My name is mylunchanddinner….

and I am an eat-a-holic. I am sad and embarrassed. It was not long ago that I told you about my need for an urgent diet plan to loose some 9 pounds because of a wedding that I have to go to. I have lost 1 pound since, which is far from the so needed goal.

I can’t go further than three days with my diet. It’s shameful.  Last week, I managed to work for almost two days… we then had a birthday party and celebrated with our Mexican friends eating tacos! They were exquisite, made with flour tortillas, Palmito cheese (the closest to the Oaxacan cheese almost every Mexican loves) and Chilorio. Chilorio is pork meat seasoned with different kind of non-hot chile which is really good. Since we can’t get fresh chilorio, we all bring it from Mexico. The brand is La Chata, if you ever see it, get it! You’ll love it!!  They way in which they prepared everything was really good.

from: http://www.supertogo.com/
and: http://www.bedri.es/

Then on Wednesday, I was not feeling well, so I decided not to cook any complicated meal. I prepared my Mexitalian pasta. It was delicious with the tasty tomato sauce and the delicious cheese. Then for dinner, I was craving fat and salt , so I convinced Hubby to order some pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hot. It was great… a crispy base with even crispier pepperoni which tasted to my sick persona so good that I ate four slices. Don’t worry that much, it was a small pizza.

from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/

I proceeded to continue with my diet then. I now lasted for three and a half days. On Sunday we went to a new place which I will tell you all about in my next post. I decided to order fish and chips… NO please nice waitress, I’d like to change it for a fresh tuna salad. “Mmmm, I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said, “it comes as if the tuna was canned and is kind of disgusting.” Ok… bring the fish and chips then… I made myself feel better thinking that I had good intentions. Needless to say, the plate was really good. Specially the chips, but as you know I’ve got something with potatoes.

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Ok… I’ll go back to my diet. “Wait did you see that truck?” I asked Hubby as he was driving. “There is a new sandwich at subway!!” It looked so good… buffalo chicken. I love buffalo chicken! Damn it! “Can we go have dinner there?” Nooooooo! was the answer I received. Ok… I we won’t. I was sad though, so I made myself a ham-cheese-sausage sandwich which I ate with a bag of lemon-salt green plantains. As if not enough, I had two oreos as dessert.

Monday morning, I weight my self… 116 pounds. Now, I know you all must think that is not too much. You have to consider though that I am only 5′ 1, and I used to weight about 100 before I got married. I was still a foodie then, but I had a far faster metabolism. I really don’t want to be a 100 lbs again, but I do want my clothes to fit, and not only wear 2 pairs of jeans which will get holes soon for being washed so often.

I am definitely following the diet plan this week! I have only managed to loose 1 pound and it must be for exercising. I now managed to follow the diet for 2.5 days. Then I went to have lunch with my friend. We went to the jewish restaurant, Little Israel. I was starving by the time we got there, and they serve the best Pita bread I have ever eaten when you just sit at the table. I only had a small piece of bread… ok that is a lie, I had about 5 pieces of bread. Now I was thinking, I already broke the plan, let’s go to subway… Hubby gave me the same answer.

Finally, last night, Hubby came home from work. He was tired, and yet he was planning to go out to buy tickets for the avengers movie. I don’t love the movie, but like it enough to watch it. “Ok, I’ll go with you to get the tickets and watch the movie only if… we go to subway after.” He said it was fine, and of we went.

From: http://www.buffalochicken.com/

The buffalo chicken sub was just what I had imagined, in flavor, for it didn’t look at all as the photo. It was juicy, tasty, delicious. The buffalo sauce was between hot and with that vinegary taste that makes it special. I am breaking the plan aren’t I? I thought. “Yes Miss, I want it with a combo, please give me some Doritos”. Hubby asked me what I wanted to drink… a regular coke, there is not much to care anymore.

© mylunchanddinner 2012

Burgers and surprises

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It was a cool Saturday morning in Portland. My English roomie asked if I had plans for the day. I didn’t, so she invited to what she called an eating adventure. I was totally in, given that she is an absolute foodie just like me. You must be thinking now that all my friends are foodies… I think you are probably right.

We hoped on a bus and started our way downtown. It took us about 30 minutes to get there. Once off the bus, we started walking around. Turns out my friend didn’t have the exact address of the place. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before we got to the Little Big Burger, located at the Pearl District.  The place was packed. So, I thought the food was going to be delicious. I was not wrong.

