Whenever we explore a neighborhood in the city, we look for the tianguis: local markets that serve as a very important part of life in Mexico. Almost everything needed for a household can be found in their narrow and colorful aisles. Mercado San Cosme is the tianguis in Colonia San Rafael, a beautiful and charming neighborhood that was established in the late 19th century as one of the first formal communities outside of the city center. In the Porfirio Díaz era, San Rafael catered to the wealthy, and the beautiful buildings and façades that still grace the streets there speak to those long-ago days of glory.

Immigration between the U.S. and Mexico has long been thought of as a one-way phenomenon, but global economic upheaval and other factors have made the neighbor to the south the new Land of Opportunity. As a recent New York Times article put it, for the first time “more Americans have been added to the population of Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have been added to the population of the United States.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in Mexico City, where immigrants come not just from the U.S. or other parts of Mexico, but also Argentina, Spain, Korea – everywhere, really. And these immigrants have brought with them a new world of excellent dining options.

Milky, tart, viscous and slightly foamy. At first glance and sip, there’s little to explain why pulque – a mildly alcoholic drink made by fermenting the fresh sap of certain types of maguey, the same plant used for making mezcal – has remained a trusted companion to Mexican drinkers since Aztec times. Pulque, actually, has not only survived, but, after decades of losing ground to beer and soft drinks and their high-priced marketing campaigns, this workingman’s brew is making a comeback. New pulquerías are popping up in hip Mexico City neighborhoods and attracting a younger crowd while old pulquerías, which endured some lean times, are seeing an influx of new customers, who now sit side-by-side with older generations of loyal pulque drinkers. Nobody really seems to know why the previously unheralded nectar has been getting this much attention in the last few years, but several places around town have been capitalizing on this new trend with great success.

Editor’s note: We regret to report that Spice Everywhere has closed. It didn’t take long after arriving from Chicago a decade ago for Juliet Lambert to figure out what was the gaping hole in Mexico City’s otherwise rich culinary scene: an American-style brunch spot. The chef went on to start Spice, a catering company, but earlier this year was able to come up with the answer to the brunch problem when she launched Spice Everywhere, a roving pop-up that is bringing hashbrowns and waffles to the land of the tortilla.

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.

Update: This spot is sadly no longer open. On a quiet street in Cuauhtémoc, just blocks away from some of Mexico City’s most recognizable landmarks, a slick, colorful sign and unusual name – Comichurros & Empanadas – call out loudly for attention. Inside, the place buzzes with youthful energy and social media and branding savvy: the walls are boldly decorated with floor-to-ceiling drawings of superheroes, onomatopoeic sound effects both old and new (“BAM! THWOK! CHURROS!”) and signs offering customers free churros in exchange for likes, check-ins and tweets. This is an eatery for the 21st century.

Walking into La Corte is like stepping into the 1950s. At this no-frills fonda, located in downtown Mexico City by the Supreme Court (hence the name), customers perch on red vinyl seats at laminate tabletops or along the counter and read their newspapers, the tableware and lighting are utilitarian, and the décor is minimal: just a few televisions with fútbol on and the sound off. The color flat screens might be the only indication that this is, indeed, the 21st century.

Making mixiote takes some effort. On its home turf in Central Mexico, the dish is made by taking chicken, beef or mutton that is seasoned with pasilla and guajillo chili peppers as well as flavorings like thyme, cumin, bay leaves, oregano, onion and garlic, wrapping it in individual portions in maguey leaves and then slow-cooking the bundle in a pit, preferably overnight. But how about in Mexico City, a crowded metropolis where it’s not always possible to build a BBQ pit in the ground, or to obtain maguey leaves, which are both expensive and difficult to work with?

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.

In Mexican cuisine, sweets are for the most part simple treats that are enjoyed at the park, market or beach, such as caramelized fruits and vegetables, blocks of nuts or amaranth seeds held together with honey, or small rice paper cakes filled with honey. The common denominator of most of these sweets is their simplicity. When it comes to ice cream and other frozen delights, however, the country truly shines, with an astounding variety of cold treats to please sweet tooths of every persuasion.

There wouldn’t be much of a revived culinary scene in Mexico City without chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita. A kind of recipe detective and writer of several well-regarded Mexican cookbooks, including the superb Diccionario Enciclopédico de Gastronomía Mexicana, he has been even more successful in his restaurant ventures. After his humble Café Azul y Oro at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) received rave reviews, he expanded on its concept – a menu of traditional regional Mexican cuisine based on sometimes forgotten recipes he had gathered through his field research – by opening a larger restaurant in the hip Condesa neighborhood in 2010. Two years later, he opened a third location in a beautifully restored building in the Centro Histórico, which has proven to be his most successful venture yet.

Restaurante Nicos got its start back in 1957, when María Elena Lugo Zermeño opened a small cafeteria in the middle-class Colonia Clavería neighborhood offering family recipes passed down through the generations. Over the years, the cafeteria evolved into a full-scale – and well-known – restaurant, one that pulls in customers from across the city with its excellent dishes and warm, inviting atmosphere.

Editor’s note: This feature from Mexico City is the second installment in our street food series this week, highlighting the best streetside eats in each of the cities Culinary Backstreets covers. 1: Pambazos The pambazo is a Mexican sandwich that’s similar in style to the more familiar torta, but not nearly as ubiquitous. Most commonly found at weekly street markets like Sullivan, pambazos are made with hard, white bread rolls soaked in guajillo chili sauce that softens the crust and gives it a warm, orange-red hue. Once dried, the bread is sliced in half and then filled with a generous portion of diced potatoes, chorizo, lettuce, sour cream and sprinkled queso fresco. The bread is quite fragile, so eating the concoction can be somewhat challenging. From the first bite the pambazo starts to disintegrate, and by the end we’re usually scooping up the heavy mess with our fingers. It’s all worth it, though, as the light hint of chili in the bread and the hearty ingredients inside give the dish the same satisfying and belly-filling pleasure that comes with a good bowl of thick stew.

The sap of the spiky maguey plant has long been used by the indigenous peoples of Mexico to prepare pulque, a milk-colored, viscous drink that has roughly the same alcohol content as beer. When they arrived in Mexico, the Spanish were introduced to pulque. Used to imbibing harder stuff, however, the conquistadors experimented with distilling a mash made out of the maguey plant, in the process inventing the beguiling spirit known as mezcal. Previously a liquor considered the province of the poor and working classes, mezcal has in recent years become one of the trendiest and most popular alcoholic drinks in Mexico, with more than 150 different brands now on the market. (Tequila, made from blue agave – a kind of maguey – and produced within a specific region of Mexico, is the best-known member of the mezcal family.) The rise in mezcal’s popularity has led to a proliferation of mezcalerías, wine bar-like spots that specialize in pouring the drink. In Mexico City in particular, mezcalerías have popped up in nearly every neighborhood, and their numbers keep growing.

Update: This spot is sadly no longer open. As diverse Mexican food is, there are times when we just have a craving for something different, which is why we were delighted recently to discover La Petite Crepe in the Centro Histórico, a tiny eatery producing delicious crepes and tasty beverages with an international pedigree.