‘Mexican’
As a fan of Mexican food, I often find myself fighting against Mexican food pretenders. Yet, when a restaurant embraces its non-authenticity I am all for it as long as it’s good. Cantina Loco in Allentown is one of those places that isn’t feigning authenticity, but it has apparently been crazy popular since opening back in 2011 and I hoped that would mean good things for the food.
It’s easy to make a sandwich special by putting unique items into it. I still applaud places like that, but it something even more special to take a pretty basic sandwich and make it exceptional. I always loved Bay Cities for doing this in LA (in no small part because of the bread), and while it is nothing at all like Bay Cities, I have found a place that follows the same mold in Buffalo. It is called John & Mary’s Subs, and while it seems like your average Buffalo subs and tacos spot, I found my sub to be much more.
Mexican food and subs seems to be a combination prevalent in Buffalo. In trying to account for this, I’ve come to the conclusion that both are delicious after a few drinks. Still, a lot of things are delicious after tossing a few back, so I’m not quite sure how this combination formed. Nonetheless, the curiosity brought me to Elmwood Taco & Subs in Elmwood Village, where they have another surprise to throw in with the tacos and sandies.
The Chipotle model has been followed by many other fast casual Mexican spots since its inception. And why not? It’s nice to customize burritos and even nicer when you get to mix things up here and there. That’s where Asada Mexican Grill in Wynchwood, Toronto comes in. Like Chipotle, it has all the customization you’d want, with extra options like al pastor, refried beans, and a salsa bar. I was excited about the prospects and picked out my order.
While Toronto is a couple borders north of the border, it is an incredibly diverse city with food from just about everywhere. One of the foods we wanted to check out was tacos, and this led us to Grand Electric. Now, going into this we knew that Grand Electric wasn’t going to be serving up traditional Mexican fare, but the menu seemed good enough that it didn’t matter.
Back in LA, you could hardly throw a stone without hitting a food truck. In Pittsburgh, though, things are a little different. Supposedly the laws are pretty prohibitive, but a couple have still made their way to the streets. One of which is the creatively named PGH Taco Truck and I got the opportunity to try it out when Carnegie Mellon offered its free tacos to grad students like me.
There’s something about this time of year that just makes me wants Mexican food. Is it because of Cinco de Mayo? Probably not. In fact, it is probably just that I always want Mexican food. It is a curse, but one that I hoped to find the cure for at Casa Reyna in the Strip District. You see, the Strip District is ethnic food central, so I figured it would have passable Mexican, especially considering Casa Reyna is an extension of a Mexican grocery store.
Widely considered the chain restaurant capital of the country, I was impressed to find a number of unique restaurants in Indianapolis after a quick browse of my favorite sites. This in no way disputes the claim to chain restaurants, as you can’t throw a stone in Indianapolis without hitting one, but there is certainly something more to the place. The first spot we hit up was creatively named The Tamale Place and it was in an area that seemed to have its fair share of Mexican food.
The moment I heard Taco Bell was testing markets for breakfast, I began counting down the days until I could have some for myself. Of course, at the time, there was no date to count down to because of the whole test market thing. Nonetheless, a date came: March 27, 2014. And when I arrived at Taco Bell at 11:01 am I was promptly turn sent packing for being one minute past the breakfast deadline. Somewhat deterred, I returned a week later, but this time before the clock could run out on me.
In need of breakfast in Chicago, we took a walk to Elly’s Pancake House in Old Town. It turned out that Elly’s was a lot more than a pancake house and was actually a lot like a greasy spoon diner given its plethora of choices. Nonetheless, something caught my eye immediately and didn’t let go despite my perusing of the entire menu. It was the Breakfast Burrito and I intended to see if this pancake house could handle it.