Oh Yeah! Let Me Show You Some November and December Stuff

Here are things that happened in November and December besides Jeff and Ryan coming to town and Mom and Dad coming to town and me going home to Chicago (post forthcoming in that case).

For starters, on November 8th I lucked out and got in on a dinner at the Polo Bar with Ray, Kelsey and Tamara. Food was good, ambiance was top notch, everyone was fancy and there wasn't much phone reception down there.

So imagine our collective surprise leaving the restaurant and discovering Donald Trump was leading in the election? Or not just leading, but had it locked in? Our restaurant was just a couple blocks away from the Hilton where the Trump camp was waiting on the results, so we went by to see what was going on. 

What was going on was Red Hats were celebrating.

What a weird night.

Anyway.

The next day I met up with Steve and child at Marcus Garvey Park and we had a little walk around.

This one day this dude was on the subway and he was like there to make the ride good for everyone. He must have given up his seat three times to people. Santa Claus in his city clothes disguise? I don't know.

Had a brief mouse situation which I tried to take care of in a very traditional manner. Then the mouse just stopped showing up. 

Look at this fun mural!

(Insert here Mom and Dad's visit to the city)

Thanksgiving Time: The night before Thanksgiving I went with Chaunte to Tanoshi Sushi on the Upper East Side. It's like the very well known secret place to get world-class sushi in the city. A $250 meal for $90. Very good, wish I liked sushi even better than I do. I mean this is probably the best sushi I've ever had, but I'm not eating good sushi often enough to remember/recognize the difference between this night's meal and the second best sushi I've ever had. Whatever that might have been. 

We had a lot more fish than this. Just wanted to give you an idea of what we ate without filling this post with every piece.

A little glimpse of my Thanksgiving dinner. More talking and eating than photographing.

Right before Thanksgiving I watched this incredible movie called Christian Mingle on Netflix and I talked about it so much that night that my hosts turned it on. I thought I wasn't going to stick around and watch the whole things again, that I'd just stay until the part where she says a prayer at the coffee house, but nope, I watched the whole thing and probably if I ever walked in on someone watching it again I'd sit down and watch the whole thing. This movie is amazing. If you have seen it can we talk about it? For a long time?

This is another great Netflix movie. I learned a whole lot about cats.

Saturday after Thanksgiving? Oh Hello, the popular Broadway comedic play. Our surprise celebrity guest was Itzhak Perlman, the famous violinist from Sesame Street.

Post-Thanksgiving also checked out the portrait exhibit at the Whitney once more. And I'll probably see it again! Look at these two kids on their DS's. 

Worked on my avocado toasts and chongqing chicken 

In fact, worked on my chongqing chicken so much that Ned had me cook a whole fake-Mission Chinese dinner at his house for a bunch of people. It went pretty well!

Happy December 12th, everyone!

Carol was in town for a class and we were able to grab three lunches. Three! Most noteworthy: Good ol' Momofuku Noodle Bar

December 15th: Rogue One Day! I went with Chaunte and Omar (crazy how many people had office Holiday parties that night) up in Harlem. Pre-movie: Chaunte and I ate at Don Paco's, a neighborhood place that has really been growing on me. Rogue One? It also has grown on me. A bit.

Every Christmas time I never miss the Pop-Up Flea. And I also (just about) never buy anything. But this year I did buy a slice of Emmett's deep dish pizza. This year's flea was at the 165th's armory down in the 20's. I'd never been in there before. Very cool.

Something cool: Sariah was in town from Paris with her boyfriend's family. I hadn't seen her since 2011, it was great. We went to Wendy's. But the only picture I took was this candid spy shot.

We celebrated Victoria's birthday one night and then continued the celebration with breakfast at Tom's in Brooklyn a few days later. I hadn't been there since my very very first trip to New York in March 2003. Nothing had changed! 

Another important end of December activity? In a Curious Kittens throwback moment, Steven and I recorded Episode 0 of Talkeria el Taco!

Also big news: The Mapps came up to New York for a daytime with some of Mallory's family as part of their traditional east coast holidays. I got lunch with them in midtown and then we ate dinner up here and recorded Talkeria el Taco Episode 1. 

Ok, I'll be back soon (no, really) with my Chicago trip and three posts (Three!!) about California!

Mom and Dad Came to New York

I returned from Utah very very early Wednesday the week before Thanksgiving and rushed home to rest a bit because Mom and Dad were about to fly in from Chicago because Dad had meetings and that's a good reason to take a New York trip.

When Mom and Dad arrived I took them up to the roof and then I took them to see the neighborhood chickens and then we had a nice little lunch at Don Paco's (where they have a great customer-respecting policy) that was maybe a little too big.

Then we dipped straight down to the Met to see what they had going on there. You know what? The Met is really a pretty good museum.

