“The month of Decembre means bueno food!”
La Gloria Taqueria
I hit up one of my semi-regular lunch spots, La Gloria this afternoon, mainly because I ran into the lovely Bridget at Trader Joe’s the other day and she remarked how she and Micah had not had such a great food experience here a few days before. Now let me clarify that La Gloria is a place that several years ago I did not care for at all. My main memories of it from way back when were primarily of the biggest Mexican dude I’ve ever seen that they had working behind the counter (picturize Andre los Gigante) and the excellent verde sauce they had at the salsa bar. The rest of the joint was take it or leave it. But in the last year or so, I’ve found myself at La Gloria quite often since it is one of the many burrito joints within a block or two of my office (how lucky am I?). And I have to admit I like it a lot more than I used to, even though there’s no longer a gi-normous Mexican and the salsa verde isn’t quite what I remembered.
What I don’t like about the place is that they are slow. And when I say slow, I mean, if you’ve got something to do, make sure you do it first. Generally, I’ll avoid the lunch rush, go a little after 1pm, order my meal, sit down for a while, watch my nails grow, trim them, then pick up my food and take it back to the office. If you go during lunch, bring a shaving kit and some deodorant, you're in for the long haul and these people take their time. Which, I have found is a good thing. My burrito today was outstanding. I got the chicken super burrito, and the beauty of La Gloria is that they fill it up with fresh veggies along with meat, salsa, sour cream, cheese, avocado, etc. This is a QUALITY burro, and quite a step up from the basic Super Burrito you’ll get at a lot of other places. And today, I was sitting there waiting, got out my nail clippers….and my food came out before I could get started. I was back at the office in no time. And a final note to Bridget and Micah, give it another try.
Lilly’s Taqueria
I swilled some beer last night with my good friend Jesus and since I always rave about this joint we decided to rendezvous tonight for a quick taco session after work. He hadn't been here before and when we walked in the door he immediately started laughing at the menu when he noticed you could eat everything on it for about 10 bucks. I got my usual adobada tacos, because I’m a creature of habit and think they’re some of the best things I’ve ever had, but Jesus strayed out and scored himself some adobada, asada and ….cheek. I haven’t had cheek before, but I had a bite of his and it was quite tasty. I’ll certainly order one up in the future.
Jesus gave me some good natured ribbing for writing a food blog while being such a conservative eater (at a place that has a fuckin eye taco)….and he’s right. I gotta start branching out. But the truth is that when I find something I love, like say, Lilly’s adobado tacos, it’s damn hard to see anything else on the menu, in fact, I don’t even look at the friggin thing.
Los Agaves
So less than 2 hours after leaving Lilly’s, I find myself pulling up a chair at Los Agaves again with Deb. PACKED on a Friday night, as it rightfully should be. I pass by this joint every day numerous times and every night this week it has been filled up, but when I talked to the owner at the register tonight he said, “Oh,. It’s been so slow this week except for tonight.” I call bullshit on that. This guy’s drumming up support for his tip jar I think. More power to him, cause he deserves it. I'm still loving this place.
Anyways, we got the Tacos de Tingas and a chicken Molcajete….oh yeah, that’s right, you remember the molcajete. My Lilly's companion tonight, Jesus, a native English/Spanish speaker told me that ‘molcajetes’ is the word for the volcanic type bowl that the food comes in, but I assure you that he is 100% wrong. I don’t know who the hell taught him Spanish, but ‘molcajetes’ means: “Super Fucking Hot”. People probably thought I was exaggerating on the last posting about this dish, but let me tell you this: when we left the restaurant tonight with a little food still in the bowl, it was still boiling, and it's not like we were there for 15 minutes. We ate a friggin full meal. Regardless, I liked this version better than the sea and land one we had last time, but I think Deb would disagree, as it was quite a bit spicier (even I was beading up on the browline). The chicken was excellent, and I’m pretty sure thast they just throw a live chicken into the vat, the feathers melt away, the meat breaks into chunks and it cooks perfectly on it's way to table.
But I figured out that the strategy in eating this dish is to scoop it out on top of a tortilla laying on a bed of dry ice, order up a sixer of Corona, drink it, then eat your taco. Repeat. You’ll be righteously full of seriously tasty grub and seriously hammered by the end of the next night when you finally stumble home with sweat dripping form every pore.
