‘Carne Asada’
The Phoenix area is wealthy in greasy Mexican fast food. These places generally have drive-through and are open 24/7. Moreover, they quite simply make the world a better place. Take Armando’s in Deer Valley, for example. I was hankering for something good on the way to northern Arizona, and Armando’s stood out like a shiny beacon calling for me.
Hot on the heels of visiting perhaps the most overpriced (but still tasty) Mexican place I have ever been to, La Hacienda, I took a trip to Scottsdale Quarter to eat at Sol. Sol’s prices may not rival La Hacienda’s, but it is certainly in the upscale Mexican food family. Of course, it is not lost on me that while “sol” means “sun” in Spanish, it is also the name of the money in Peru.
It’s not often that I eat at a new place (for me) twice before getting a chance to review that place. Yet, that weirdly happened with Hash Kitchen, a breakfast spot (no, not a dispensary) with a few locations around the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. As you may expect, they specialize in Bloody Marys. Okay, but also in different kinds of hash if you’re not in a Bloody Mary mood, which I literally never am.
Down San Diego way there are a few Broken Yolks. As you could probably guess, these are breakfast spots and we headed to the Carlsbad location to see what it could serve up. The menu unquestionably had a lot of dishes calling my name. After all, breakfast is notoriously unvegan-friendly.
In LA, the word Rodeo usually means one thing: a shopping street in Beverly Hills. Sometimes it means another random street on the west side and occasionally it means the thing with cowboys and stuff. Almost never does it mean dinner, unless you happen to find yourself strolling along Sunset in Echo Park and stepping into the first divey Mexican place you can find that just so happens to go by the name of Rodeo.
The world may be full of Mexican restaurants, but little taquerias are kinda confined to certain parts of the USA. Fortunately, while in San Jose we happened upon a place called Tacos al Pastor #2. The whereabouts of #1 are unknown, but the thought was that any taqueria deserving of a sequel was deserving of my stomach.
Steel Cactus in Shadyside is a place more typically known for drinks than food, yet, I found myself there hungry and waiting for drinks. The cactus thing in their name is somehow connected to the fact that they serve Mexican food and I was skeptical not only because it was primarily a drinking place, but also because Pittsburgh isn’t quite known as a bastion of Mexican food.
Before basketball on Tuesdays I usually need to grab a bite to eat. For some people, this is a cramp-inducing process. I, on the other hand, cramp up while playing if I don’t eat enough. With that in mind, I went to Taqueria Juanito’s No. 1 in Balboa Park with my fellow baller and rather than order a couple little tacos, I got pretty much the biggest thing on the menu. It was their nachos, and came loaded with cheese, refried beans, a couple of salsas, cilantro and a meat of my choosing. I chose carne asada and pretty soon went to town on those nachos.
Santa Monica doesn’t exactly have a reputation for good food. And what reputation it does have usually tends to lean on the upscale. But reputation alone does not simply make a city, and Santa Monica actually has a surprising number of little gems hidden in its nooks and crannies. One of these, I had heard, was Tacos Por Favor.
Yet, aside from actually hearing of Tacos Por Favor, I hadn’t really been told what was good on their menu, so when I arrived and found a vast menu full of nearly every Mexican dish I had ever heard of, I was in trouble.
Moving to a new place is never easy. Driving habits and living habits have to change, but more importantly, eating habits have to change. This can be easy for some, but when you have a meat blog it can be tough to say goodbye to the Taco Bell that once resided across the street. But it is also an opportunity to try new things, so as I woke up on my first real weekend in my new place, I realized it was time for a stroll around the area in search of food. Quickly, I found Taco Plus.