dining in Mexico City
 

Just visited Mexico City for the the first time with a couple of friends and was pleasantly surprised by the great dining experiences. We stayed in the nice part of town in the Palanco district at the new W hotel. The first night we went to a nuvo-mexican restaurant called Aguila y Sol which was a new chic restaurant with excellent service. We weren't allowed to bring our own wine but the food and service made up for this. I highly recommend the Duck Mole It was the best thing on the menu and I was fighting off the forks of my fellow diners.
The next night we went to a French Restaurant called Estoril which was right next to the hotel. We all ordered the Chateubriand and opened a bottle of Schafer Hillside Select 1996 (no corkage). The meal was great and the wine even better. We started dinner at 10:30pm and didn't leave until almost 1pm after one of us had ran up to our room and grabbed another bottle of wine.
Good trip.

I agree that dining in Mexico is excellent. Especially, dining in upscale places can be quite an experience, although a visit to Mexico would not be complete without a visit to a taquería late at night. ^

Best meal in Mexico City is at my mother-in-law's house - she makes me chile rellenos and chicken mole (real mole from scratch!!!) every time we visit :D

For restaurants I'm partial to El Cardenal for brunch.
www.elcardenal.com.mx

Have you seen her do the mole? It can be a bit strange because of the ingredients: chile, chocolate, tortillas. The strangest twist (this coming fom a Mexican Chef) is adding a croissant... But the result is worth it.

I've only seen parts of the mole operation in the kitchen because I'm usually out in the living room sipping high quality tequila with my brothers-in-law and watching a soccer match on TV. I do know she uses something like two dozen different ingredients to make the sauce and there's a lot of grinding and pounding of spices in her stone molcajete. Haven't seen a croissant though.

However if she's feeling lazy she will start with the mole base (she uses Abuelita) that you can buy at the store and then doctor it up from there. But for me she makes the real thing.

What about:

-For brunch we went to the top floor of a hotel on Zocalo .... food was O.K., view, ambiance was just great!
-We like Restaurant San Angel. Again, food O.K., but perfect ambiance

BTW, we went to some other restaurants, some of them expensive, famous ... at non of them we had real great food. I assume, Mexicans like to overcook the food a little .... :)
The food at the "House of Tiles" (Casa Azuleo?) was lousy!

Ugh, that's just a Sanborn's.... and a bad one, too!! Like El Cochinito recommended, you should have gone to El Cardenal, around the corner from there...

That's the Sanborns de los Azulejos. The food is generally bad and has gotten worse but in some other locations they do some mean chilaquiles. The other one is called San Anel Inn, I assume.

I guess you don't really like the type of food.

Hacienda de los Morales is absolutely superb in mexico. Especially late at night with good company.

I think the restaurant someone mentioned was San Angel inn. I think it's a really nice restaurant altough it's more about ambience than food there. Quite enjoyable though.

Polanco in general has some awesome restuarants. For the person who wants to party a bit i can recommend Mezza Notte in Polanco. After 11 PM the women starts dancing on the tables (and i mean this literally).

I tend to stay at the JW marriott. The food sucks but the location is quite alright.

The Cambalache by the University is very good. I like the fried potatoes and the tenderloin.

There is also a chain from Guadalajara called Los Arcos which I enjoy for sea food.

The best part about Mexico is the service. You are treated like a king. I think this makes the food even better.

By far, my favorite thing to do in Mexico is eat out.