Mary, O Mary!

Mary is in Mexico, bumming around some Tijuana orphanage and getting sunburned on the beach. Yesterday, she told me she had the best burrito "IN THE ENTIRE WORLD." (She really typed it like that.) Sorry, Clark Street. I guess you don't have world-class status anymore, if you ever did to begin with. You certainly don't now.

Tamales Something Something

Tamales Something Something was one of those places where everything is in Spanish--the wall menu, the conversations, the orange awning with all those words...And other than "Tengo partes privadas verdes" (which is too dirty to translate here) and telling dogs and cats they are pretty, my Spanish is limited to dysfunctional guerrilla warfare words. Should you ever be caught in a Latin American revolution, feel free to bust out with "bombadier intessemente," which means "to strafe." Just don't tell the locals you learned it from me.

So, back to Tamales Something Something. Tamales only sells tamales, five or six different kinds I think. And no Coke or Pepsi for the kiddos. (Mary's orchada (if that is in fact how you spell it) was delicious.) This is like the stationary version of the Tamale Guy, should you want a tamale you don't have to spend two days making yourself.

The cheese and jalapeno tamales were pretty good. Not great, but totally acceptable. My only complaint was that they were a little on the dry side. I would have loved more goo.

The lady who rang us up and brought our food was so nice, I suspected she might have known we were going to review the place. Do restaurant proprietors read this? Does anyone? Anyway, she brought us two free pineapple tamales to try, and they were full of sweet raisin pineapple goodness and had a lovely cornbread texture. We tried eating those first, but liked them so much we saved them for dessert. She asked us about twelve times if we liked our tamales...Which made us like them more, I suspect.

La Choza Schamoza

What does it mean if your first burrito of the new year makes you want to run screaming back to bed, pull the covers over your head, invite a cat or three to sprawl on your legs, and mull over those midnight kisses and your ridiculous hangover? Could this be a harbinger of death? Or at least an omen of crappy to mediocre things to come?

2008 was a year of lost loves, travel adventures, semi-enthusiastic blogging, unemployment, and (of course) many burritos for Mary and me. So we thought, HEY, POOR NEGLECTED BLOG! WE ARE COMING BACK TO YOU, FULL-STEAM AHEAD! 2009 IS A GREAT YEAR TO GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER AND EAT MORE BURRITOS! (Yes, we think very loudly. And mostly out-loud.)

So we walked a mile and change, giddy with the prospect of beans to warm our souls and avocados to cool our feverish brains. La Choza, we said, over and over. Sounds like choice, doesn't it? Like, we choose you, Burritos on Clark.

The Absolutely Awful:

1. My vegetarian torta came on bread that was vaguely torta shaped, but tasted like a chewy, stale, hamburger bun. And not a good hamburger bum, but like a Wonderbread hamburger bun.

2. My vegetarian torta had, like, three watery beans. And some lettuce, tomato, and drippy sour cream. Oh, and a couple strands of cheese. It was so skimpy, all I could taste was the liquid mush drippies and that damn hamburger bun. Awful. Just awful.

3. The food was so freaking bad I knew we'd stumbled into the worst Burrito on Clark so far. No debating this one.

The Sort-of-okay:

1. There were Frieda Kahlo reproductions on the walls, so we had something to look at. Not the awesome hospital bed ones, but the portraits with the pretzel hair and pet monkey. So that was okay, Unfortunately, many of them were hung crookedly...

2. I think my coffee and torta came to four bucks and change. So it's not like I had to max out my credit card for this fine dining experience.

3. Mary kind of liked our server.

Okay, 2009, the next burrito better be better, or we'll be eating sushi on Broadway instead.