Tag: mexican

Categories
bar/drinking concert/event taco

Habana Outpost Tacos & BAM Rooftop Films

The night started off when I was invited to BAM Rooftop Films to foodblog a car —Carpingo, a new rental service (similar to Zipcar) coming to New York later this month. The outdoor film was The Comedy, starring Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric. Interestingly, the movie is so dark and sad.

I didn’t want to take anyone’s seat since I didn’t pay, so they ended up throwing me into the FIAT Carpingo car with sushi and wine. It was like a drive-thru, where I was the only car parked behind several hundred people. At one point the headlights flashed on and I didn’t know what to do. I panicked, but then it turned off. I kept imagining what if the car started to drift. It’s been so long since I’ve driven, I couldn’t remember which pedal was the brake. I figured I had a 50/50 chance of saving everyone’s lives or plowing them over. Luckily, it didn’t happen. But being behind the wheel really made me want to start driving again.

Carpingo is giving out free memberships with driving credit if you Text “Carpingo” to 90210.

I didn’t know about this Rooftop Film screening until that day and it sounded interesting, so I ran solo. But it turned out a lot of my friends were there. It was good running into them. I even ran into my ex in the bathroom line …so it was a little embarrassing how long I took in the Porta-Potty. I could hear two people go in and out in the one next to me. I swear I was just peeing.

Then I went with my friends around the corner to Cafe Habana Outpost for tacos and drinks. This place is awesome. It has a large outdoor patio. Perfect night for that. Draft beer is only $2.75!

Tory and I got four tacos to split. Our order was called up with another girl’s. The whole time I thought she was part of our group of friends. Dang, she must have been really confused why some weirdo wanted to take a photo with her and her food.

We really liked the catfish and pork tacos vs the chicken and steak. Maybe only because the latter ones were cold. I had a good time at Habana Outpost. I even ran into more friends there. It was crazy.

Habana Outpost - 757 Fulton St (btwn Oxford St & Portland Ave) Brooklyn, NY 1121

Categories
mexican taco

Calexico Greenpoint

We started off with Jell-O shots at Capri Social Club, a cool Polish bar in Greenpoint. Then Anthony and I split off to eat some food at Calexico. That place is bumpin. The wait was going to be a while, but we just happened to be right behind two girls that were leaving the bar. Or I had impression that they thought we were hovering so we could grab their seats. It worked.

We started of with some creamy guacamole, which was really good. Anthony got a fish and pork taco. I got the Chipotle Pork Torta sandwich. Really good drunk food. I woofed it down.

I was so messy that I was surprised the girl next to me didn’t care that my food was so close to her jean jacket on the bar. I asked her about it, but she said it wasn’t hers and apologized for some reason. I think it belonged to the girls before. I might’ve gotten sauce on it.

Calexico – 645 Manhattan Ave (btwn Bedford & Norman Ave) Brooklyn, NY 11222

Categories
brunch mexican

Rosarito Fish Shack’s Brunch

I was at Smorgasburg (Food Flea Market) this past Saturday and really couldn’t decide what to eat …plus the lines and crowds were too much for me. So I went back to Rosarito Fish Shack that I saw on my way there to the waterfront. It’s right where Williamsburg Cafe used to be. I loved that placed years ago. But now Rosarito Fish Shack is there and it stands out like a fake Disney-esque touristy restaurant. I think that looks cool.

I ordered a Bloody Mary with tequila, which I don’t think is as good as with vodka. But it does the job.

I had the Chilaquiles con Camarones (Crispy tortillas, tomato-chile de arbol salsa, garlic shrimps, two fried eggs, queso, crema $12). This plate was big. The shrimp were frickin’ huge. I tend to describe Chilaquiles as plate of soggy nachos, but these were the best soggy nachos I’ve ever had. There were still plenty of crispy and crunch to it. By far, better Chilaquiles than from Grand Morelos.

I just read the Yelp reviews for this place and it’s funny how many people hate Rosarito. I had an excellent brunch with excellent service. The plates next to me all looked awesome, with the exception of the crab cake sandwiches. I had a nice and easy experience. A lot less hectic than Smorgasburg down the street, which I did go back to meet up with my friend (I’ll post more on that soon).

