A TRIP TO THE MISSION

So like my businesses, the company I work for has seen a slow down due to the economy. This meant that for a few weeks, I was only working 4 days a week (and I had it good). However, I also sought to take advantage of my 3 day weekends, and on a very sunny Tuesday, I headed over to the Mission to join some friends for Mexican food.

Now, I have been to the Mission before, but not since we had moved to the Bay Area. It's kind of a funny thing, to go from our neighborhood in El Cerrito and take the BART 40 minutes to a part of San Francisco that is so different from where we live - it's almost like visiting another country.

Once I met up with my friends, we headed over to El Farolito for lunch. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants to choose from in the Mission - El Farolito just happened to be the one my friends liked. And there are several locations in the Mission. We ended up at one a little farther from the BART station, but it was much bigger. The inside wasn't anything special - we're talking picnic tables and plastic benches, but there were a lot of people inside.

Since I had never been here, I decided to order a couple of different things to try. What I didn't realize was that I'd end up waaaayyy over ordering. First we all got a basket of chips and we got to pick different types of salsa to go with it.

And here's my meal. So on the left there are two chicken tacos and on the right, there's a chicken tostada. See, I could've just ordered either the tacos or the tostadas and been totally fine ordering just one.

However, both were very tasty. I think I liked the tacos more than the tostada just because the tostada was loaded down with too many toppings. The tacos were packed with yummy grilled chicken, and were more simple, but equally messy. I'd imagine that if we had Mexican food like this anywhere near us, we'd be going once a week.

After we finished lunch, we checked ou a new ice cream place just a few doors down called Humphry Slocombe (yes, it's quite a name).

This place makes its ice cream from scratch in small batches, and they change the flavors pretty frequently. They're known for crazy flavors like fois gras, and my friend ordered a beet hibiscus sorbet (which she liked a lot)

However, when it comes to dessert and ice cream, I'm pretty traditional, so I went for their most conservative flavors - a cup with Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee and Chocolate.
I found the ice cream to be well made and tasty. However, it's not the best ice cream I've had since we've been out here - I still like Bi-Rite and Sketch more.

I had a great time in the Mission, and I just need to get my lazy butt to go out there more often. I definitely have to take Tom, though, to prove that there really is good Mexican food in the Bay Area.

WEEKEND IN SANTA CRUZ, DAY 1

Many of you may know that I haven't really taken any time off since starting my job a year ago. This is due to a number of reasons. First, I run the retail store, so it's pretty much open all the time. Second, we haven't done a lot of traveling - just some weekend trips within CA, that hasn't required me to take days off. Third, I kinda am a work-a-holic. Not so much like my co-worker who works 24/7, but things need to get done and I will work on my days off. I don't know, after owning my own business where I just worked all the time for over 2 years (and you business owners know what I'm talking about), even having 2 days off a week still seems like a luxury, and I haven't even taken advantage of any of my paid vacation days (which I seem to be saving up like it's a precious treasure). But above all else, I need the money.

But all people need a break, and just get away from it all. So even though Slow Food Nation was in town for Labor Day weekend, I skipped all the festivities to spend a quiet weekend in Santa Cruz with Tom, my sister and her boyfriend. We even got to stay there for free, by borrowing the awesome beach house of my aforementioned co-worker.

Tom and I got down to Santa Cruz in the late afternoon. After dropping our stuff off at the house, we decided to grab some lunch and check out the downtown area. I'd read some reviews of NYTimes, and we decided to go to a restaurant called Taqueria Vallarta, well known for its large potions and low prices.

Tom and I both ordered fish tacos. Here they are below. As you can see, they were pretty loaded with stuff. Unlike the fish tacos we're accustomed to, they didn't fry their fish here, but cooked it up in a sort of sauce. It was actually surprisingly tasty and a little spicy. I didn't end up eating most of my, because a had to work through my other jumbo taco.

Now I had ordered two tacos cause I was pretty hungry and I had never expected the tacos to be so large. But I was wrong. I could've just ordered one and been fine. For my second taco, I had ordered a grilled chicken taco, but I ordered it as a special, meaning it came with shredded cabbage, lettuce and more importantly guacamole.

As you can see, it was enormous. And I wasn'te ven able to finish it. We found the tacos at Taqueria Vallarta better than average - and much better than some of the "Mexican" food that we've tried up here in the Bay Area. Wish we had a place like this closer to home.

After lunch, we relaxed at the house while waiting for my little sister to arrive. This meant that I fell asleep in the hammock in the front yard, while Tom did a little work and surfed the internet. But please enjoy the lovely views from the beach directly across the street from the house:

MEXICAN FOOD IN SAN DIEGO

Last weekend Tom and I headed down to San Diego for a visit with friends and family. Tom actually headed down earlier than I did, taking a couple extra days off to hang out with his friend Evan and attend Comic Con. Meanwhile, I stayed to work, but headed down Saturday evening to join Tom. When I arrived, I was picked up by my little sister and her boyfriend who live in SD and then we picked up Tom. I was ready to eat after I landed. My little sister had planned to take us to Phil's, a local BBQ joint, but turns out that Tom had already gone, so we headed to Old Town instead and looked for a place to eat.

Apparently Old Town SD is very touristy, and filled with Mexican places to eat. Not a bad idea, since Mexican food in San Diego is supposed to be great (how can it not be with Mexico being less than an hour's drive away), and almost all the restaurants we saw were packed with people. We got a really great parking spot and started looking for a place to eat. We saw a huge restaurant, which seemed to have a fairly short, quick moving line in front, so we decided to check it out. The place was Cafe Coyote. It kinda looked like the place you'd hang out as a college student and wanted to drink margaritas, but I was hungry and it seemed promising enough.

We were seated quickly in one of the large dining rooms, and right away we ordered some guacamole and chips and were also given salsa with more chips for free.

I actually like the salsa. It was kinda watery but had good flavor.

And I like the generous serving of guacamole, though it could've used more salt. If I could've taken the salsa seasoning and mixed it with the guacamole, I would've had a really great guacamole, but I just took alternating dips of both.

I ended up ordering this combo place with a fish taco and a chicken enchilada. The fish taco was pretty good, but the crema dressing was a bit thick, and they didn't serve it with the nice pickled veggies that I enjoy. The chicken in the enchilada was a bit tough, and the thing was so drenched in cheese, that I ended up scraping most of the cheese off and taking nibbles from the inside.

Tom ordered a "Mexican pizza" which looked interesting, but was quite heavy. It kinda reminded him of the Taco Bell Mexican pizza, but heavier.

Overall, the food was decent enough, and it certainly satisfied my hunger. The service could've been better, though. Our waitress was pretty good at first, taking our orders and getting the food to us quickly, but then she totally disappeared. We couldn't find her to get our check, and when we were ready to pay, it took even longer for her to pick up the credit card to run it. I did kinda enjoy the live music, played buy two guys who were talking from table to table, playing their guitars for tips, but it really was a tourist trap and I look foward to more authentic Mexican food the next time we visit.