Road Trip Shout-Outs

Mary and I survived Road Trip DC, mostly thanks to the generosity of others and the kindness of strangers. While we can't invite everyone we met to sleep on our floors and futons (at least not all at once), we can pass along the favor by giving a shout out to the diners and restaurants that fed us well on the way.

Steak N Shake in Elkhart, Indiana:

Yeah, good old Steak N Shake. Not much to say about the food, but we were treated so well here. They gave us bibs and crayons and funny paper hats and kept us in coffee. So thanks for the hospitality. It was more than we could have ever hoped for from a chain diner off the turnpike.

Summit Diner in Somerset, Pennsylvania:

Somerset is called the city of signs. Or maybe it's the city of many signs. I forget which. The Summit Diner has a distinct pink and green snake-shaped neon sign rising like a beacon to hungry girls who've been trapped in a car for too long. The food here was classic diner and ridiculously good. Mary said, "This Reuben is better than any Reuben I've had in Chicago!" High praise from Mary.

The best part about the Summit Diner was that they treated us like rock stars. Maybe people don't go on meandering road trips any more, or maybe only boys do that sort of thing, or maybe it's just that nobody does that sort of thing in December. But our waitress was totally into what we were doing and told all the other patrons about us, and the next thing you know, we're laughing and smiling and telling everyone about the Duquesne Incline. Thank you, Summit Diner! We had a fabulous time at your counter.

More shout-outs to follow...

Road Trip DC!

Mary and I are on a great adventure. It seems as though we're not eating any burritos on this adventure, but it is an adventure nonetheless.

We are driving from Chicago to Washington DC for no reason at all, other than we both have some time to kill and credit limits that don't match our income. Yesterday, we spent several hours in Chicago traffic trying to leave town, which was almost enough adventure for both of us. But we pushed through Indiana and Ohio, stopping at the Toledo Airport Days Inn. While the Toledo Airport Days Inn lacked some of the amenities of a fancier hotel (like an elevator and a nice-smelling room), the sweet coupon Mary found in a rest stop book and the charming night clerk more than made up for it.

Why do road signs on the Ohio Turnpike warn of animal presence? Aren't they everywhere? Quote: Animals Present When Flashing. Though we saw no animals, I could feel them lurking in the shadows and avoiding detection.

Today, we braved the mountains of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has some pretty freaky road signs about things like airplanes watching you, cliffs, and falling rocks. We stopped in Pittsburgh to check out the famous Incline. Travelers be warned--what is supposed to be a museum is really some pictures on a wall, a bunch of locked doors, a cable car you can't get on unless you first somehow make it down the incline and let it take you back up, and NO BATHROOM. Should you be clenching your thighs together, the gift shop lady will direct you to the public bathroom at the Pittsburgh mall a mile down the road. But, oh, the postcard-buying opportunities. Our first choice was some church that has 5,000 relics (that's pieces of dead saints, for non-Catholics), but they are not open on Wednesdays. Their recording informed us that Sister Margaret gives tours on Sundays, so hopefully we'll hit it on the way back.

Maryland (Mary-Land, get it?) passed in a blink, and Virginia so far has been nothing more than Mary's awesome friend's apartment and two really cute kittens to play with. But we'll keep you posted. (Get it? Posted. Ha.)

Rocky's Tacos II

Proof that such a menu item exists. Mo found this gem on Flickr, credit going to a Mr. Andrew Huff. Thanks, Mo!

Rocky's Tacos

Guest Commentary by the Fabulous Ms. Monique Daviau:
(We should always be so lucky to have an organized note-taker along for the trip.)

I am honored to be a guest commentator on Burritos on Clark. Having spent most of my life in either California or Texas, I fancy myself an educated burrito consumer. I knock back at least two or three burritos a week and if I don’t get my little burro action, I get nervous.

At first glance, Rocky’s got high marks. A generally clean and well-lit establishment, Rocky’s Tacos is a shrine to the popular Mexican sport of futbol (soccer to us gringos). A giant, colorful mural of a soccer field takes up the far wall while a glassed-in case holds Mexican futbol memorabilia. The specialty of the house is the torta, aka Mexican Sandwich, and were this blog called Tortas on Clark, my feelings on Rocky’s might be different.

