“When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums.” Andy Warhol

On: January 11, 2019
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Oaxaca Day Three ….. when do you know when you’ve gone to one museum too many when your mind starts playing tricks and your Mesoamericana antiquities and contemporary arts begins to look like a Chinese propaganda poster?

First stop…The Church and former monastery of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, a Baroque ecclesiastical building. The complex includes a substantial sanctuary and an extensive system of courtyards, cloisters, and rooms that formerly constituted the monastery.

The church and monastery were founded by the Dominican Order in 1575, it was constructed over a period of 200 years, between the 16th and 18th centuries. The church and its highly decorated interior include the use of more than 60,000 sheets of 23.5-karat gold leaf.

The rooms that formerly constituted the monastery now house the Cultural Centre of Oaxaca, which was founded with the help of Oaxacan-born artist Francisco Toledo. This museum includes an important collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, among them the contents of Tomb 7 from the nearby Zapotec site of Monte Albán. The former monastery garden is now an ethnobotanical garden, containing a large collection of plants native to the region.

Most of the exhibitions are housed in old monks’ cells and are grouped by thematic periods…..loved just wandering its immense halls and to the discoveries to be found.

MACO or Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca … located in the so-called Casa de Cortés, which was built during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, has a beautiful facade and corridors on its two floors and three patios.

The museum has fourteen permanent exhibition halls and works by Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Gutiérrez, Rodolfo Nieto, Rodolfo Morales and Francisco Toledo.

Not a lover of modern art, it all looks like my great-nephew painted it, but the larger-than-life Alebrijes cougar was amazing.

MUPO, The Museum of Painters Oaxaqueños, exhibits the creations of Oaxacan artists in Mexico and abroad. It occupies a seventeenth-century colonial-style building. This consisted of two rotating exhibitions: Arboleda (trees forest), the painting of the bougainvillea was surreal in its detail and the other exhibition, Melancholia and Cabronadas … the colors were so vivid that it lighted up the room.

Break for coffee and ice creams and we are back to the hotel for a rest before dinner…….out of jest, as we are strolling through el Zócalo I buy David a birthday balloon which he reluctantly carried, but hey … from then on I did not lose him in the maddening crowds.

We were treated to a folkloric dance group on the plaza as we shuffled between museums.

Dinner tonite at Criollo, one of Enrique Olmeda’s restaurants … we had the opportunity to dine at Pujol his Mexico City restaurant and it was an explosive culinary experience as each plate used the foundation of the prior one in tantalizing your taste buds.

So our expectations were HIGH. The restaurant is on the fringes of the historical district. You need to knock on the door to be let in (!). You then walk through the kitchen to reach the dining room (!). I just found it all to be a little pretentious.

The seven course menu stumbled between courses: they cook what’s in season and mostly locally sourced:
A small frittata type bite with the flower of the Maguey – tasty but flat tones
Chunky guacamole with a herb I did not recognize – yummy, but where are the chips? (chips and salsa arrived after the guacamole was finished)
Vegetable salad of chayote, zucchini and cucumbers drizzled with a green salsa – very refreshing and a palate cleanser
Garbanzo flour tamale stuffed with quesillo – missed the mark – extremely dry and heavy
Soft shell crab taco – we hit the jackpot, I could have had a few of those!
David – cochinita (shredded pork) stuffed in a deconstructed onion, in a bed of plátanos maduros and black bean purée
Sergio – grilled dorado fish with the same above condiments
Dessert – a gelatinous mix of zapote, served on a bed of passion fruit purée with a topping of creme de mamey … we both looked at each other, but when all 3 ingredients hit your palate….it’s a happy dance