El Borrego de Oro, Red Rock, TX [Restaurants]

This time we're not singing high praises for groupon for getting us out of the house, rather, a combination of airbnb and yelp. The only place near the farm we stayed at that had 4 stars on yelp, AND it serves mexican dishes, well I'll be... yes, please!

Up there on top you see the pork chop plate, called "chuletas de puerco" on the menu and on the bottom, the carne asada plate. Both were served with beans, rice and salad, with the addition of a seared jalapeño for the carne asada.

From hearing other patrons' orders, it would seem that they sell a lot of enchiladas, not too surprising given the adventurous nature of the rural texan, but c'mon people! live a little, enchiladas are not all there is to mexican food!

Even though it was mid-afternoon, the place had a few people come in, meaning that their food probably doesn't go to waste. Overall, this restaurant is very recommendable, especially given it's in-the-middle-of-nowhere location.

La avioneta [Restaurants]

Trips have a learning effect on all of us, some more, some less, but in this most recent trip to our hometown of Ensenada, we.. learned.. a... lot!!! But, more importantly we had a few lessons in the culinary realm as well; one of them being this taco place/stand. I've taken the liberty of lumping this place with the rest of the restaurants we've visited over the years, but only for the reason that they have tables, from coca cola, sure, but a place to sit is a place to sit. And much like other taco places where you get a place to sit, you don't get a waiter, you order at the cart, add your goodies and sit back down to eat away. Once you're done, you get up and ask how much you owe them, usually you have to keep track of what you've eaten, and trust me, eat. you. will! ... just about the only thing I didn't like about this place is that there was some old dude playing guitar and asking for "any help"... or.. maybe it was just too damn early for a weekend+vacation day.

If you're in that neck of the woods, we highly recommend this place, you can find it's street address as: Calle 7a entre Rayon y Aldama #1840 Colonia Obrera, Ensenada, Baja California, 22840 they even have a facebook page!. Among other things, they have on offer:

Smoked marlin

Camarón a la diabla (Devil's shrimp sans cheese)

Camarón a la diabla (Devil's shrimp avec cheese)

Abalone chorizo and egg

Octopus

Lobster (left) Devil's shrimp (right)

Breaded fish

La Cocedora de Langosta, Ensenada, B. C. [restaurants]

I've never been much of a fan of paying for the artsy fartsy stuff, but sometimes you get all these recommendations for X place's Y, almost signature dish... And we'll, you cave in... I admit it I didn't want to go to this place because I sternly believe that there's much better values across the street (literally) and that whatever dish they dare give a traditional name to is going to be offensive to all the generations that created them... And guess what? It's pretty damn good! BUT, I stand by my preconceptions, their dishes are modern, bland interpretations of the originals. 

Let's start with aguachile... Agua?, check... Chile?... Meh.. Yes, I have to remind myself that this place caters to american-type tastebuds.. Oh, and lime, the other prime ingredient in aguachile?... None... Replaced by what I believe to be some sweet oranges... Hmm.. As an aguachile, this is dissappointing... call it a geoduck (the thing that make this worthy of so much hype) citric crudo and I'm in!

Is it good? Yes. Is it worth all the hype?...nnaahh... Oh, and don't let me get started on their salad ceviche that isn't even cured in lime!

But... Enough ranting... I have to give them this one: the baby clams are. To. Die. For! Definitely saved the night, and of course, it's less traditional fodder and more European inspired.. Very nicely done

Yujajai, Ensenada, B. C. [restaurants, revisits]

Us humans are creatures of habit, some habits are bad and those it would be better to not have; but is eating good food a bad habit? naaah, this is one habitual spot that we absolutely love to come back to every time we visit Ensenada. Last time, we had some more restaurant-like dishes that they prepare beautifilly, but this time we had some more street-food type fare: fish and shrimp tacos and some ceviche! You know.. yes, you could walk accross the street and get some ceviche that's more artfully done (I'll post about that place in a later post), but if you want some traditional tasting ceviche, this place is hard to beat and yes, you could go to that little tostada stand that Anthony Bourdain made famous and pay something in the order of 4 dollars per tostada, but this place, only serves fish or shrimp ceviche and only a little over a dollar per unit. And he fish tacos? man, oh, man... warm, crunchy exterior leads into soft fish inside, all wrapped in a corn tortilla, you.. DID know that Ensenada is the birthplace of the fish taco, right?