Rosarito Fish Shack - 168 Wythe Ave (@ N 7th St) Brooklyn, NY 11211

Categories
mexican

Mexico Blvd Food Truck

Here’s a new food truck that stopped by near Union Square when I was walking around looking for leather gloves. I know it’s unusually warm this time of year, but why is it always hard to find winter stuff in the winter? Everyone is selling Spring stuff now.

Anyway, this monster of a truck was pretty cool and dynamic looking …kinda like a big mechanical bull.

I ordered the Pork Pastor Tortas Sandwich (Pork Tenderloin marinated in their three chiles sauce). It was a nice clean looking and clean tasting sandwich, much to do with the bread and the nicer cut of tenderloin. A non-greasy sandwich that would probably do well with the general office crowd. However, it still had that zing with their authentic style red sauce, which got all over my face and fingers and coat and jeans. That’s a good thing.

It was a decent sandwich that could probably use some stringy white Oaxaca cheese, but did get good when I bit on the jalapeno.

Mexico Blvd Food Truck - http://mexicoblvd.com/

 

Categories
tio wally travel

Tio Wally Eats America: Lisa’s in Moriarty, New Mexico

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 in Moriarty, New Mexico.

Greetings from Moriarty, New Mexico!
N 35° 00.244  W 106° 01.699  Elev. 6228 ft.

I was headed to Los Lunas, New Mexico … again. Which meant that I had to stop a Lisa’s Truck Center … again. I had to get Chile Rellenos … again. And I wasn’t disappointed … again.

I wrote about Lisa’s recently. The last time I got a to-go order of the rellenos and discovered too late that they’d given me only the red sauce. This time I got what I actually ordered: One with red sauce, one with green sauce.

Both the sauces are great, if somewhat mild. Still, these are some of the best rellenos I’ve run across in my travels. Indeed, I can’t recommend them enough. They’re damn near perfect; I say damn near just in case I find better, which is extremely doubtful. I also got a flour tortilla that could probably cover most of a basketball.

I took more pictures this time. I also went ahead and took pictures of the über-spacious dining room (nine tables!).

All of the food that I saw come out of that tiny hole in the wall (read: kitchen) looked great. And the service was outstanding! (I hesitate to mention this, but my waitress was a true babe. A babetress?

I’m tellin’ y’all, if you’re ever passing through Moriarty, New Mexico make a special stop at Lisa’s. It’s extremely reasonably priced, with generous portions. Great value and Yum Yum Yum.

And so we roll.

Lisa’s Truck Center, 820 Route 66 East, Moriarty, NM

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
chinese mexican

Tio Wally Eats America: Lisa’s Truck Center

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 in Los Lunas, New Mexico.

Greetings from Los Lunas, New Mexico!
N 34° 48.840’  W 106° 45.856’  Elev. 4932 ft.
Los Lunas, bastardized Spanish for “the moons”? I don’t know why they named it that. I’ve been here for a couple nights and I’ve seen only a single moon  — the same one! So much for the Land of (Binary) Enchantment.

(Actually, it’s named for the Luna family. If it were to mean “the moons” it would be Las Lunas.)

On the way here I stopped at Lisa’s Truck Center, just off I-40 at the east end of Moriarty. It’s an old funky place that’s been there forever. I’ve been stopping at Lisa’s for years and throughout all that time I’ve never been able to predict if its little restaurant was going to be open or not. In the past it tended to go in and out of operation with some regularity. (Regularity in Moriarty? Pure poetry!) This time, however, it was open.It’s hard to call the place a restaurant. It consists of no more than four or five tables inside the store, the kitchen a puny little thing accessible from the “dining room” through a tiny little window. (Sorry about the paucity of pictures. The place is actually kind of charming in funky sort of way, but there were diners there and ….)

Although most of the fare here is standard American food, they also make a handful of “New Mexico Specialties”. I got a to-go order of Chile Rellenos ($7.75), served with rice and beans, chips and salsa. You can get them with red or green sauce. Since there are two to an order, I ordered one with each sauce.

As is too often the case, when I got back to the land yacht I discovered they had given me only the red sauce. Damn! C’est la vie. Still, the rellenos were fantastic!

