Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner: That is the Question

 

While I was doing a little work this morning, I noticed that WordPress had a note at the top of my dashboard inviting me to write better blog posts. Intrigued, and eager to keep things lively, I checked it out, and it led me to a note with lots of tips including checking out the promps at Plinky. While the first couple I read didn’t really apply to what I was doing here, this one did:

You can only eat either breakfast, lunch, or dinner meals for the rest of your life. What’s your choice?

Jeez. What a question. My first thought was “how do you decide something like that?!?” Though, the more I thought about it, I totally have to go with lunch. Lunch has options that are light and fresh, think quiche, and then you can ratchet it up with something like a ginormous plate of carnitas. (Side note: I am interested to see that while ginormous does not prompt a spellcheck notice, carnitas does). I also think like someone from the American Southwest. I’m all in favor of the hacienda style lunch. Eat from about one until three in the afternoon, at which point it’s time to take a rest. Que fantastico!

As much as I like breakfast foods, I hate eating the morning (at least before 9 or 10 am). Oftentimes I prefer a smaller dinner anyways, so I guess that leaves Lunch as the winner.

Lunch just seems to be the perfect time to have just about any kind of food. The sun is out, you can have a lovely patio luncheon and relax in the sunshine. I just don’t know what could be better…

So…I’d eat lunch – what about you? Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner?

Restaurant Review: Los Favoritos

First you have the chips smothered with beans

Then you add the carne asada and sour cream

Red or Green are available

The red had a sweetness I wasn’t expecting

While I didn’t like the styrofoam, I liked the image.

This past week, in my food adventures, I forgot to mention an excursion to local Gilbert fast-food Mexican joint, Los Favoritos. I was immediately struck by the interior of the restaurant, because that’s what it felt like to me, a restaurant. The tables and chairs were real and so were the decorations and the paintings on the walls. It seemed legit, but just happened to serve your classic Filibertos-style Mexican food. I had gone, not having brought lunch, thinking I would try my signature menu item at places like this: 3 rolled tacos with cheese and guacamole.

The interior gave me new hope, however, and so I sprung for the Super Nachos. Super Nachos, are a sort of conglomeration of flavors, each usually made better by it’s proximity to the next. I can’t say that Los Favoritos had a spectacular version. Each layer was placed directly on top of the other, creating a layer of uber-topped chips while the rest remained dry and without topping. I think the chips, while hot, were fried in oil that had been going for a while (or the weekend) because while it wasn’t bad, there was a flavor to them that wasn’t purely chips. The meat was average, if not good, but not amazing, and I did like the guacamole quite a bit.

Really, the whole dish was decent, but not fantastic, and while I would go back to try other things, I don’t think I would go back for the Super Nachos. I will note that I was disappointed to see the Horchata coming out of a soda fountain rather than a jar, or something. I understand the juegos mexicanos are a pain, but I’d rather just have regular soda available that sub-par juices and horchata. The salsas were pretty good, though not too hot and a little sweet.

While I wasn’t thrilled with my meal, I got the feeling that I hadn’t ordered the right thing. In Counter Intelligence, Jonathan Gold talks about being sure to order the specialty or to account for the regional flavors and skills of the cooks. Obviously the Super Nachos was neither. So, I think I’ll try again – another lunch perhaps – and see what there is to offer – this time being more real and more honest about what I expect from them and what they expect from me as a member of the suburban Gilbert lunch crowd. Also, I’ll eat in instead of getting take-out. Crunchiness is a valuable commodity in fast Mexican foods. Here’s to spicing things up and giving a new restaurant a second chance.

Restaurant Review: Scratch

This morning, Brendan and I had lunch at an amazing new restaurant. I had heard about this place via a New Times tastes review, but since I drive by it every morning on my way to work, I figured it sounded like a fun idea to try out. The food is really delicious. The chef is this crazy multi-cultural entity that creates the best quiche I have ever had, not to mention the croissants, or the French-style hot chocolate. It was sort of a place you wouldn’t normally expect to find around here. Brendan had a roast duck sandwich that was also pretty intense, though we both agreed that the quiche lorraine was the definite favorite. For pre-lunch dessert, we shared a French Merengue. It was wicked. In a world of low-rent pastry, one sort of forgets that things like this exist. For the post lunch dessert, we shared a chocolate croissant. It was all that you could want in a chocolate croissant, and then about ten times better than that. It was definitely worthwhile. Finally, I got a French-style hot chocolate. Excellent as well. On top of everything, the prices were totally reasonable. So, I totally recommend Scratch Bakery and Cafe for lunch.ac Bakery and Cafe for a for lunch.