La Gloria Taqueria
I hit up one of my semi-regular lunch spots, La Gloria this afternoon, mainly because I ran into the lovely Bridget at Trader Joe’s the other day and she remarked how she and Micah had not had such a great food experience here a few days before. Now let me clarify that La Gloria is a place that several years ago I did not care for at all. My main memories of it from way back when were primarily of the biggest Mexican dude I’ve ever seen that they had working behind the counter (picturize Andre los Gigante) and the excellent verde sauce they had at the salsa bar. The rest of the joint was take it or leave it. But in the last year or so, I’ve found myself at La Gloria quite often since it is one of the many burrito joints within a block or two of my office (how lucky am I?). And I have to admit I like it a lot more than I used to, even though there’s no longer a gi-normous Mexican and the salsa verde isn’t quite what I remembered.
What I don’t like about the place is that they are slow. And when I say slow, I mean, if you’ve got something to do, make sure you do it first. Generally, I’ll avoid the lunch rush, go a little after 1pm, order my meal, sit down for a while, watch my nails grow, trim them, then pick up my food and take it back to the office. If you go during lunch, bring a shaving kit and some deodorant, you're in for the long haul and these people take their time. Which, I have found is a good thing. My burrito today was outstanding. I got the chicken super burrito, and the beauty of La Gloria is that they fill it up with fresh veggies along with meat, salsa, sour cream, cheese, avocado, etc. This is a QUALITY burro, and quite a step up from the basic Super Burrito you’ll get at a lot of other places. And today, I was sitting there waiting, got out my nail clippers….and my food came out before I could get started. I was back at the office in no time. And a final note to Bridget and Micah, give it another try.
Lilly’s Taqueria
I swilled some beer last night with my good friend Jesus and since I always rave about this joint we decided to rendezvous tonight for a quick taco session after work. He hadn't been here before and when we walked in the door he immediately started laughing at the menu when he noticed you could eat everything on it for about 10 bucks. I got my usual adobada tacos, because I’m a creature of habit and think they’re some of the best things I’ve ever had, but Jesus strayed out and scored himself some adobada, asada and ….cheek. I haven’t had cheek before, but I had a bite of his and it was quite tasty. I’ll certainly order one up in the future.
Jesus gave me some good natured ribbing for writing a food blog while being such a conservative eater (at a place that has a fuckin eye taco)….and he’s right. I gotta start branching out. But the truth is that when I find something I love, like say, Lilly’s adobado tacos, it’s damn hard to see anything else on the menu, in fact, I don’t even look at the friggin thing.
Los Agaves
So less than 2 hours after leaving Lilly’s, I find myself pulling up a chair at Los Agaves again with Deb. PACKED on a Friday night, as it rightfully should be. I pass by this joint every day numerous times and every night this week it has been filled up, but when I talked to the owner at the register tonight he said, “Oh,. It’s been so slow this week except for tonight.” I call bullshit on that. This guy’s drumming up support for his tip jar I think. More power to him, cause he deserves it. I'm still loving this place.
Anyways, we got the Tacos de Tingas and a chicken Molcajete….oh yeah, that’s right, you remember the molcajete. My Lilly's companion tonight, Jesus, a native English/Spanish speaker told me that ‘molcajetes’ is the word for the volcanic type bowl that the food comes in, but I assure you that he is 100% wrong. I don’t know who the hell taught him Spanish, but ‘molcajetes’ means: “Super Fucking Hot”. People probably thought I was exaggerating on the last posting about this dish, but let me tell you this: when we left the restaurant tonight with a little food still in the bowl, it was still boiling, and it's not like we were there for 15 minutes. We ate a friggin full meal. Regardless, I liked this version better than the sea and land one we had last time, but I think Deb would disagree, as it was quite a bit spicier (even I was beading up on the browline). The chicken was excellent, and I’m pretty sure thast they just throw a live chicken into the vat, the feathers melt away, the meat breaks into chunks and it cooks perfectly on it's way to table.
But I figured out that the strategy in eating this dish is to scoop it out on top of a tortilla laying on a bed of dry ice, order up a sixer of Corona, drink it, then eat your taco. Repeat. You’ll be righteously full of seriously tasty grub and seriously hammered by the end of the next night when you finally stumble home with sweat dripping form every pore.
Allright... We'll give it another go.
ReplyDeleteOh, and on a burrito related note, climbing at Green Dome is getting super fun. I leave for Mexico (more related to Super Asada) on Saturday and will be there for 2 weeks with the family, but am going up to the dome Friday to try and send before I get fat. If for some reason you can't make it up there to crank on a Friday, you NEED to come pull down after I get back. Beers on me afterwards of course.
Well done on the Mex review. If I put down the paddle and head back up, it is burrito time.
ReplyDeleteS Sanchez