They were made with fresh Anaheim chiles but they were not Anaheim chiles, the most common chile used for making real rellenos; by the way, “relleno” is Spanish for “stuffed.” These were long, no more than an inch or so around, and nice and semi-hot. They were stuffed with that white Mexican cheese, Queso Blanco (I think, as it wasn’t runny), battered and fried to perfection. The batter was not too thick, delightfully crisp on the outside yet still moist inside. And the chiles had just enough heat to make them fun.

(Swoon!)

I don’t know if it’s a New Mexican or a Tex-Mex thing but instead of cutting a slit in the pepper and inserting the cheese, they cut off the top/stem and stuff the cheese down into them. I’m not sure it changes the flavor but it changes the texture a bit as the integrity of the pepper is intact and it doesn’t have a chance to steam inside, keeping it from getting soft/soggy, plus the cheese has no opportunity to escape.

On a 1-10 scale I’d put these up in the 8-9 range, but only in case I have a relleno someday that makes me physically, well, … let’s just say I would need a fresh pair of underwear. Not overly sauced, cooked perfectly, and the rice and beans were really good as well. (Too bad the photos don’t do ‘em justice.)

Having sampled rellenos all over the country I know that ordering them anywhere east of the Midwest becomes risky, if not disastrous. I had one in Georgia once that consisted of a little one-inch square of canned pepper of indeterminate provenance covered with a weird tasting ground mystery meat and topped with a flavorless white cheese (probably casein). I had to ask them where the chile was when they brought it. I had another in North Carolina that consisted of the bottom of a Bell Pepper with tasteless ground beef in it, topped with cheddar cheese and run under a salamander.

It’s amazing how this simple, exquisite dish gets so badly bastardized from place to place. Thankfully, in New Mexico it’s usually a safe bet that you’ll get the real thing. And these were definitely the real thing.

The next day here in Los Lunas I went to Panda Express, the nationwide chain of “fast food” Chinese restaurants. I like them because they’re very clean and very consistent yet the food is always good, always fresh and reasonably priced. (Truly the antithesis of McDouche’s.) And as an added bonus, if you take their little phone survey on the back of the receipt, you get a free item.
I got a couple of my standards — Honey-Walnut Shrimp and Kung Pao Chicken — and a new menu item, Thai Cashew Chicken, and chow mein. I’m sort of addicted to the H-W Shrimp. It’s got a great texture as the honey makes kind of a crust on the outside, while the shrimp is a succulent and tender. It’s served with honey-candied walnuts that are fantastic. It makes for a great trio of textures. The Kung Pao Chicken is typical KP, but they have big chunks of zucchini in it. I also appreciate that they’re not afraid of making it spicy.
The Thai Cashew Chicken was kind of silly. It’s chock full of big, bite-sized pieces of tender white-meat chicken, with Thai basil, onion, lots of red bell pepper, and a few cashews and peanuts thrown in. But …. While it was okay, it needed to be more Thai-y, though I have no idea how that would be accomplished. It just needs …? I ended up wishing they made something with Thai peanut sauce, like Param Chicken (chicken with fresh, raw spinach in a peanut sauce). I really should’ve gotten the Sweet Fire Chicken, which is what I normally get and is always great.The chow mein, however, is always good. The noodles are always cooked perfectly, not mushy, and it’s full of big pieces of crunchy celery and cabbage. Yum.

All in all Panda Express is a great deal — two meals for me — for under $8 … with the secret survey code. (Hint: Five numbers, currently starts with nine.)

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you also get the obligatory fortune cookie. I was kind of hungry so I broke mine open immediately. Curiously, the fortune read: “Please Pay Cashier. Thank You. Come Again.”

And so we roll.

Lisa’s Truck Center, 820 Route 66 East, Moriarty, NM
Panda Express, Nationwide

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
mexican tio wally travel

Tio Wally Eats America: Perla Tapatia

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 Perla Tapatia in San Antonio, Texas.

Greetings from San Antonio, Texas!
N 29° 29.004’  W 098° 23.503’  Elev. 738 ft.

The SS Me So Hungry sailed into San Antonio to deliver 20+ tons of various margarine concoctions, like Shedd’s Spread Country Crock®, to H•E•B. I like to think we helped oil the toast of the citizens of San Antonio. Sort of grease their buns, if you will.

