Neveria, si; pasteleria, no

I am not a fan of Mexican bread. It’s often too dry or too sweet or not sweet enough. I’ve had nothing approaching the heft of a hearty, levain-type bread, what MFK Fisher likes to call “honest bread,” or the delicate crackle of a perfect croissant, or even the homey, soothing quality of super-soft Korean white bread. Most Mexican breads improve greatly upon being dipped in hot chocolate, which is almost always served with any sweetish bread, or “pan dulce.” Still, one can only drink so much hot chocolate, and I miss the excellent toast I normally have for breakfast every morning in NY, along with my favorite butter from Sahadi’s. (When I found little diner packets of Lurpak butter, which isn’t even my favorite, at El Cafecito in Puerto Escondido, I emptied the entire basket into my purse.)



Still, I wanted to see the Pasteleria Ideal in Mexico City. Another old-school place in the Centro Historico, it opened in 1927, but with more gilt-edged elegance than the Churreria “El Moro.” You enter into a large room with majestically high ceilings. You could be in a faded ballroom, except there are trays and trays of donuts, muffins, pastries, and rolls lined up in arrays before you. On Sunday morning, there were wheeled racks of breads being rolled around, nearly blocking the grand staircase, but the sign unequivocally declared that the second floor was the exhibition room for cakes.



Nearly every cake was at least 3 tiers tall—wedding cakes, baby cakes, First Communion cakes. Shrek was clearly, peculiarly popular, as were other cartoon characters. Nearly every cake also had icicles of hardened frosting dripping from each tier. One cake was almost twice as tall as Erin. Mona and Leslie, who make hand-made cookies and truffles that look like they came from a machine, must be rubbing off on me, because all I could think was how sloppy they looked. Erin took some fantastic pictures and I’m glad I went, but I can’t even remember what kind of bread I ate. All the chowhounds who are in awe of Ideal should get on a plane to Korea and go to the basement food wonderland of any upscale department store.



But Mexican ice cream, or nieve, that I truly love and respect as something I have never had before and will likely never have outside Mexico. The Roxy Neveria in Condesa is a legend, too, with the look of an American soda shop, with its striped awning and white-lettered list of flavors, except American shops generally don’t have the Virgin Mary hanging behind the counter.



It was clearly beloved by the Mexican families who double-parked to jump in for a cone or a cup. It was so beloved by me, that after eating my first cone of “nuez de macadamia,” I went back and had a second cone of “rompope.” The macadamia was wonderful, so nutty and rich but also pure, like fresh milk. The rompope, which I ordered because I didn’t know the flavor, a Mexican eggnog spiked with rum, I didn’t like as much, but it was surely not regrettable.



I hesitated for a bit before my second cone, but I felt it was the only fair way to treat my body, as I had just had a very bland meal at a health food store/restaurant across the corner. It was the kind of health food that used to plague America—so tasteless, even a vigorous shake of the salt on the table couldn’t save it. When I ordered my second cone, the boy at the counter urged me to go back to my table and sit down, as he would bring it to me directly. People can be so sweet when they realize how much you love to eat.