Taking a real lunch break and eating a delicious burrito is really growing on me. I get happier and happier with every bite. I just need to watch out for getting too full!
At the cash register I asked for recommendations and receive the traditional list of most of the meats on offer. I ordered carnitas but fortunately for me they have run out, which gives me the opportunity to poke my head in the kitchen window and ask for a recommendation. Understanding that I like pork based on my carnitas order, they agree that chile verde is the right choice for me. Then a guy, perhaps the manager, approaches me from the restaurant side and asks me to stop talking to the kitchen so they can focus on cooking. It all happened so fast though I can't be sure that's what he said.
I took some photos of the inside of the restaurant, the menu, the life-size cutout of the owner wearing a TMT hat holding an AK-47 right near the mural of a traditional looking courtship taking place on the edge of a plaza. It felt weird taking the photos though. First of all, in Watsonville I am an outsider, both as a gringo and as a government employee there for work. My presence is welcomed, as is my business and my appreciation of delicious food, but taking photos made me feel like even more of an interloper, like a tourist. For the most part there are only two kinds of food photos: photos taken as a tourist and photos taken as a local. Eating lunch in the middle of my workday puts me somewhere in between, I'm local adjacent. And I am not really interested in turning myself into a tourist in the midst of the community I serve. So, no photos here, I have a feeling that even publishing the ones I took would retroactively turn me into a tourist. Perhaps if I had a more digitally native relationship with my phone and social media I'd feel differently...
The burrito itself was solid. Well-mixed. The chile verde was cooked really well. My favorite thing was the salsa bar which included a lime marinated cabbage 'salad'. I took a lot of this and felt like I was eating a falafel in Israel (one of the only thing I liked about visiting Israel). I placed a quantity of cabbage or escaebeche on top of every bite, getting my veggies in with my beans and rice. The only problem was that the marinade's flavor was pretty unipolar and by the end my mouth just tasted sour. I love that kind of interactive, all-you-can-eat topping experience though, so I'd try it again, though next time it will be at TMT #1.
Next time I'd ask a regular what they like and order that.
No comments:
Post a Comment