H•E•B is a chain of supermarkets in Texas and northern Mexico. It’s named after Howard E. Butt, youngest son of Florence Butt, who opened the C.C. Butt Grocery Store on the ground floor of her family home in Kerrville, Texas in 1905. Now a 315-store chain, its parent company is H.E. Butt Grocery Company.

But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that by calling its stores H•E•B it has denied the (mostly male) youths of Texas and northern Mexico the opportunity for innumerable titters, guffaws and jokes, and successfully quashed the advent of an unknowable number of possible euphemisms. They could’ve named it Butt Market — but NO!

Across the street from its distribution center was the Perla Tapatia Mexican Restaurant. I was starving by the time I got there and had been looking forward to breakfast for hours. But when I looked at the menu my heart sank — I couldn’t find my favorite Mexican breakfast anywhere on the menu.

I want Huevos con (eggs with) Napoles, I told the waitress. Without blinking she asked, “And what to drink?” Where is it on the menu, I asked. “It’s not.” Okay. So I ordered it with a Melon (cantaloupe) Aguas Frescas.

Napoles, also called Napolitanos, is one interesting vegetable. The closest vegetable it can be compared to flavor-wise is green beans, but it sometimes can also have a decidedly okra-esque slimy quality to it, depending on how it’s used. The reason is that Napoles is cactus, specifically Napol Cactus.

Nopal Cactus is that broad-leaved (technically the leaf or pad is called a cladode) cactus also called Prickly Pear. Nopales (also called Napolitanos) are usually harvested just as the cladode is about to develop thorns. The older cladodes are still edible, just more dangerous.

Mexicans eat Nopales a number of different ways, but most commonly either in scrambled eggs or simply as a salad. The Prickly Pear (tuna in Spanish) of the Nopal is also edible. I haven’t eaten one since I was a kid and can’t remember what they taste like. I do remember them being vicious because of the glochids, little hair-like spines that get into your skin, hurt like hell, and are impossible to remove.

Needless to say my Huevos con Nopales were just what the skipper ordered. It came with Refritos (refried beans) and homemade flour tortillas; there simply isn’t anything better than homemade tortillas. They also served it with a Salsa Verde which was really good and had a nice heat to it. I’m not usually a fan of green salsas as I’m not into tomatillos. It’s too citrus-y for me. This stuff was tasty though, and obviously homemade.

Even though it was the pulp-less variety from a mix, the Melon Aguas Frescas was very refreshing. Plus, I got a free refill! I’ve never figured out why but most Mexican restaurants give free refills yet others don’t. Total cost for my soul-satisfying not-listed-on-the-menu breakfast was $5.93.

By the time I left at about 11:30 a.m., the place was packed — always a good sign. I’m really looking forward to trying some of their other offerings the next time I deliver industrially processed corn squeezins to H.E. Butt.

And so we roll.

Perla Tapatia, 5102 Rittiman Rd., San Antonio, Texas 210.662.2919

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
mexican

Soccer Taco (Knoxville, Tennessee)

Day 9 of the Shonali tour: We headed to Knoxville, home of the Tennessee Volunteers and played a short set and interview on WUTK. I was pretty grumpy because I hadn’t eaten since my morning Muscle Milk. I did try to buy a beef stick from a vending machine at a rest stop. But pressing B10 isn’t B-1-0, it’s B-10. It gave me Peanut M&M’s. I was so pissed off. I hid underneath the desk in the radio booth while we played.

We headed off to dinner. Matt and Shonali went to Nama Sushi on Gay St. I didn’t want sushi. That’s so 90’s. So Amy and I went to Soccer Taco. I didn’t imagine it would be good, but I liked their name and there were a lot of fat people eating there.

The food was as expected and beer super cheap. An enchilada with rice and beans on the side is just like the burrito on the same plate, but separate. Everything was really salty. But dang, the Queso Fundido appetizer (hot melted cheese with chorizo, mushrooms, pablano peppers and onions with tortillas) was fucking rad, even though salty. Sometimes salty is really good.

Later went to meet Matt and Shonali at the sushi restaurant. Shit, all the girls there were really hot.

Soccer Taco - 6701 Kingston Pike. Knoxville, TN 37919