I have two things to bring to the table for discussion today.
First, it's National Ice Cream Month. My friend, Joben David, pointed this out to me at length on Sunday, which was National Ice Cream Day, and he went on to pontificate on why July is the perfect month to have National Ice Cream Month. I said it's important to recognize ice cream and all the strides that it's made in this country and it's contribution to the national fabric.
Just after reviewing our newest buffet restaurant, I made the quick transition from Vegas to San Diego without even leaving our town.
San Diego Mexican Restaurant offers a wide range of flavorful cuisine. Before becoming a full-service restaurant, this place was best known to the South Waco community as Chepas and was open Friday to Sunday with a minimal menu. The weekend menu consisted of tamborcitos and enchiladas potosinas on Fridays, barbacoa tacos on Saturdays and, of course, your traditional menudo on Sundays.
I've been hearing rumors about a food truck in Robinson that is so big, with jaws so powerful, that it has been known to carry away small children and even full-grown adults.
Not really. I've just been watching River Monsters a lot. So now, I want to write every recon blog in the voice of Jeremy Wade, inasmuch as I want to make my normal recon blogs into races-against-time to catch a predator before it can cause further damage to humanity. But then I suppose once I caught the restaurant, I would just release it right back into the wild as if there was no reason to catch it in the first place. Also, I'm going to end each blog with the phrase "Now I'm going to catch the really big one!"
My 11th grade economics teacher, Mrs. Wickman, told us one day why we liked eating lunch at Leal's multiple times every week.
She said it was because it was a local restaurant where we could see the owner, Cesar, every time we went in the door. My snarky, inner-monologue response was "Ummm, no. I like it because I can get taco meat, potatoes, cheese and guacamole on a burrito and free chips and salsa to boot for less than $5." This was the glorious era known as the mid-1990s, but even then eating lunch for less than $5 was a rarity.
First of all, I knew I was pressing my luck on Friday the 13th.
But people have been talking about the new Chinese/Mongolian grill restaurant: Vegas Buffet. With the move of our local Peter Piper Pizza a mile or so away to New Road and Franklin, this huge location opened up and the Vegas folks landed there. By the way, there are no slot machines.
An interesting article currently on wacotrib.com makes it seem as if Austin Avenue will be Waco's version of Yawkey Way or Wrigleyville. Plans to block off Austin Ave from South Fifth to South Eighth streets were give enthusiastic nods of approval by all concerned during a meeting on Tuesday.
To read the entire article and catch all the details, click here. I love this idea, but I still have some questions.
[ We're proud to introduce new WacoFork writer Roxanne Portillo, who will be giving us the scoop on some places that Chad doesn't get to all that often, like Real Deal Soul Food. Enjoy. ]
Any place that serves Kool-Aid is definitely on my good side.
We wish we could keep intern Dustin Payne around forever as he did an excellent job of augmenting our content this spring. Alas, he graduated. But he left us with this video featuring local servers telling us about their favorite items at their respective restaurants.
I was driving to China Spring on Saturday to cover a high school softball playoff game for the Trib when I noticed a bright red truck and a barbecue pit just off to the left of China Spring Highway (aka, N. 19th Street).
I love when this happens, because I know I have something to check on for the next week. However, I hate it when I ask the proprietor how long they've been there and it turns out I probably should have noticed it long ago. In this case, Bonesuckerz has been serving barbecue in this spot since July.
Hope everyone has their graduation weekend plans in place, but in case you don't, here's a quick heads up.
I just checked on the availability of seats for dinner at Cafe Homestead on Friday and Saturday night. Cafe manager Derek Varejcka told me the 6 p.m. seatings are full both nights but there are tables available at 7:30 both nights.
