If you have never been to Mexico City, or if you’ve been away long enough that your family will immediately notice how poorly you’re aging (about two years), these are the correct answers for the following two questions:

1) “What do you want to eat?”

Tacos.

Sure, you’ve had what you would consider “good” meals on a tortilla before but, unless you’ve been in La Capital, your deep Platonic intuitions about the form of the taco have always left your palate feeling tricked. Yes, I am trying to tell you that this is a consumption experience that will have you running past the shadows and stepping out of the cave. It’s infinity in the masa stuck under your fingernails, and heaven in a mouthful.

That said, if you believe in supernatural enlightenment, beware: it’ll prove you that you’re worthless for believing that the sacred is not mundane.

2) “Where do you want to eat?”

El Califa de San Cosme

Technically, it’s El Califa de Leon, but there are a few places with the same name in the city. However, this is the only one that sits on the famous pirate shopping strip known as San Cosme. (After you’re finished with your food, if you can ever feel like you are finished with your food, you should get yourself a Bolex watch and a DVD of somebody using a handheld camera to tape somebody else using a handheld camera to record a shaky copy of JCVD.)

Mexico City’s best taqueria (and by corollary The Best Taqueria In The Universe) has one of its simplest setups: A room the size of a matchbox, 3/4 of which are covered by a grill. A small walking lane towards the register that overlaps with the tortilleria (a masa bucket, a crank-powered contraption, and a woman who’s a genius with her hands—I haven’t inquired about a massage, but I assure you that all endings are happy ones here) and the eat-in area, which is framed by a narrow steel shelf.

El Califa has only two salsas, one red (which I haven’t eaten in at least 16 years so I am not going to tell you what’s in it) and a green tomatillo salsa that’ll turn your pupils red if you’re not careful. It’s not the spiciest soup in the universe, but it tastes so damn good that you can’t stop from pouring it on and on. If you want a drink, your choices are: Grapefruit soda, and Grapefruit soda. And Grapefruit soda.

Your meat choices are Bistek and Costilla. If you like your godly flesh on the fatty side, you’ll go for the latter. You’ll probably make this pick too if you’re the kind of person who always orders the most expensive thing on the menu (asshole). Let me assure you that there’s nothing wrong with slumming, as the Bistek is perfect. Their butcher’s hands are the gates of heaven. The lard rub they give to each steak doesn’t hurt either.

(I especially love it when you get a big order and the last few you eat (if you can manage to eat them slowly) have the tortilla fused with the meat. It’s an event of devastatingly beautiful harmony.)

Also, you couldn’t fake poverty if you were caught eating one of these. At 22 pesos, their Bistek taco is probably in the top 5 most expensive street foods in the city. Costilla tacos will run you 37 pesos each. With the exchange rate hovering around 14 pesos per USD, this may not seem like much to your whiteness, but chilangos take great pleasure in outknowing each other when it comes to good cheap tacos, with the fervor that alchemists once had for figuring out a way to turn shit into gold (though they are significantly more successful). I would estimate the current price threshold for a truly excellent taco to be about 5 pesos. Bragging about your intimacy with meat on a tortilla below that price point makes you either 1) a horrible liar 2) a cheap jerk, or 3) a giant Taenia Solium from space in a human costume. If you don’t fall into one of those categories, email me.

No, these are not Mexico’s $100 USD Hotel Restaurant “Kobe” Burgers. And I say this not just because San Cosme doesn’t resemble the Four Seasons lobby. The only people I know who think these tacos are expensive are the ones who haven’t eaten them. I’ve been there when people have happily paid for a full taco just to get a tortilla. (Did I mention the tortillas? You’re gonna have to travel very far to find a better piece of bread in this continent.) Serious food is not a luxury; it’s just food and that’s why you can always have it.