For dinner that night we ate at Cosme, which I hadn't been back to since eating at it on its opening night two years ago. Cosme is the first restaurant in the United States from Enrique Olvera, one of Mexico's very best chefs. Is it fancy Mexican food? Maybe more like a Mexican's fancy food? Whichever way you want to look at it, it is very, very good. Dinner made me wish I hadn't taken two years to come back.

Hmmm. Looks like I didn't take any pictures Thursday day? But for dinner we went to Balthazaar followed by the Eagle Huntress at the Sunshine Theater.

Mom wanted to have an outside the city adventure Friday while Dad was at his conference so I took her up to the Dia Beacon museum. I caught the train at 125th Street and met mom on board. I had never been to the 125th street station, it's surprisingly nice in there.

Beacon made us feel very welcome

And now, the museum!

I hadn't been to the Dia Beacon in eight years! (Back then you couldn't take pictures inside) I was glad to see they had some new stuff as well as lots of the good old old stuff. 

After the museum we explored downtown Beacon and had a nice little lunch before catching the train back into the city.

Hope your Chinese pronunciation is good.

We had an early dinner at Uncle Boon's. Man, what an A++ place. I'm glad it found a place on Mom's "Need to return to" list last year. We ate more than the crab fried rice and the banana blossom salad, but those are what I got good pictures of. It's dark in there!

After dinner we went and saw Fiddler On the Roof. It was really pretty good. The dancing was good. Dad had bought us discount tickets that afternoon and it turned out they were for the exact center of the second row. Holy cow. I'd never sat in such good seats at such a good show before. I was worried the actors were going to fall on top of me.

Saturday we had breakfast at the Breslin

Then, while Dad conferenced, Mom and I walked over to the High Line, then walked the High Line, then walked down to the WTC PATH station. It was a lot of walking. I sort of didn't think about how far it would be from 14th street to downtown.

At the PATH station we met up with Jeff and headed out to the Jersey Loews to watch Captain Blood. It was great to get to take my folks to my favorite place in New York City and the movie was fun and good.

After we got back to the city we walked down to the Sea Glass Carousel but it was CLOSED.

Then it was time for a late dinner at Superiority Burger (everyone loves Superiority Burger because it's the BEST!) and Fuku (where I tried their new sweet and spicy sandwich. It was sweet and spicy.)

For Sunday we had lunch at the Dutch, which I had never been to before in spite of hearing such good things about it from so many people. And yes, it was great. And very big, I didn't realize there were so many rooms to it. I had their hot fried chicken with biscuits. Man those biscuits were buttery.

Up at church they had a Pie Fest, but we had to get to dinner at Parm.

No pictures from dinner, but here's Mom and Dad telling me goodbye as we wait on seperate subway platforms.

Monday morning, with the departure clock ticking, we dash down to Dominique Ansel for some DKAs and hot chocolates.

Here's Mom and Dad's hotel lobby.

And here I am on the platform seeing them off on their train to the airport. It was good having Mom and Dad in town, we had a good fun time. 

I Was Feeling Restless So I Went Out to Utah

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of every funeral that I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to Utah (or California or Chicago) as soon as I can. So that's what I did one restless weekend last month.

I arrived in Salt Lake pretty late on a Friday night but Cindy was a saint and picked me up and drove me to her house, allowing for a quick Beto's (I know that's not its name anymore) pick up on the way over. What a wonderful meal of taquitos to tuck into before turning in for the night.

Saturday morning I went with all the Beans to Hector's for breakfast burritos. It was great and we barely beat the burrito brunch crowd there. I'd never been to Hector's before. It's like one of those restaurants that is like a Beto's. Someday I've got to find out what happened to all the Beto's and why there's so many places in Utah like a Beto's that aren't a Beto's.

After breakfast I got to go with Cindy to DI and see a DI pro in action.

Here's Echo.

Something I learned at Cindy's house is there's lots of great Star Wars stuff for kids, like Golden Books of the whole original trilogy. Young enough to have loved Wicket and the Ewoks, I just don't get people who have a problem with them.

That afternoon Andrew came down from the mountains to run a taco circuit with me and Melissa and Emily. Now I'm going to tell it how it is here and be real about these restaurants. First stop was Chego's, which I had been to before about 5 years ago. This is the number one taco place among so many Salt Lakers.

My Verdict: Overrated but fine. Two and a half stars out of four.

Next we went up the street to Rey de los Tacos, which I had also eaten at with Andrew one time five years ago. We drove by it on the way to Chego's and I was like "That's that van we ate from that one time!' So back up the street we went.

My kind of place. Didn't get a picture of my tacos, though. Would like to come back and try all the meats. I knew a breakfast burrito would slow down my afternoon taco consumption, but what was I going to do? Three stars.

Here's Andrew and Melissa.

And Andrew and Emily.

And Emily and Melissa with Andrew in the background.

Then we drove down and over to the Latino Mall to visit Tortas y Jugos el Morelense. 

Latina. Mall.

