Tacos are everywhere in Mexico City, and though the options are many – chicken, al pastor, carnitas, carne asada – the basic ingredients tend to be the same wherever you go. That’s why, as we were walking the aisles of Tianguis La Raza on a Sunday morning, El Parrillón caught our attention. A big sign announced tacos – nothing new there – but besides the classic chicken and bistec, cecina and arrachera – all different cuts of beef – El Parrillón (roughly, “The Big Grill”) offers several Argentine-style sausages and cured meats, including chistorra, a small spicy sausage, and panceta, pork belly (like Italian pancetta), as well as Spanish chorizo, which, unlike the fresh Mexican sausage, is cured. But for us the real draw was griddled provolone, which we had never seen on a taco before and happens also to be one of our favorite cheeses.

.For the second installment in our Book Club series, we spoke to Lesley Téllez, author of Eat Mexico: Recipes from Mexico City's Streets, Markets & Fondas (Kyle Books, June 2015).

In a town that runs on tacos, tacos de guisado may be the most ubiquitous version of the iconic dish in Mexico City. They can be found almost anywhere in the city, from specialty restaurants to markets, tianguis and street vendors selling them at stalls or even out of the trunk of a car. It may be an obvious point, but what distinguishes some tacos de guisado from others is how well prepared the guisados (home-style cooked meats or vegetables typically displayed and kept warm in earthenware dishes called cazuelas) are – and sometimes those coming out of the back of a car top ones from more “established” places.

Here in Mexico City, there are many restaurantes yucatecos that serve the cooking of the Mayan states, including two of our favorites, Máare and Coox Hanal. And a few months ago, an eatery with a fresh take on Yucatecan food opened its doors in Colonia San Rafael. As its name indicates, Cochinita Power specializes in the region’s best-known dish, cochinita pibil. The traditional version consists of pork marinated in an acidic sauce made from achiote (annatto seeds) and Seville oranges, wrapped in banana leaves and roasted in an underground pit. At Cochinita Power, the meat is not roasted underground, but chef Alexis Estrada cooks the mouthwatering cochinita on the stovetop until the meat is incredibly tender and deeply imbued with all the spices and flavorings he adds to it.

Mexican cooking is clever. With just a handful of ingredients, each region of the country has managed to create a unique cuisine that reflects local lifestyles and traditions. This fact is made abundantly and deliciously clear at Con Sabor a Tixtla, a small, family-owned restaurant in Mexico City’s hip, vibrant Roma neighborhood. Located on a quiet street not far from Mercado Medellín, the restaurant specializes in food from Guerrero, a southwestern state – home to the famous resort town of Acapulco – known for its seafood and its green pozole, a meat and hominy stew that is one of Mexico’s most iconic dishes.

We’ve written about mole before, but it’s possible that there aren’t enough words to spill on such a complex dish – probably the most complex in all of Mexican cuisine. Mole has become part of the mainstream culinary scene in Mexico, and many restaurants now sell it every day of the year. However, very few places are mole-only eateries, and even fewer have a mole great enough to have sustained business for decades. One of our favorite eateries, Fonda Mi Lupita, a small fonda in the Centro Histórico that started making mole in 1957, holds that rare distinction.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’ve heard about drinks in Mexico called “aguas frescas,” but what exactly are they? Visitors to Mexico are sure to encounter aguas frescas, a popular category of drinks that are ubiquitous at food stands and eateries around the country. These colorful beverages, whose name literally means “fresh waters,” come in a variety of different flavors depending on the main ingredient, but generally all are made by mixing a fruit juice with water and sugar.

The cuisine of Mexico City has long been influenced not only by waves of international immigrants but also by regional cooking from around the country. In the mid-20th century particularly, droves of workers and their families, lured by economic opportunities, arrived in the Distrito Federal from every corner of Mexico, bringing their local customs and food traditions with them and greatly enriching both the city’s culture and its culinary scene.

A foodie friend of ours took us to El Caguamo – aka K-guamo – for the first time a few years ago, promising us that this was the best marisquería (seafood restaurant) in the city. And since then, it has become one of our favorite downtown stops. For almost 40 years, the Tamariz family has been selling tasty shellfish and seafood on the sidewalk of Ayuntamiento Street, just a couple of blocks away from San Juan market in the heart of Mexico City.

Update: This spot is sadly no longer open. The tianguis, or street market, has been an essential part of Mexican culture since pre-Hispanic times. In Mexico City, every neighborhood has at least one weekly tianguis, most selling produce, fish, meat and household goods, so families can buy all they need for the week in a single place. All of these markets, large or small, have one thing in common: an abundance of street food stands. Many of these vendors move around the city with the markets, and some have become so well-loved that neighborhood residents eagerly await the day of their local tianguis so they can enjoy tasty food served streetside.

Sitting on the boardwalk of Veracruz, about five or six hours east of Mexico City, we watch the blinking lights of shrimp and fish boats in the farthest distance, knowing our next dinner is on its way. A day before, arriving from the bus, all we wanted was especially satisfying seafood, and the hunt brought us downtown, which, in the past, has always provided. Veracruz is a warm harbor, embracing all comers and proposing excellent food and endless dancing into the night on the city’s street corners. Or that’s how we remembered it.

Like other cities around the world, Mexico City has been flooded with big-name chain coffee shops that charge exorbitant prices for a cup of bad coffee. Fortunately, D.F. is a city of contrasts, where good taste in coffee still exists. We set out to find the best coffee shops in town and were surprised by what we found. Our first stop was one coffee shop we have been visiting for several years now, Café Triana, inside Mercado San Juan, the city’s first gourmet stop par excellence. Marilu and Pablo Arana started selling coffee from Veracruz, a city on the Gulf of Mexico with a Caribbean feel, in the aisles of the market until they got the chance to get a booth and start their own coffee shop. Their establishment has since been featured in many national and international media outlets.

As with so many of the world’s great cuisines, Mexican cooking makes the most of every part of the animal, and for many of us culinary adventurers, beef cabeza, or head, is the source of some of the tastiest meat you can find in a tortilla. We’d been on the lookout for the best tacos de cabeza in the city, and we think we’ve finally found them.

Update: This spot is sadly no longer open. True to its name, Mexico City’s Centro Histórico is full of history everywhere you look. Walking its cobblestone streets guarded by historic buildings, some 500 years old, is always a great learning experience for us. On one of our recent walks through this amazing part of the city, we stumbled upon one building that caught our attention. First of all, there was a sign at the entrance that said that José Martí, Cuban poet, writer, philosopher and revolutionary leader, lived in the building at the end of the 19th century.

In our recent explorations of Mexico City’s Azcapotzalco neighborhood, we were taken to a taquería that was going to “blow our minds,” according to our host. After having some drinks at El Dux de Venecia, the oldest surviving cantina in the city, we headed around the corner to Los Parados de Pepe for a visit.