Category: tio wally

Categories
mexican tio wally

Tio Wally Eats America: Hacienda Real

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here he is at Hacienda Real in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Greetings from Fort Collins, Colorado
N 40° 34.819’  W 106° 00.509’ Elev. 4951’

The hold of the SS Me So Hungry is rather pungent today. A skid (pallet) of beer (5% Chelada Bud Lite) fell over. As a result, we’re docked (read: beached) in Fort Collins until the good folks at Anheuser-Busch sort it out.

So what is Chelada? I have no idea. The can says it’s crap beer mixed with Clamato®. I do know that when the cans are punctured, they spew like little rose-colored geysers. Very festive-looking but very smelly when it gets on you. I also know that in 12 years of hauling stuff around I’ve never hauled a beer I would drink. This is no exception — and I like red beer.  Am I bitter? Yes.

Fortunately I found a place to park across the street from Hacienda Real (CO 14 & I-25), which bills itself as a Family Mexican Restaurant. I’m suspicious of Mexican restaurants that feel the need to tag “family” or “cuisine” or, worse, “grille” onto its name. Another thing that makes a place suspect is decor that’s too thematic, too clean. It’s usually a tip-off that the food is going to be a step up from Taco Bell in authenticity.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the food here is actually pretty good. It was a pleasant evening so I dined on their patio, even after being warned about the mosquitoes. Having just walked across the highway and not encountering a single skeeter, I toughed it out through my mosquito-less meal.

I ordered a Chile Relleno and Tamale plate. I ate the Relleno and was pretty full, so ended up with a Tamale meal out of the deal. Although the chips were commercial as opposed to homemade, the salsa was pretty good, which is always an indication of how the foods going to be. Another pleasant surprise was that they served the chips with bean dip (actually refried beans). The tamale turned out to be surprisingly meaty, though I can’t tell if it’s beef or pork.

All in all I was pretty happy with the food. Turned out to be a good $10 meal for what could’ve been a real disappointment.

I was also able to snag a couple of treats during my forced hiatus that are hard to find, especially at a reasonable price. The first was Swiss brand Southern Style Sweet Tea. If I’m lucky enough to find sweet tea in a half-gallon size it’s usually full of citric acid. I hate citric acid. I don’t want lemon — especially phony lemon — in my sweet tea. I found it for 87¢ at the Merchant of Death aka WalMart; more about them later.

The big score, however, was Odwalla Carrot Juice. I found it at Safeway for $5.10 “club price.” Another really good carrot juice is Bolthouse, but it’s really pricey. Curiously, the carrot-juice concentrate in Odwalla’s is from Bolthouse Farms in Bakersfield, California. I know this because I’ve seen their trucks being loaded when I picked up there. The 55-gallon drums of concentrate I dragged away went to some subsidiary of Campbell’s for making V-8 Juice, among other things.

And so we roll.

Hacienda Real – 421 Centro Way (CO14 & I-25) Fort Collins, CO 80524-9283

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road food from around the country whenever parking and InterTube connections permit.

Categories
tio wally

Tio Wally Eats America: Galena, MO

I’m happy to have Tio Wally (long-time Me So Hungry reader) aboard to send in his eating adventures from across America. Here’s his introduction.

Greetings from Galena, Missouri!

N 36° 47.079’ W 093° 30.350’ Elev. 885’

By way of introduction I am Tio Wally and I am a truck driver. While some may call the vehicle a semi, a tractor-trailer, a big rig or an 18-wheeler, I like to think of it as a land yacht. Jason is graciously allowing me to contribute to his blog and, better yet, has granted me the privilege of piloting the SS Me So Hungry around the country and file road-food reports. (Those of you with some nautical knowledge know “SS” is the universally recognized abbreviation for Steamship. In this case, however, it stands for Street Scow as this craft has a flat bottom and is used for transferring goods from Point A to Point B.)

As this is my maiden Me So Hungry entry it’s only fitting that I tell how I stock the stores for a cruise. I always start with homey things that I just can’t get “out there” like I like them, homemade comfort foods. Lately it’s been Egg Salad and Tuna Salad. It’s hard-to-virtually impossible to find these things on the road that are any good.

If I’m lucky enough to find Egg Salad I usually have to beef it up with mustard (deviled) or dill weed, depending on how I feel. The only Egg Salad I’ve ever found that I don’t have to “enhance” has been the Amish Deviled Egg Salad from Dierdorf’s(?), a St. Louis-area grocery store chain. Tuna Salad is more difficult still as I like it mixed fairly dry with Mayo, red onion, hard-boiled egg and canned peas. Tuna Salad is a pain to beef up as it requires a knife, a can opener, a bowl big enough to mix it in, hard-boiled eggs (good luck finding them), etc. As the galley is rather small in the land yacht, I don’t screw with that stuff anymore. In both cases, when mixing for the road drier always travels better — you can always make it wetter.

Rather than to take up too much of Jason’s space, let’s get right to the pre-roll check list:

Coleman Thermo-Electric Cooler working? Check.
Apple Juice? Check. Unsweetened, generic store brands travel best as sweetening tends to turn quickly;
Water? Three gallons. Running out of drinking water is a serious, serious crisis;
Lay’s Classic Potato Chips? Check.
Orowheat/Brownberry 100% Whole Wheat Bread? Check.
Homemade sandwich fixins? Check.
Baby Wipes? Check. Ah, baby wipes. A miracle product. When you get really tired you can pull one out and wipe your face and neck and … instant refreshment, you’re good for another 50 miles! Also, it’s a little known fact: Those puppies will take grease off of anything! ANYTHING!!
Empty half-gallon plastic jug? Check.

Okay. Let’s go for a cruise.

Tio Wally pilots the 75-foot, 40-ton(max) land yacht *SS Me So Hungry. He reports on road-food from around the country whenever parking and **InterTube connections permit. *Street Scow and **InterTube (aka “the Internet as memorably explained by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK”) are his terminology, not mine.