What a great place El Morelense is and what a tight operation. Wish I had had it in me to eat more than one taco. Probably my top choice for tacos north of Provo? But who am I? Just an enthusiastic visitor! Thank you for having me, Utah! El Morelense: Three and a half stars.

Then we headed over to downtown SLC for this place Taco Taco. What a bad taco. Tortilla completely disintegrated. "Carne asada" was some kinda stew. Literally flavorless salsas. Like, people say something "doesn't have flavor" sometimes because it has very little flavor. But they actually had salsas there that, while bright red in color and full of seeds, would not register as anything on your tastebuds. One star.

But still a nice spot for a hang and they were doing steady business so what do I know? *shrugs* ("oh yeah! I know what tacos I like and who I like to hang out with!")

I stick to my convictions that Salt Lake is a super underrated destination for Mexican food and wish I could spend lots more time there eating every taco.

After the taco circuit I had to get up to Highland to buy groceries for Sunday dinner and then me and the Edwards wound up going down to the edge of Draper to eat burgers at this place called Freddy's. I mean I was completely full but I've always got room for a burger, I guess, particularly if they look like this.

On Sunday Ellie liked my tie.

And I cooked the Edwards's my carnitas tacos. I'm just going to keep telling you that this recipe I found online is absolute dynamite. It's so easy and the tacos are so shockingly good, I feel like it's not even bragging to say so because I barely have to do anything to bring them into this world. My own carnitas tacos: FOUR STARS!

Monday I went and visited Grandma during the day and brought taco fixings over for lunch. She loved them! Because they're that good! SHE ATE FOUR! After tacos I went and got us Frosties and learned that fast food workers in Utah can't spell "Brigham" either.

Monday night I dropped Cory off at the airport and grabbed dinner at the Copper Onion because my family was treating me weird for never having eaten there before. Very good. Not Mexican, so I'm not rating it here. Would definitely come back and eat as much of the menu as possible.

Tuesday I went and checked out the Provo City Center Temple. If you like stairs, you will love this temple!

Post-Temple I hit up the Don Joaquin's on Bulldog. I'll admit, a lot of the original shine to Don Joaquin's was the old Salon Eclipse location, something's lost in translation in moving into a legitimate spot BUT these tacos, they're still very legitimate. 3.5 out of 4. (Why not 4? keep scrolling).

Now, Cory and I still haven't been able to figure exactly figure out how the business is set up, but as far as I can tell, or for what I care, Ricardo of the Springville Don Joaquin location is the man behind the magic of the Best Tacos I've Ever Had in the United States. He's recently opened up a taco truck (or trailer) another twenty minutes past Provo down in Payson. Neither Cory nor I had been before and we weren't even positive the operation was up and running, so I texted Ricardo to confirm and Yes, he's in business. Also, can I tell you how good it feels to have your taquero's personal cell number in your phone? What, you don't text your taquero? Do you even taco, bro?

It took a little hunting, but I found Tacos Tarricaso and Ricardo's working some kind of magic there that divides the Don Joaquin's of Bulldog from the touch of the master's hand. 4 out of 4 stars. You cannot beat these.

A few important bits of my conversation with Ricardo:

  • When I asked him what his secret was to being better than everyone else, he just said "I get up and do my best every day."
  • On Tarricaso truck expansion plans: "I do not want to ask for too much (glances above), but I would like to have 13."
  • I told him the tacos were better than the ones I had just had in Provo, I meant it as a compliment but he took it as a quality control item and said "Why? They have the recipes, they just need to follow them."
  • Asked him what his favorite Mexican dishes are that he doesn't serve, "enchiladas and chilaquiles" was his quick response, and then he proceeded to quickly wax rhapsodic on the makings of a perfect plate of chilaquiles.
  • The trailer was doing steady business while I was there (the party ahead of me in line slowed things down by order 23 tacos), Ricardo says it's all from word of mouth and visibility, he's done no advertising.

So, in conclusion, these were the best. If you want the best, you're going to have to go for a drive. OR hire the truck to come to you.

With that done the clock was kind of ticking and I had to both go say goodbye to Kristen and the kids and get up to Salt Lake for dinner with the Beans, Whitney and Jared before catching my flight home. We hit up the Red Iguana 2 because I'd been a few years without. I had the yellow mole pork enchiladas, my preferred dish, though lots of the menu invites investigation. Red Iguana is such an institution and they keep it quality in there, still, I haven't yet had my definitive Red Iguana meal, the one that cements the reason for the popularity for me. These weren't tacos, but it's a 3 out of 4.

And here's Jared.

Goodbye, Utah! See you next time I'm bored and hungry. El Cabrito, I miss you. Salt Lake City taco carts outside of Sears, I still need to get to know you. Oh, and why didn't I rate the first two Mexican places I ate at? Because I didn't think to do ratings until the taco circuit started. There's no turning back for me!