Text 38444, 126 rader
Skriven 2010-05-29 09:18:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: picnic Fri 225
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Late start Friday. Carol and I held off until almost noon and
then had a bunch of Lite beers and a pack of Indian hot mix
(various kinds of chickpea noodles, nuts, and pulse seeds,
all fried and tossed in a bit of a garam masala) from a company
called Deep.

We were well into our project of making a tower of beer cans
when the Hafflys showed up. We quickly refocused our attention
on an excellent lemony hummus and some nice red pickled eggs
both of which Steve and Ruth had made. Also some olives that had
been in the house, a jar of delicious garlic cloves in tomato
sauce, and, when the Shipps showed up a bit later, Sunrise
Valley hot (but not fatally hot) red peppers in brine. Also
two flavors of Cheetos Mighty Zingers, which are shards of
Cheeto-like substance, seemingly more starchy and lumpen
than the regular product - perhaps the Frito-Lay version of
debris or something. A gimmick: you get two types in the same
bag, and you mix them up for a combined taste or eat them
separately for a separate taste, duh, but that's what the
advertisements say.

Ragin' Cajun and Tangy Ranch - a lurid red one that tastes
vaguely hot and a white one that tastes vaguely oniony-dairyy;

Sharp Cheddar and Salsa Picante - a lurid red one that tastes
vaguely tomatoey and hot and a yellow one that tastes vaguely
cheesy. I think they'd be okay for the dual purpose of drunk
munchies and kid munchies. The cheddar and salsa ones seemed
modestly preferred by the company.

Brickbats to the company for clogging the shelves with yet
another mediocre (and rather salty) product; kudos for taking
the trouble to make the lurid red ones taste different when
they have different names.

=

I brought chocolates from Lindt and Cost Plus to compare. The
Cost Plus World Market ones were 64% cacao, the Lindts somewhat
less. I believe the Lindts tasted slightly better though.

Lindt Excellence sea salt - good aroma, chunks of salt, vanilla
finish, nice if a little (duh) salty, which in its turn brings
out the sweetness;

World Market sea salt - tropical aroma, chunks of salt, coconutty
taste and finish, pretty good;

Lindt Excellence chili - very fruity with stone fruit and
tropical fruit and cardboard aromas; good heat;

World Market chipotle pepper - sweet chocolate followed by a
strong smoky taste and a raisiny finish, the heat sneaking up
at the back of the throat.

To take a break from beer, I opened a Harris Teeter diet cherry
cola, which was insufficiently cherried and insufficiently colaed
but heavily caffeinated, which I determined after about one bite.

The late start made our lunch almost bump up against our 5 pm
reservations.

We headed for El Taco Loco a couple miles down the way: Dale and
Gail and myself in one car and the others in another. Despite
my reading the map slightly wrong and making us take one wrong
turn, we beat the other car owing to Steve's GPS being balky. Hah.

Charlotte didn't join us because of an upset stomach, and
Don didn't join us for whatever reason.

The restaurant is pretty plain and no-nonsense though clean and
friendly. Though we had a reservation, no table had been set up
for us (we just glommed a spot), and when Carol said that we'd
reserved a rack of ribs that were supposed to be served to us
when we arrived, the people there had no idea what she was talking
about. We said, okay, we'll wait until these ribs arrive and then
we'll figure out the rest of the meal. The ribs came, not the
appetizer treatment that she'd asked for but as a dinner, with
a big plate of rice and a cup of avocado-pineapple salsa on the
side. The ribs were good though I thought a little overbrined,
in a sort of compromise treatment - first dry rubbed and finished
with a wet sauce. The salsa had a lot of cilantro in it, so many
of us rejected it, and I ended up picking out little cubes of
fruit and leaving the cilantro-heavy leavings.

For mains, we got an assortment of things - I ordered one each
of three tacos - lengua (beef tongue), carnitas (fried pork
cubes), and res (fajita steak). They were out of tongue, which
disappointed me, and I should have changed my order but instead
told them to substitute something else, which turned out to be
carnitas. The tacos were a decent deal, but heavily filled with
sliced cabbage, which of course bloats me up, and shredded
cheese, which of course bloats me up. The tortillas were good,
the meat was good. Dale next to me had a carnitas plate, which
cost about $2 more than mine but had twice the meat, in bigger
chunks, so his carnitas were in fact nicely crisp on the outside
and nicely tender on the inside. It came, as did all the other
plates, with tortillas, rice, and beans. I tasted his meal,
which was marginally better than mine. Steve had El Pollo Loco,
a perfectly fine but ordinary chicken breast in a very mild hot
sauce, completely covered (and I think undone) by cheese. Ruth's
chicken in chorizo sauce I thought more interesting though quite
salty. Carol had a mixed fajita thing, which she couldn't eat
much of and ended up taking back for Don. I didn't see what Gail
had, as she was at the other end of my side of the table.

Beers were reasonable, though we got charged regular prices for
the regular beers rather than the Happy Hour prices. This was
made up for the fact that Murphy's Irish Stout was $1 for a pint.
I had two.

Nobody but the Hafflys had room for dessert: they got flan, which
was on the starchy side but otherwise decent. Verdict:
Food good
Atmosphere perfectly ok
Service imperfectly ok. I did leave a tiny bit over 15% tip though.

After dinner the excitements were: taking a walk to settle our
overfull stomachs; and the toilet getting clogged. Steve went to
Lowe's and got a snake, which sort of helped, but it is possible
that the Roto-Rooter may have to come to the rescue.


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