While the vegetarian Cortney went to the restroom, the waitress brought out chips and salsa. Curiously, the salsa was topped with chopped ham. Who the hell puts chopped ham on salsa? In all of my years of Mexican restaurant patronage, never once have I seen ham served with salsa. That was just weird. We asked for some ham-free salsa, which was heavy on the onions and the finely chopped jalapeno. Not bad, but a little too vinegary. I opted for the squeeze bottles of hot sauce, one red, one green. I preferred the green one as the red one was also vinegary. The chips were thick and dark, as if they had visited a tanning salon before being served to us.

My burrito arrived and it looked good. Al pastor pork, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a thick cloud of sour cream peeked out from where the cook had cut it in half. The al pastor was an utter failure*. They had failed to season the meat or roast it on a vertical spit, the way every reputable taqueria in Texas does. They had just taken a bunch of ground pork and thrown it on the grill.

A few bites into the burrito, all I could taste was the grill. I could taste the grisly burned crumbs of everything else they’d cooked over the last week instead of the rather flavorless ingredients. I abandoned the meat and squirted gobs of green salsa on my burrito. It was still a disappointment.

And what was up with Cortney’s enchiladas? They looked to be a few rungs down from my home version of enchiladas, made with El Paso-brand canned sauce. They appeared to contain cheese, rice, and pico de gallo.

Rocky’s wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t any good either. I will give them bonus points for not causing me any gastrointestinal distress. Of course, afterwards we hit Red Mango in Evanston for some probiotic frozen yogurt, so maybe coating our intestines with lactobacillus bacteria stopped any unpleasant trips to the can.

The best thing about Rocky’s Tacos is not the quality of their food, but their audacious use of the English language. On the menu is an item boldly called “Fuck You Referi.” I have to wonder if the owners of this establishment didn’t know that Americans generally don’t use the word “fuck” in the names of things they want to sell, unless it’s the title of a porn video. I briefly thought about ordering a dish that represents the anger a futboller feels towards an unfair ref but it had ham and other weird meat in it.

Maybe their tortas, of which they offered sixty or so varieties, are the way to go.

*for the most amazing pastor in the Chicagoland area, please visit La Cabanita on Ogden Ave in Brookfield. Inconvenient for those not already in the west suburbs, but the abuela in the kitchen knows how to make a rich, delicious al pastor!

El not-so-Famous Burrito

Unlike Mary, I had no expectations about El Famous. So the prison bare walls and institutional atmosphere were only mildly off-putting. On the other hand, the board menu behind the counter with all of three veggie options was very disappointing.

Me and my meatless nachos were paired by circumstance. Like the best possible outcome for an arranged marriage, I never fell madly, truly in love, but me and my nachos developed a trust and a comfortable companionship as I mowed my way through them.

For meatless nachos, the amount of stuff on them was truly amazing. The carrots, the roasted jalapenos, the generous glops of guac and sour cream, the mounds of cheese and beans, the standard lettuce and tomato...made the mile walk home difficult but worth the eating extravaganza.

So yes, solid B for El Famous. A for the nachos, C for the atmosphere (and that's being generous because Mary didn't even want me to go to the bathroom and leave her alone with the other patrons).

El Rey del Taco

Dear Mary,

I thought you liked this place. I did.

Love,
Cortney

Okay, so that's not a real review. Let me try again. I would put El Rey del Taco in the running for best burrito place on Clark Street so far. It definitely makes my top two. Now in saying that, I am judging solely on how much I loved my food. Which I did. I loved all three and a half pounds of it as it sat in my stomach like a booted car all night. In fact, other than the giant avocados, I don't really remember what all came in my veggie burrito suizo because I couldn't stop eating long enough to look. And the tortilla bowl of refried beans with grated cheese on top was heavenly. Like a gift from the burrito gods, even.

That being said, El Rey del Taco lacks atmosphere. I'm not sure how much the lack of atmosphere should matter when a burrito is so good. Since Mary and I have started this journey, we have visited a lot of completely empty restaurants. (The crackhead at the roach burrito place doesn't count as a legitimate diner.) This place had several other occupied tables, where other patrons ate as voraciously as we did. And this was well past standard dinner time.

I thoroughly enjoyed the unisex bathroom with your choice of urinal or stall. It reminded me of a trashy version of the Battlestar Gallactica bathrooms. And to get to this bathroom, you have to walk by some fabulous and tempting gumball machines with things like noisemaking animal key chains. Alas, I had no quarters that day.

So, El Rey del Taco, I am craving a bean bowl right now. You are one of the only two burrito places I would revisit so far, so congratulations. If the craving doesn't go away soon, I will be back.

Chips

So, after a night of heavy drinking, Yoshimi served us Tostitos with "a hint of lime."

a. More than a hint, these had a definite TASTE of lime.

b. Awesome in a bag.

c. Buy them.

d. I will regret said drinking in the morning (more morning), but not the chips.

