Five Things: Taco Tuesday edition

Favorite Taco Tuesday Places*

America’s – This is my most recent and most frequent Taco Tuesday destination. Getting 2 burritos, 2 tacos and 6 Coronitas for $20-some is a decent deal. Enjoying these on the patio in our great “fall” weather is what really make this. Also, two of the last three time I’ve gone, I’ve run into someone I knew there, which is an event that always binds that place as part of the neighborhood in my mind.

Gallo Blanco – The beef at this place is amazing. Seriously, every bite is amazing. Once, after taking my boss there, he told me that he preferred America’s because he thought Gallo used “too much marinade”. I had to tell him that’s what real meat tastes like. I love the natural & local ingredients here, and the food reflects it. My only gripe is that they seem to always have a lot of staff on hand and yet I still have to wait a long time for help.

Verde – I don’t think I’ve met a more welcoming business owner than the guys at Verde. True story, a couple weeks ago I thought I’d imagined up a new great variation on one of their dishes. I peddled over to Verde and as I started to ask if they could make it, Matt & Joseph pointed to the menu and SURPRISE, it was already the special of the day. It’s like they were Taco Psychics. Seriously, go there, get the Green Chile Tacos. You’ll love it. If only they served beer, though….

Macayo’s – The old standby. Nothing spectacular here. Beers are cold, service feigns interest. Don’t get the burrito, ever. We had to put these guys on the do-not-eat list for about 6-months after a recent complaint.

El Portal – Greasy greasy, rarely a full step up from ‘berto’s. In fact, if it wasn’t in my neighborhood, I’d probably go to ‘berto’s instead.

* for purposes of this list, I’m describing places that you could visit on your lunch hour, and not reflective of a trip to these establishments where you don’t mind the time.

Burrito: Taco's Ugly Cousin

Let’s face it. Burritos are:

– tasty
– messy
– portable
– not tacos
– don’t have a day of the week named after them

Still, it’s good to celebrate diversity, so here’s your shout-out Burritos.

what if everything was burritos

That last one is too funny.  Ha!

Image courtesy of Buttersafe

#TacoTuesday, Nightmare Version

I have trouble thinking of too many things that would be worse than this.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Go out and celebrate today while you can.

Yum… tacos!

Taco Tuesday Vs The Universe

Let me start out by saying that I love tacos.

I love all mexican food.  Really, I just call it “Food”, yes, a proper noun, not mexican food, because I love it that much.  Good Food can really brighten up your day, and nothing else goes better with a cerveza on a hot day.

or a cold day

or a rainy day

But the Taco is the Ultimate Food Achievement.  A GREAT taco is a thing of pure beauty.  Something that should be admired, enjoyed, and then publicized to all your friends.  Every Tuesday my people pay our reverence to the Taco but taking lunch together and trying to find a delicious taco to make the afternoon more tolerable.

Having said that, I’m sure you can now understand how I was thoroughly miffed that The Universe conspired against me today.

Really, The Universe started taking swings at me last night.  I left work almost 2 hours late, and was really hungry, so I figured I’d order a pizza.  Then I felt guilty about eating pizza instead of the salad that was waiting in my fridge.  To cure this guilt (because really, I wasn’t going to just kiss pizza good-bye), I decided that I’d order the pizza, eat a healthy salad and then only eat a slice or two of pizza after the salad.  This seemed like a lot of win to me.

Then I called Pizza Hut to place an order.  I was immediately put on hold and was on hold so long that I was able to walk all the way from the train stop to my apt without being taken off of hold, so I hung up.  I wondered if this was a sign that I shouldn’t eat the pizza, but brushed it off after a little while and called again.  This time I was put on hold, then taken off of hold but still no spoken to.  It was like the Hut-Worker just put the receiver on the table and proceeded to yell at the other Hut-Workers.  This went on for 2 minutes before I finally got the hint.  The Universe didn’t want me to eat any pizza Monday night, so I gave up and ate the salad.

Then this morning I get to work and find out that our Operations Manager was running late.  Where I come from (the office, mostly) running late means you have to bring donuts for everyone.  Banking on this free snack, I sat patiently at my desk, waiting and waiting.

While I was waiting, my frienemy (friend + enemy) Swabby came over and we started talking about where to go for lunch for Taco Tuesday.  I thought we’d go to Gallo Blanco since I’d liked the tacos I had there last week.  So now I had two meals planned out.  Free Coffee & Donuts, then tacos.  This was going to be a pretty sweet day.

Then I found out that the Operations Manager was NOT coming in because he was in jail.  Not only was I deprived of donuts, but without his consent, I couldn’t take the 90-120 min lunch that would be needed to get some good tacos.

Yes, dude got locked up and put in jail because The Universe didn’t want me to have any tacos.