Editor's note: It's Breakfast Week at CB, and the second piece in the series takes us to Mexico City for a look at typical morning meals and the best places to find them. Stay tuned for more breakfast dispatches from other CB cities throughout the week. Mexico leads the world in per capita egg consumption, according to the country’s National Poultry Institute. That’s not hard to believe if you’ve ever taken a look at a typical Mexican breakfast; in homes and at restaurants huevos are the first order of the day for many a desayuno. And with all those eggs they eat, Mexicans have come up with a number of ways to dress them up or down. One of the most popular ways to prepare them, for example, is huevos revueltos al gusto, two or three scrambled eggs with an additional ingredient or ingredients, such as ham, chorizo, sausage, vegetables or a la mexicana (onion, chilis and tomato). Huevos can also come divorciados, which are two sunny-side-up eggs, one bathed in green salsa and the other in red; rancheros, or fried and served over corn tortillas and refried beans and bathed in a red or green salsa; al albañil, scrambled and served with a very hot red salsa and fresh cheese; or ahogados, poached in green or red salsa. Most of these egg dishes are served with a side of refried beans, avocado and corn tortillas.

One of our favorite places in Mexico City is Xochimilco. Like many visitors, when we hear the word “Xochimilco” the first thing that comes to our mind is a relaxing ride aboard a trajinera, or boat, on the waterways of this southern borough. We’ve been to Xochimilco many times before, on family excursions to buy flowers, plants and compost from the local farmers.

Editor’s note: This post is the fourth installment of “Best Bites of 2013,” a roundup of our top culinary experiences over the last year. Stay tuned for “Best Bites” from all of the cities Culinary Backstreets covers. Hilaria Gastrobar We visited this restaurant on revitalized Madero Street downtown just a few months after it opened, and we were immediately won over by the food and beer selection.

Once considered Mexico City’s next hot neighborhood, Santa María la Ribera, near the city's center and one of its first suburbs, has been slow to deliver on that promise. While neighborhoods just to the south have stolen Santa María’s thunder, it’s finally showing signs of life – one of which is the restaurant/cooking school La Casona del Sabor. Built 140 years ago by a German immigrant couple, the building that houses La Casona features traditional colonial architecture, including a grand entrance that leads into a spacious, landscaped courtyard. Looking out over the courtyard is a colorfully tiled verandah that connects to multiple rooms. Once family quarters, these rooms now serve the culinary school. The school's head chef, Jorge Luiz Alvarez, began the school seven years ago in his nearby apartment, but when space became tight, he took over the house and expanded the business.

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.

For a case of the morning-afters, Mexicans believe that the best cure is a bowl of hot and spicy broth. On Sundays you’ll find the bleary-eyed, hard-partying denizens of Mexico City seeking out restorative traditional soups like the tripe-based menudo, also known as pancita; caldo tlalpeño, made with chicken; and birria.

Mexico City’s southern neighborhood of Coyoacán, once a separate town outside the city limits, is now a popular area with cobblestone lanes full of art galleries, museums, restaurants and flea markets. For us, though, the real allure of the neighborhood is the opportunity to visit Tostadas Coyoacán, a marketplace restaurant that elevates the humble tostada to dizzying culinary heights.

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.

We’ve written previously about flautas, one of our favorite street foods. Those crisp, finger-friendly “flutes” with their deeply savory, spiced chicken, pork, beef or potato filling are all about the gratifying crunch of the golden, deep-fried rolled tortilla (and the sour cream and grated cheese don’t hurt either). It’s hard to imagine how that winning combination can be improved upon, but at El Rey de las Ahogadas, we’ve found a delicious alternative.

Mexicans can mark their calendars by what they’re eating: moles for weddings, pan de muerto for Day of the Dead, lomo and codfish for Christmas and chiles en nogada for Independence Day. Every September 15 and 16 Mexicans gather together to celebrate their independence from Spanish rule. This movement started in the city of Dolores Hidalgo, in the state of Guanajuato, the night of September 15, 1810, when Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla gave el grito de Dolores (“the Cry of Dolores”) that ignited the War of Independence. This war lasted until 1821, when Agustín de Iturbide, who later became the first Mexican Emperor, signed the Treaty of Córdoba that granted Mexico its independence.

The bird that holds pride of place at the Thanksgiving table has just as important a role south of the border. Turkey has actually been a fundamental part of Mexican cooking for centuries: the Aztecs had domesticated the fowl before they had even laid eyes on a chicken. And while chicken has since overtaken turkey in popularity, the latter remains the traditional feasting bird all over the continent (yes, in Canada too). In Mexico, turkey is usually eaten at weddings and Christmas, but in Mexico City, there are a handful of restaurants that sell turkey tortasall year round.