Fabi's is Fabulous

I loved Fabi's. I loved that I got a real dinner with the burrito equivalent of a fruit roll-up as garnish. I loved the green salsa. I loved how all the items on my veggie combo plate didn't have the same three ingredients over and over. I loved the decor. I loved our server, who was not hostile.

I am disagreeing with Mary on this one. I thought the cheese was lovely, and my food was adequately spiced. And each item tasted completely different--how often does that happen with veggie food at a burrito place?

Contrary to Mary's pictures, the decor was quite bright and colorful. Although her camera is accurate in that I have morphed into a dark and shadowy figure since my escape from art camp.

If you've forgotten any of the characters' names in Shark Tale, go to the ladies bathroom at Fabi's and check out the helpful instructional poster.

I would take a date here. I would take two dates here. I would probably not take Mary here, because of her flauta thing.

Returning to Burrito-land

I'm at the Burlington Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to DC, so I can finally, finally make it back to Chicago and burritos.

So, all that thrifting and rummage sale-ing in the mountains of Vermont for clean clothes...got me pulled aside by airport security for the ol' pat-down. Imagine, me, a five-foot tall white girl looking scary enough to get picked out of the crowd. Dude, they picked ME!

As I sit here recovering from the indignity of having my butt touched and my pockets emptied, I'm feeling a strange sense of pride. I mean, I've quite the outfit on today. I'm looking forward to Mary picking me up so she can get a good laugh out of it. Dude, I look like an extra in Cold Mountain. I look like I escaped from artist camp. I need a burrito. And a beer. Because I totally haven't been drinking enough out in the backwoods of Vermont.

Recycled Squash

VSC has a penchant for recycling. So I shouldn't have been surprised when taco night became burrito night two days later. These burritos were kind of funny...I don't think real Mexican food exists in the great state of Vermont. They had Monterrey Jack, black beans, and (wait for it) acorn squash seasoned with cinnamon and brown sugar (also left over from a previous dinner). I appreciated the fresh avocados laid out prettily for us to tong onto our plates, and the sour cream with green chunks (parsley?) was lovely the second time around, too. Still, the result was sweet and not at all Mexican-like. The burritos came with corn on the cob and lemon cake. Funny, right?

The mistake of the poorly designed tortilla was not repeated. The burrito wraps were nicely browned, and not a drip fell onto my Vermont garage sale outfit.

I'm getting sick of all the French-y food. Someone, for the love of all that is holy and good, take me out for a real pizza (or burrito) when I get back.

On the other hand, the chef took me for a nice drive through the wilderness today to gaze upon mountains, foliage, waterfalls, and cemeteries in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful. Gorgeous. I might be able to live without real burritos if it means I can live inside all this prettiness. But mama needs money and a J-O-B, so we'll shelf the pipe dream for the time being.

The Double D

When I get home, for the love of god, Deluxe Diner better be open.

Burritos (sort of) at VSC

At summer camp, taco night was an inevitablity, deviously designed by camp administrators to cure adolescent girls of their bashful constipation. Horse camp + public bathrooms + adolescent angst = no pooping. But on taco night, all hell broke loose. I won a fistfight once at summer camp. For a bathroom stall on taco night.

Here at VSC, everyone poops normally. A lovely gentleman by the name of Bill confessed that all this healthy food and scheduled activity in the land of granola-heads was giving him frighteningly regular bowel movents. Like, I eat dinner at 6:15, go to the slideshow at 8:00, crap at 9:32, and fall asleep promptly at 11:05.

So it took them almost two weeks to break out the tacos. Technically, taco night consisted of non-heated, store-bought tortillas and salad-bar style ingredient bowls. So it could have been tortilla night. Or burrito night. Or whatever you normally call your favorite Mexican food wrap.

Other than the tortillas sucking and the rice being a healthy brown instead of a taco-appropriate Spanish style, taco night was a success. Most resorted to using forks when the tortillas failed to hold up under the weight of saucy black beans, guac, pico, red and green salsa, and anything else you could want. They made a fish mix for the meatheads, too.

Taco night, incidentally, happened right after David's performace piece in which he did naked yoga in the river. The title of the performance: What People Really Do in Vermont.

