Literally.
Apparently I don’t know how to walk down a short flight of stairs because Saturday morning, sober as a judge, I was walking down crzybeautifullife’s front stairs and my legs decided to not work. So nearly 4 weeks later, I still have a huge reminder on the front of my shin.
I really have a lack of new material from this trip, and I would like to say that it was because we “laid low,” but that was not the case at all. But the things that we were doing were mostly local stuff. A trip to Milwaukee to see the Braves beat the Brewers, Wicker Street Park Festival and whatnot.
I will mention that, as I fell down the stairs, we were on our way to the Cortiva Institute to get one-hour student massages for $40 and they completely rocked. I wish we had a Cortiva institute in Atlanta.
The purpose of this blog is really just to highlight our trip to Topolobampo on North Clark Street. At the demand of one of my travel snobs, we walked from the Cortiva Institute to Topolobampo for lunch. (Well, brunch really). And we were not disappointed. “Topolo” is part of the Frontera Kitchens group which focuses on farm raised yada yada and organic blah blah blah, supporting local farms, you know the drill. We walked into a packed restaurant and were told that it was going to be an hour and 45 minute wait. We sat ourselves at a crowded bar and hunkered down. But then some people that came to the bar afterward were paged within 5 minutes of arriving. So we opted to put our name on the list and, sure enough, were paged 5 minutes later. Score!
Since we had just gotten morning massages, and were in the middle of a 7 mile walk, we kept up with the clensing, “detox” mentality and skipped the alcohol. We opted instead for fresh squeezed juices. YUM. And this is where my first disappointment comes in. Riddle me this, Batman: They had fresh orange juice. They had fresh pineapple juice. They had fresh lime juice. They EVEN had pineapple/lime juice. SOMEBODY please tell me why they refused to serve me an orange/pineapple juice. Anybody? ANYBODY? Charge me ten dollars. I DON’T CARE. Just give it to me.
We started with the Queso Fundido Classico hoping that it would be, well, queso. And it was. Sort of. It was baked cheese. I think what we both wanted then was fake mexican food. Something that we could scoop up with tortilla chips. What we got was a small baked dish of congealed cheese with small tortillas. Voila! Cheese taco. Bleh. I have to say though, that crzybeautifullife was very upset. And I don’t blame her. The poor girl can’t find real, fake-mexican queso anywhere in Chicago. What is a girl to do!?! I would fly to Texas just to fulfill the craving. Oh wait…….
I had the Tacos Al Carbon. And this is how it is printed in the menu:
Tacos Al Carbon wood-grilled meat, poultry, fish or mushrooms sliced and served with roasted pepper rajas, two salsas, frijoles charros, guacamole and homemade tortillas
This is where my second (and last) moment of confusion came about. Same scenario: They have steak. They have chicken. They have fish. And they have mushrooms. Could someone please explain to me why they would not sell me Tacos Al Carbon with 1/2 steak and 1/2 mushroom? I didn’t even get a “let me check with the chef,” I got a flat out “NO.” Now, this might just be the financial planner in me, but wouldn’t it be more economical for them to charge me for an order of steak, only give me 1/2 the portion and give me the cheaper mushrooms? Again, charge me $20 more than the price. I DON’T CARE. Just give me what I want, ok? I mean, I wasn’t asking them to go find the rarest white truffle and serve it to me on a platter, right?
Ah yes, one last thing. They gave us 3 different salsas with our cheese tacos. (NO TORTILLA CHIPS, MIND YOU – but salsa nonetheless). Our waiter was telling us about the flavors in his broken English and asked us if we liked hot hot salsa. To which, of course, I replied, “Yes! Bring it on.” So he substituted out one of our salsas for the hottest thing I have ever put in my mouth. I mean, thank goodness he warned us. All you have to do is put less than what you can hold on the tip of a fork onto your food and your mouth explodes. It was great! …..until we saw the $2.75 tacked onto the end of the menu.
So I just realized that it sounds like we had a bad experience. On the contrary. Yes, it was a $50 lunch. And yes, the service sucked. And Yes, the waiter and hostess were mentally incompetent. But you cannot go wrong when you have the freshest ingredients and pair good tasting foods together. Aside from the cheese tacos, my meal was D-E-licious.
Not all those who wander are lost.... J. R. R. Tolkien 