The menu is not extensive at all… it includes three different types of burgers and fries. I think that is partly why they are so good, they are completely specialized. Now, the restaurant’s name is Little Big Burger… but that doesn’t mean the food is a little to big. In fact, I found the size of the burger a bit disappointing. As most of you may now by now, I like to eat. The taste however made me think not of the size but the flavor.  I think there is some kind of secret ingredient on the meat, because it was really good. Plus, the way in which they are cooked left a tasty char flavor on parts of the meat… yum yum!

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The fries were the best I’ve ever tried. They were crunchy, tasty, salty… just a dream come true! I was even giving it a thought of buying an extra order.  However, my friend said that she had a surprise for me. I was kind of excited about the surprise. After finishing our food, we started walking and walking and walking. I was so tired I was ready to quit on the surprise when we had to cross the highway. My friend laughed at me… it’s just across the street she said.

We kept walking… Look, she said, as she pointed to beautiful and colorful houses. That is the surprise! I was shocked! I had seen them since about a month ago… I think she saw my annoyed faced, so she rapidly stated we were just around the corner.  We got to a little place near 23rd street where you can get the best cupcakes in town!

Saint cupcake bakery is really what a saint’s place ought to be. It was full of sugary treats that were just so nice that made you confused as to what to order.  This place was, of course, packed too. We waited for a few minutes and ordered our cupcakes. I asked for the carrot cupcake while my friend had a chocolate one. They were both so pretty it was almost sad to bite them. The butter cream frosting was high enough to make a mess, so we were careful.

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My cupcake was fluffy, soft, sweet and very carroty. It tasted like heaven. The creamcheese-butter cream topping was also delicious, although I felt like it was too much.  I ate it any way.  My friends was also really good. I couldn’t help but steal a bit of it. The chocolate was sweet, but it still had something that made it different.

All in all, I think it was good we walked so much… I at least burned some of the thousands of calories…

©mylunchanddinner 2012

A tiny taste of Mexico

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Being Mexican, I am always reluctant to eat Mexican food in any place which is not my beloved country. I’ve been always like this, specially after getting sick, by the look and flavor of the food and physically in some cases. However, about two weeks ago I was craving for something that tasted or at least looked like something made back home.  Hubby was googling places to eat because we had ran out of ideas when he came across a very interesting webpage.

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He turned the laptop to me and said “Look! What do you think?”. I was completely excited by the photos, and asked where the place was. He said it was downtown San José, and we could go there if I wanted to give it a chance.  I wasn’t even hungry, but I suddenly felt a huge whole in my stomach, so I said: Let’s go I’m starving!

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We got to the place really fast. Los Huaraches is decorated with photos and paintings with Mexican motif. The tables are funny to watch given they have recipients where you can see some of the most common ingredients used in our cuisine: chiles, nixtamalized blue and white corn, among other things.

Now, before I move any further I have to tell you the term Mexican food is too general. Given our country is so big and every region has it’s own climate, every state has it’s own dishes. Some are similar, but have different names, and the food is extremely different if you are at the North, South, West or East. However, there are some classic things everyone nows.

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The waitress came to say hello, and asked what we wanted to drink. My husband asked for the watermelon “agua fresca” (natural made drink), it was fresh and sweet. I ordered my favorite, tamarind. It was really good, with the sour touch of tamarind as base, but with the sweetness of sugar that is added to make it drinkable.

We then proceeded to study the menu. It had photos of some foods, which looked really homy. Hubby decided on Enchiladas Suizas, which are chicken breast tacos covered with tomatillo-cream sauce and cheese, a gringa, flour tortilla with cheese and Trompo meat (at the capital is called Pastor). Trompo meat is pork with different spices and colour that makes it look red-orange and when made correctly is super delicious. I wanted to ask for something we call Campechanas which is the term used for a taco that combines any two types of meat, but the waitress looked clueless so I decided for the big taco with Trompo and beef.

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The order didn’t take long before it was on our table. The enchiladas were really tasty, with the tomatillo sauce having a slight lemon flavor.  It didn’t however have any cream, which made the sauce very green. We are used to slight differences, so we didn’t mind… wait Hubby didn’t mind. I tried them and they were extremely good! His gringa was really tasty, though it was also really oily. I was too happy to care, he was kind of upset. For some reason, he is not calorie conscious latelty.

As for my big taco… it looked like a burrito, which opposite to what most of you think is not a Mexican dish. Inside it contained my choice of two meats, fresh cheese, black beans, lettuce and sour cream. It was kind of weird, but the meats tasted so good that I was happy with the result.

Overall, of what we ordered the gringa was the most similar to our food. We do have to go back again to try other stuff that looked really interesting. We were very happy with the look and taste of everything, and that we found the place. The most mexican-like food I’ve ever tried.

Hope you enjoyed reading this!

© mylunchanddinner 2012