A World Devoid of Burritos

So, there are no burritos to be found in the four square blocks of Johnson, Vermont. And the Studio Center leans toward more French-inspired caferteria fare. What's a girl to do in a world devoid of burritos? Read about them online, of course.

http://www.littleburro.com/

This is a website devoted to a book about finding the perfect burrito. It invites users to post their favorite burrito places in other parts of the world. The Chicago burrito recommedations have a La Pasidita theme going, proving that Mary might have good taste after all...

At dinner tonight in the VSC cafeteria, we talked about things we are homesick for. A month is a long time to be in the middle of nowhere, I guess. After discussing our pets at great length (thankfully, no pictures came out), we decided we missed vodka, cable tv, sex, and frozen pizza. And now I miss burritos. (But I miss tacos more.)

I have discovered Pumpkinhead Ale, however, which is getting me through those long and lonely burrito-less nights. And yes, beer that tastes like pumpkins is good. Very good.

A Leave of Absence

So, I'm doing a residency at the Vermont Studio Center for the next month. Ostensibly, I'll be doing some "real" writing. Please, please, please take Mary out for burritos. She needs them like hemophiliacs need blood transfusions.

Mary will be accepting applications for Cortney proxies.

Requirements:

1. You must like Mary.

2. You must not throw up after eating burritos. You don't have to love burritos, you just have to tolerate them.

3. You must be up for any burrito-related adventure, good or bad.

4. You must be willing to review wherever Mary makes you eat. You can be completely subjective, have completely arbitrary criteria, or be copmpletely scattered about it, but you gotta write something.

I left food on my plate.

How often do I walk away from an unfished meal? Yeah, that was one fast roach. It SUPER-SCUTTLED.

My veggie burrito was actually pretty good, until the question of whether or not it would give me a disease came up. And I asked for no onions and got big honkin' onions that looked a lot like shredded lettuce, so they fooled me into eating a few of them...

The most interesting picture at this place was a painitng of a deer family standing around on snow-covered hills.

Speaking of pictures, this place was so dark inside, Mary's pictures came out all Twilight Zone-esque.

Although she smiled once, the woman who took our orders obviously hated us. She brought our burritos to the table one...at...a...time. And she had two hands, so no excuses there.

This place was a total failure. A total disappointment. A wash, a waste, a catastrophe. And really funny, if you like dark comedies.

More proof!

Isn't life great? This was the receipt for our combined meals at La Cazuela.

La Cazuela was the place that had hand-drawn Jesus crying blood into a cup. It's important to keep track of these things.

Mary got mad last night because I saw a picture of a dog in a Civil War uniform in a shop window and I wanted her to look at it. She had to pee. I went before I left. You know how that goes.

Proof!

Mary likes proof. I like to try to figure out how my scanner works.

Here are the receipts from our lovely meal at Cuetzala. As a refresher, Cuetzala was the place with the horses-with-butterfly-wings picture.

Look, Mom, this is how I spent my unemployment check.

La Cazuela, that place on Clark and Morse

The red-awning place that Mary couldn't recall the name of was, in fact, La Cazuela.

Pros:

1. The secluded backyard garden setting made me want to be on a romantic date (sorry Mary).

2. The hand-drawn picture of Jesus crying blood tears into a cup.

3. The open-faced tacos reminded me of Taco el Jalisience in Humboldt Park at the corner of Grand and Chicago. Note to burrito places on Clark: As far as I'm concerned, you are all competing with Taco el Jalisience, which takes up a huge place in my heart. So huge, I may not ever be able to find a romantic date to eat with in previously mentioned garden.

4. The funny, homey touches that made the garden feel like a backyard. Like the grill, the trampoline, the neighbor's crap.

5. The pitcher of water our lovely server brought to us without prompting.

6. Fresh cilantro.

7. Did Mary mention how cheap this place was? Seriously, we are broke. La Cazuela fed me hugely for under $5.

Cons:

1. That orange soupy stuff was NOT salsa. I don't know what it was, but it was gross.

2. No avocados on those tacos (or Mary's burrito) although there was a huge bowl of ripe avocados on the counter when we came in. Hmmm...

3. The plastic cups smelled weird, like plastic cups are wont to do when they get older and have been washed for years with Mexican food debris.

Fabulous drink recipe

So, I'm sick. (Thanks, Mary, for getting all touchy-feely with my food.) And when I'm sick, I like to fight germs the Wild West way. You know, with booze.

This drink recipe goes really well with a frozen Target tamale or an Amy's frozen burrito.

You will need:

Three ice cubes (or whatever)
A liberal splash of coconut rum
Limeade (NOT lemonade!) from frozen concentrate

Put them in the same glass, in that order. Drink!

