the food alone. 

Southeast Impressions - A Southeast Asian restaurant in Fairfax, Virginia

Red snapper curry with Chicken Mi goreng

Southeast Impressions
9530 Fairfax Blvd, Fairfax, VA 22031 ·
Rating: 2/5.

Southeast Impressions, a newly opened restaurant in Fairfax, Virginia, specializes in cuisines from Southeast Asia (mostly Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean). Unlike Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants, Malaysian restaurants are rare in the NOVA region. Although I was delighted to discover this place and visited it twice so that I could try more dishes, it did not meet my expectations and the experience wasn't a memorable one. 

 The roti canai (fried bread) generally served with a chicken curry from what I have seen in other Malaysian restaurants, was served with lentils cooked with vegetables, similar to the South Indian-style sambar curry. It wasn't particularly flavorful and personally I did not feel it was even worth it's price.  

Laksa curry

Of the two curries we tried, the laksa curry was with noodles at the bottom was served with a decent helping of protein in the form of scallop, shrimp, egg and chicken. But the flavors were mediocre, and the seafood did not taste very fresh. The duck curry was very disappointing in terms of the portion of protein especially when I compare it to other Asian restaurants. The red snapper cooked with gravy and basil was one of the most expensive dishes on the menu. Although the portions were generous, it neither tasted fresh nor was seasoned sufficiently. 

We also tried their Mie Goreng, Malaysia style fried rice with egg, veggies, chicken and shrimp. This rice dish was by far the best of the dishes we tried. 

All in all, this restaurant offered a great ambience for dining and the service was decent, but I thought it fell short in terms of flavor and the quality of the food, especially for the price. With these issues, I have to give this place a score of 2 out of 5, and I do not want to visit it again.