It's been a while

I have been busy with life folks. I don't know what happened exactly but I just needed a break from every thing...including blogging. I didn't stop eating out or thinking about eating out ...i just stopped writing about it here. Instead I wrote little reveiws on Yelp. But now I'm back. Look for more postings in the near future.

Plaza Di Garibaldi

I found myself getting that all too familiar craving for mexican food again this past Saturday afternoon. I was driving back from Temple University campus after having picked up my younger sister from her work study job at the library. It was 2PM and I found myself starving. I was up at 6:30AM that morning because my dog had an appointment at the vet at 7:15AM to get his teeth cleaned. Let me just say that I am not accustomed to such early hours and was not in the mood to eat much breakfast.

So at 2PM I had both my sisters in the car and we decided to get some Mexican food. Washington Ave was the logical location. We decided to go to Plaza Di Garibaldi to check out the offerings. I had heard from a co-worker who told me that one of our mexican sous chefs thought that Plaza made the best mexican food in the Philadelphia. I thought to myself that if a real mexican loved this place..... then I should give it a try. 

 

Tostadas

When we arrived there were patrons at 3 other tables and Latin MTV playing in the background. We sat down and a waitress quickly came by with additional silverware and the menus. Soon after we were given menus a young man walked in with a guitar and started singing to the room . He was fairly talented and sang a Spanish version of Last Kiss (It's the B side to Pearl Jam's Solder of Love single) along with other songs that I didn't recognize. Although I am a huge fan of live music, I'm never quite comfortable with people singing while I'm eating or in this case trying to read a menu. I had trouble hearing anything anyone said because the singer was so loud. After his set of about 4 songs, he came by each table to request tips and then was off on his merry way presumably to sing to other patrons at other joints. 

Fluantas

Following our afternoon serenade, we put our orders in and started eating the awesome chips and salsa. I don't think Plaza makes their own chips. These chips although fresh seemed too uniform and light to be homemade. (Not that they were bad) The salsas were heavenly though. We were given a bowl of red and green. Both tasted fresh and we couldn't stop eating the red one and even had to ask for more after we devoured the first offering.

 

SOPES Al Pastor

We ordered tostadas with the ground beef, the fluantas with chicken and the sopes with al pastor. It was way too much food for us 3. We ended up having to take half of it home. Each item came 3 to a plate garnished with lettuce crema and queso fresco. The tostadas were crispy and the beef well flavored generously topped. The sopas all overflowed with the al pastor (however I usually like a little more pineapple in my al pastor..this version was heavy on the pork and light on the fruit.) The fluantas turned out to be the big surprise. We thought that it would be taquitos ( little crispy tacos rolled up like a cigar) however these were JUMBO sized. One was more than enough to fill up my little sister. Her platter came out with 3 of these rolled up crispy chicken filled cigars surrounded by iceberg lettuce and pico de gallo. All in all the meal was great and very filling. it came out to about $33 total after tax and tip ( I almost always tip 20%) Recommended.

Happy New Year! 2010

With minimum shenanigans compared with the previous year, I celebrated the end of 2009 with some of my closest friends and family and kissed it a big fat goodbye. I was happy to see it go even though I had some great times. Visiting my family in Australia was no doubt a once in a lifetime experience but looking back at the year as a whole, I can definitively say it wasn't all fun and games.

I'm looking forward to seeing how 2010 turns out. It's almost like that new kid in class that you keep checking out from the corner of your eye. I'm finally beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin, doing my own thing and just being happy being me. I know it's cliche to say this but I somehow lost myself when I was eyeball deep in my last relationship. I became a person that couldn't recognize, didn't like and couldn't relate to. After the break up it was difficult to find my way back to the person that I knew I was but had somehow lost in the midst of being a "good" girlfriend. I tried so hard to be something that I wasn't in that relationship that it made me resentful of him, of us, of everything as much as I loved him and wanted it to work, I hated who I had become and just wanted out as much for me as for him. So no more looking back and no more thinking about the what ifs. I'm letting it all go and hoping that all the ups and downs of 2009 has made me a better person. With all that said in the words of Joey from FRIENDS, "Hello 2010. How r you doing?"