It's a poor woman's Margarita, and it makes your Walgreen's brand Anefrin nasal spray nice and tangy going down. If you can get an A & W frosty mug and a carhop to serve it to you, I'm coming over to your house.

The other burrito eater

I think we should make friends with burritoblog guy. He IS good-looking...

Seriously, we could trade links, share funny Flash Taco stories, provide guest commentary on each others' blogs. It would be a fantastic working relationship. Besides, he's just as picky about his burritos as Mary. He doesn't like tomatoes, asks for egg, etc.

Or we could make fun of him behind his back. I mean, who doesn't like tomatoes? But I vote for friendship in the name of burrito consumption. Burritoship.

Pictures

You can't tell in the pictures, but my t-shirt says "I Heart My Penis." My family calls this my Christmas shirt, because I accidentally wore it to my grandma's nursing home one Christmas for fancy dinner.

I always wear it on special occasions for good luck, now.

Cuetzala II, or Mary reminded me to blog.

Mary might be able to hold her Mexican Coke, but I can post a blog entry without 17 typos. (You should have seen her first try.)

The bathroom walls were bright pink from the middle up, with white spirals hand painted intermittently. There were also non-functional glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. My favorite bathroom thingie: the framed picture of two white horses, a mom and baby nuzzling combo…with pastel butterfly wings. Beeeeeeautiful. Seriously.

This place was so charming, I almost forgot that I don’t like burritos much. Mary got angry when I suggested that I order something else off their awesome and elaborate menu. “It’s the first burrito on Clark! You have to get a burrito!” She has a lovely way of saying burrito, with clipped vowels and an emphasis on the t. I sucked it up and ordered my burrito, secretly fantasizing about tacos and other crunchy-shelled delights.

My veggie burrito was pretty good. Crispy on the outside, so it held all the drippy mush in the middle. I could have done without the mushrooms, but the yellow peppers and fresh avocadoes were downright classy. And the plate was pretty. The rice came shaped like the inside of an ice cream scoop.

Our server was so smiley and accommodating and good. I loved her. She didn’t flinch at Suzy’s “lettuce on the side” or Mary’s “no this, that, or the other” or “three separate checks, please.” She was too young to be my mom, but she would make somebody a great mother.

A great place, an above average burrito, a sparkling bathroom, nice tables…not your average taco hut, that’s for darn sure. And it was BYOB.

David Foster Wallace

Mary and I are about to have our first burrito adventure. We would like to dedicate it to David Foster Wallace, who could have written a thousand pages about going out for a burrito, and every single one would have been funny.

Rest peacefully, David Foster Wallace. We will surely talk about you today with our mouths full.

Not burritos, but close.

Although the adventure has not officially begun, I want to discuss the tamales I had for breakfast.

So, Target (under the Archer Farms brand) makes these frozen tamales. You can get the meat kind or the cheese kind. And the cheese kind are vegetarian. I always stare daggers at the Tamale Guy because I want a freakin' tamale, but they are traditionally made with lard. So no bar tamales for me. These Target tamales were halfway decent (and came wrapped in real corn husks, which is funny for frozen food). I ate two at 9:30 am and they sat pleasantly and brick-like in my stomach until about 3:30 pm, when I suddenly felt like I might starve to death.

A lovely green chile kick, but no acid stomach burn from hell. I recommend these for the cheese-craving, desperate or cooking-impaired.

Mary had a burrito today at the Museum of Science and Industry. It looked sick. Not slang "sick," which I think means awesome, but gross like bright orange taco meat sick. Her pink lemonade was lovely, though, and only 69 cents.

And on a side note, I saw the future today at the museum, and it was awesome. Like Disney's Tomorrowland, but with no rides and real science.

Let the Burritos Begin

Mary loves burritos. Would roll around in them all day if she could.

Cortney is pretty laid back. She's willing to go anywhere, really.

Sunday, September 13, the quest for the best burrito on Clark begins. How will said burritos be evaluated? By completely subjective and ever evolving criteria, that's how.

Mary eats meat. Cortney does not. Cortney has gastritis and takes antacids. Mary could eat and digest a Mack truck, given enough time and the right silverware.

This blog will probably have other random crap in it, too. We're both MFA-ed writers, so it's habit at this point to wax poetic about things like dead birds and rugburn.

On a side note, I had a burrito on Clark today. It was a bland diner burrito. I can't remember the name of the place, though. Good thing we haven't officially started. I would fail. (Or Mary would kill me in a neurotic fit.)

Love,
Cortney