RASPBERRY ROSE SUGAR COOKIES

and a visit to Mexico City

May 22, 2025

When I think about my ideal vacation, it involves spending 16 hours a day exploring a new city. I love familiarizing myself with a place’s public transit and zipping from neighborhood to neighborhood, filling the week with museums, food, parks, and shops. My boyfriend, Niko, on the other hand, much prefers a vacation on which he stations himself in a lounge chair on a beach and relaxes the day away.

To satisfy both of us, we’ve developed a system where we take turns selecting destinations and planning itineraries. Last year, Niko brought us to Puerto Vallarta, where we spent days sprawled out on the sand, and nights packed like sardines into gay bars. This year, I wanted to revisit Mexico in a more active way, so I dragged us to Mexico City for a week spent on our feet.

us bopping from place to place to place!

We trekked from library to temple to museum, stopping often for snacks in between. I received so many great recommendations for delicious spots to hit that it was impossible to get to them all, but we sure as hell tried, devouring taco after tostada after quesadilla. I’ve probably eaten more pork in the past week than I had in the entire year preceding.

Though we had perfect bites at nearly every place we hit, I thought it would be fun to count down my five favorite meals from the trip.

So without further ado…

1. Odette

Odette is a perfect little bakery, nestled a block away from Parque México (a perfect spot to sit on a bench and gorge on pastries). If I didn’t have a list of 10+ bakeries to try, I would’ve hit this one every morning. Niko and I spent the week trying guava pastry after guava pastry, but Odette’s crujiente de guayaba was by far our favorite. It was fluffy and packed with guava flavor, without being sogged down by wet jam or cheese, perhaps my favorite bite of the entire trip!

2. Baldio

A delightful restaurant that prides itself on being extremely seasonal and zero waste. The menu is constantly changing to suit what is available from the network of farmers they work with. A lot of the cocktails use fermentation or infused syrups to ensure that every part of every vegetable or fruit is being used. I had an incredible corn-forward drink that utilized a miso made from corn kernels, a syrup made from the cobs and silk, and a sugar smoked in the charred husks. Half the fun of the meal is cracking the puzzle to see where each part of each ingredient is used on the menu.

3. Mi Compa Chava

Niko hates seafood, and that is the only reason I would ever break up with him (he, rightfully, has a much longer list of reasons to dump me). Normally, I’m quite good and patient about it, gently tucking away my dreams of ordering a whole grilled fish or the romantic thoughts of splitting a bowl of mussels and French fries, but when enough people told me I had to hit Mi Compa Chava, I had to put my foot down.

They have seafood in just about every form, but we opted for a sampler with tuna, yellowtail, crab claws, octopus, and pickled and poached shrimp. It was all doused in a variety of sauces and salsas, making for a delicious, sweet, and spicy bite. Shockingly, Niko played along and choked down a few shrimp to appease me—I think he might have even enjoyed them a little.

4. Masala y Maíz

Masala y Maíz fuses South Asian, East African, and Mexican cuisines to build a menu that feels extremely personal and important to the chefs. From the samosas to the paratha quesadilla to the pipián paneer, each dish blended cultures, resulting in flavors unlike anything I’ve ever had. The restaurant is built on its belief that food and social justice exist hand in hand, which burns bright in every aspect of the experience. A good meal is delicious, but a great one can really leave you reeling for days, which is how I felt after eating here.

5. Tacos! Tacos! And a quesadilla!

While all the other food I’ve eaten the past week has been outstanding, my favorite bites have been all the tacos we’ve nibbled on in between visits to stores or museums. From street vendors to fine-dining restaurants with a taqueria attached, every bite of tortilla we had the whole trip was immaculate.

I figured I’d highlight a few of my favorite tacos (and in one case, a quesadilla) that we had. This is certainly cheating because it isn’t one specific spot, but my blog, my rules.

The Al Pastor from Taquería Las Rejas was a standout. You can get little mini tacos, so this is the perfect snack after a morning spent walking around the Anthropology Museum or the Botanic Garden.

After a day spent exploring a few different neighborhoods, we popped into Maizajo for some longanisa and fried chicken tacos. We got to stand right in front of the flattop and watch the well-oiled machine of the team making tortillas and grilling meat.

Our other favorite was a quesadilla we had from a street vendor named Elenita, stuffed with cheese and squash blossoms. She made each tortilla to order and has specific salsas to pair with each filling, making for the perfect bite.

Now that I’ve hit you with an eating itinerary for the next time you find yourself in Mexico City, let’s get into this week's recipe… which has nothing to do with what you’ve read so far.

I’m continuing with my May flowers theme, despite how rainy, cold, and dreary it has been in New York this month. It seems April showers have just brought May showers…

This week’s recipe is the perfect springtime cookie. I start with a soft sugary base, flavored lightly with some rose water. The dough is then rolled in a freeze-dried raspberry sugar mixture to make a spring snickerdoodle of sorts. The final result is a perfectly pink cookie with a tangy crusty outside and a soft, floral middle. They’ll make your kitchen smell like the garden, even if it’s grey and drizzling outside.

THE RECIPE