Pictured is a fish ceviche tostada, fish taco and a shrimp taco; yes, that other fried thingy in the last picture is another shrimp, these tacos are so over-filled, you'll only need 2 or 3 to fill your gullet (but you'll want more!)

Wendlandt

This place.. oh, man, this place... well it's one of those new-fangled gastro-pub bars that have been popping up in my native Ensenada, which, by the way, means that they'll have great artisanal and imported beers and some decent bar grub you can order while you down pint after pint, after pint... 

Nosh Euro Bistro [Restaurants]

1. nosh  

   /näSH/
   

   Noun Food.

   Verb Eat food enthusiastically or greedily: "you can nosh to your heart's content"; "noshing my favorite food".

   Synonyms food - chow - grub

So, while visiting this restaurant today, after a few weeks hiatus from "quiet" dining.. I remembered that we promised to compile a list of eateries to visit in Dallas. Not because we're experts in the matter, but we do try and get out of the house from time to time and enjoy the various dishes from our multicultural city. Today as treat day, once again, thanks to groupon, this, I believe is the 4th time we've been to Nosh, and every time has been worth it. Yelp has it categorized as one of the $$$ places, and yes, it is on the expensive side; didn't I just say that today was treat  day? 

When you get there, well, funny enough, some of the best places we've been to in Dallas are hole-in-the-wall strip mall places, we've learned not to judge a place by it's exterior appearance. When you come in, there's a bar on the left where, I would assume that if you don't have a reservation you'd have to wait for your table and to the very front of you is a view of the kitchen in all it's steaming, frying, sauteing glamour. Unfortunately, today we were greeted by what we assume was some relative of the chef/owner that was severely under-dressed, and, much to out non-surprise looks like she speaks Spanish, but guess what? "doesn't".. anywhoo.. reservation? yes... ok, come this way. Seated at our tables we scanned what we already knew was on the menu (from the page above), but even after debating one way or the other, scallops? well, ok, oh, a wagyu  hamburger? no, you know what? I didn't put on a nice shirt so I would eat with my hands, and hell no, I will NOT eat a hamburger with knife and fork, that's just wrong ಠ_ಠ.  Escargot? yes, of course! we've also had the ahi tuna tartare that is very good.

Main dish from the specials menu.. rabbit confit with canellini beans, call me beaner, but God dayum those frenchies know how to cook good bean casseroles!

Entreé #2: Gnocchi with lobster and wild mushrooms, ok, us westerners get so excited about lobster and then the o'l lobster comes and... hommard... not OUR rock-lobster... it's not bad, but, in our minds at least, it's definitely not lobster. Potatoe potato..

 And the desert! A ricotta pana cotta... damn good! we especially like the non-americanness of the dish, it's not overly sweet like if you were at chain restaurant and ordered apple pie a la mode or something, no, it's slightly sweet, and in every smooth spoonful you can actually taste that it's made out of cheese, not a friggin' sugar cane.

All in all, Nosh has yet to disappoint, yes, I would recommend that you try to go before the dinner rush because in my case, some of the beans were a bit undercooked. And our waiter was a bit of a socially awkward penguin, not noticing that we were there to enjoy our food and dining experience; all is forgiven because he was noticeably embarrassed for trying to take our plates away too soon.

May Dragon [Restaurants]

Chinese, you say? Oh, good Chinese in Dallas? well, we got to know this place, again, thanks to groupon. And let me tell you... it's pretty damn good, I would wager that there's better places out there, but.. we haven't been to any of them. This restaurant makes good Chinese food, similar to the Cantonese restaurants we're used to out west. And the service is way above the usual Chinese restaurant's standards.

They start you off with some fritters and sweet and sour sauce.

Your placemat has the chinese zodiac

Won-ton soup.. oh my! an 8.5/10 if we're keeping score, maybe even a 9 because they don't waste your time with other vegetables that don't belong in a cloud soup.

Tea

Peking style roast pork... yes, with chinese mustard.. come il faut!!! And... AAAND it's pork, not chicken like the places back home have started substituting... I've only had better roast pork at home

Mongolian beef (I think...)

Peking roasted duck, or what remained after eating almost the whole thing, can you really skip this item if it's on offer?

Overall, this restaurant is non plus ultra in our book, we've yet to find any that surpass it's service and food.