say hola to sopes!

This is at least partly what I envisioned when pondering our state st adventure: La Taqueria. A little mexican hole in the wall, just a bit off the beaten path. And I guess when I say a bit, I mean about a quarter of a block. Somewhere we wouldn't have likely visited in our normal lunch rotation. That said, it must have a state street address, so here we come.

I am pretty well up for new food, but wow, when you get there and the menu is mostly in spanish (what the heck is an asada?) and you aren't real sure what a huaraches is, well, I get a little nervous. It is also kind of funny, because it looks like huaraches are sandals or something, so I guess it is good that I didn't go out on too much of a limb. I was going to try the gorditas, cause hey, if this place is gonna rip off taco bell, it is worth a shot; but the cashier said that they took too long to cook, so they weren't available. And yet, on the menu.

The fish for the fish tacos was frozen a bit too much, so also not available. I ended up trying at least something new, which was a chicken sopes. Kind of like a tostada and pretty yummy. I thought it was going to be like a sopapilla, but figured you wouldn't really have that with chicken.

A little while ago I started working for the church. One day, while eating at the cafeteria, a guy said something like "that oriental bar sign is missing an f." For whatever reason, it stuck with me, and signs as above will likely never be the same for me.

Those two missionary-looking folks are Cameron and Drew. Hola Cameron!

The sandwich maker was broken! Ha! Cause the sandwich maker was actually a person! Ha again!

That's Right.™ - Wendys

First stop on the tour de State Street -- Wendy's.
... and at the risk of turning this into a rant blog by continuing the tone from Earl's first post, here are my main thoughts:
Whatever happened to Wendy's? Didn't it used to be fast, efficient, and tasty? Well, fast and efficient anyway. We waited in line for 1/2 hour. There were not many people in line in front of us. The lady apologized for it taking so long, explaining that their sandwich maker was broken, meaning the guy making the sandwiches, I believe. My average wait time for Wendy's the last few years has been about 1/2 hour. It used to be 30 seconds... back when Dave was alive.
I stopped going to Wendy's, even though it is the only fast food place within 20 minutes of my house because their food tasted really bad one time and I realized it had tasted really bad for several visits and I had just been justifying it.
My wife stopped going there because she found a long black hair in the food as well as parts of the frosty machine in the frosty. When she complained about it the manager replied that they have had problems at that particular store for a while and his tone made her feel so sorry that she ended up consoling him.
My neighbor found a piece of chewed gum in his chili and got enough free food coupons to feed a small village, which of course he will never use.
While waiting in line for the broken sandwich maker to complete my order I watched another worker shovel loads of pre-cooked chicken sandwich patties from one container to another under a "Fresh and Delicious" sign.
When Dave Thomas passed away, I think we all died a little inside, but probably just didn't know it...

happy hour

Just waiting for a script to finish running and fighting some insomnia, so I thought I would kick this blog off a bit. I told Drew about a piece I heard on this american life, where Jonathan Gold tells about trying to eat at every (with some few exceptions) restaurant on pico boulevard in los angeles. I figured Drew would be all over doing something similar on orem, utah's own state street and I was right. We even started this lovely blog (with its oh so clever name), and plan on mashing up a little with google maps and good old flickr. See, I have a posh new phone, and it will let me send blog entries and photos here and photos to my flickr account as well.

Just glancing at google maps, Jonathan's Pico trek could have approached 15 miles, and Yahoo! maps lists over two thousand restaurants nearby. Drew and I are going to start at 1200 north on state street in orem, and make it down to the mall. Our trek approaches three and a half miles. Yahoo! maps shows there being over a hundred nearby restaurants.

Friday, Drew and I made a sonic run, where I was pleased to see that we had come during happy hour (clap, clap, clap) and wondered if the cream slushes were half price. Our ordering went a little something like this.

Earl: Are the cream slushes half price.
Voice: Yes.
Earl: Really? Did you say yes?
Voice: Yes.
Earl (after consulting with Drew): We'll have two large grape cream slushes.
Voice: Your total is four something (yeah, I forget exactly).
Earl (after starting to drive off, and looking at the menu, realizing that wasn't half price): Is that half price?
Voice (after a slight pause): Well, we are in happy hour (see above), so yes, they are half price.

After that, I just sat in silence, realizing that we weren't going to get (as I suspected) our cream slushes for half price and that regardless, the two dollar difference wasn't going to be worth an argument. Drew and I sat silently for a minute longer and then drove forward.

Sure enough, we got the non-half price bill.

Earl: Looks like the cream slushes aren't half price.
Server: No, they aren't included.
Earl: Yeah, when we ordered we were told they were.
Server (rather cheerily): Yeah, she shouldn't have said that.
Earl: You might want to let her know.
Server (on the verge of laughter): Yeah.

If you thought this story was awesome, I have a feeling you're gonna love statestreat.

Earl