Thursday, June 6, 2013

important dates

Second day of work = more bear-with-me-as-we-walk-you-through-the-basics stuff.
But more importantly, it's Alicia's day of birth.  Finally legal.  All of the shots!
So I'm going to talk about food in DC.

Cut the 6 hour drive back from Maryland with a lunch break in NOVA.  We went to a little hole-in-the-wall (or hole-in-the-shopping-complex) Mexican place called Tipicos.  The menu was getting fancy with English translations though.  And pictures for each dish to benefit the non-natives.
Apparently they are known for their tamales, so chicken tamale it is.
And plantain empanadas for dessert.
Tamales are one of those things that take me back to the fifth grade.  We used to buy the frozen beef kind from Sam's club, and we kept it in the large freezer (in addition to our fridge freezer) reserved especially for frozen food and the excess of meat we always seemed to have.  I used to eat one everyday after school, and it was kind of my favorite snack ever (this is just what happens when you grow up in New Mexico).  That and guacamole... such treats.  Which reminds me, I had purchased all the ingredients to make pork tamales a couple summers ago, and it just never happened.  Needs to happen.
I still have no idea what that white cream was in the middle of the empanada.  Cold (what?) and tart and a tad sweet with a gooey texture.  The plantain part was perfect though - bready and sweet... carbs without as much of the guilt from eating a jumbo muffin.

Revisited Thunder burger so Alicia could actually order a burger this time.  And because... burgers.
This will be the first and last time I voluntarily order elk.  Not my favorite meat.  It was just too chewy with kind of an unexpected taste.  Like... not juicy enough or something?  Thank you waitress who semi recommended it to me without having tried it.  (And thank you again for disappearing so I couldn't ask for wasabi mayo to go with my fries).  I should've just gone with the brie option.  I would break my "order something new and different" rule for that over and over again.
But now I can cross elk off my list.

I forget how obscenely cold it is in labs.  But maybe that's just exaggerated by the fact that there are no signs of life in these buildings.
'Welcome to Kannapolis,' indeed.

No comments:

Post a Comment