Lilli's son had recommended a restaurant in the hotel's
vicinity called La Chata, which doesn't mean the cat
but was the nickname of the founder and actually means
(variously) bedpan, flatcar, sawed-off shotgun, barge, or
pickup truck. One wonders what she did to deserve this. We
arrived at 6 something to find close to an hour wait; we
shuffled along expectantly only to find that once you get
in the front door, there's another wait to be seated.
Luckily there's a bench for the elderly and infirm, and
from there we (she) watched the never-ceasing motion of
the open kitchen out front and its interaction with the
fleet-footed waiters.

At last they gave us a table - a 6-top - right in the
front of the store. Oddly, we were not rushed at all, and
in fact if anything our service was slower than at the
other tables we could see.

I started with a Bohemia obscura, as they didn't had
Negra Modelo - this was maltier and smoother than the
other, even lower hopped. Lilli had a margarita, having
noticed that it was no more costly than a glass of wine.

Tortilla chips came with a chopped salsa, a somewhat spicy
red tomato sauce, and a sour somewhat chunky guacamole. I
notice that they like their guac acidy here, which would also
tend to retard the browning process, a problem with all
guacamole but especially in a warm climate such as this one.

Her main course was cheese enchiladas, which came in an
exceedingly mild red chile sauce with rice and potatoes
on the side. She ate most of this but later on noted that
the cheese inside the tortillas was cold; again, this didn't
come out until it was too late to fix.

I got tongue in red sauce, about 6 oz of boiled beef tongue
in a similar mild tomato sauce with decent rice and very pale
and somewhat underseasoned refritos.

For dessert I ordered a jericalla, the traditional Jaliscan
dessert, so they say - this was a very ordinary but pretty
decent egg custard with a cinnamon crust, not too sweet. It
was a decent deal at a couple bucks.

Being thirsty, I asked for another beer. It was like pulling
teeth to get it. Eventually it came.

On the whole, long wait, decent plain food, slow service, good
buy, but Lilli didn't like much about it except watching the
dancer-lithe waiters and their ballet.

=

We went on a wander to Chapultepec, a neighborhood her son
recommended; he indicated it would be nice for the likes of us
during the day, but it was WILD at night. So we went in the
daytime. walking from what looked just like the seedier parts
of LA to one that looked like a nicer bit of LA. Still, it was
interesting to see.

One thing we didn't count on: it was Good Friday. Bars and
restaurants open at 1 or 2 if at all, and we were here by
12:30. So she got on her trusty phone to search places that
were supposed to be open, and she handed it to me, and on
Google Maps there were the directions to Aderezzo, which
looked really interesting if a bit upscale. I congratulated
her on finding a great place, but she admitted she had merely
fat-fingered the map, which put in a pushpin that just happened
to be at that restaurant. Which, when we got there, turned out
to be closed all day. Up the street a bit she spotted a little
knot of open stores. First came Bananas, which was noisy; then
she wanted to go into Boca 21, a chain sandwich shop, and for a
change I exercised my veto on that one. The York Pub was next
door to the north, but it had its speakers cranked to max with
British Invasion stuff, which thoough of our time period was a
little bit much. Luckily, just across Libertad was a tranquil-
looking porch with some happy-looking patrons, so that's how we
ended up at Maria Lola.

They work on Mexican Standard Time, and though we got menus right
away, nobody came to take our orders for almost half an hour.

I ordered camarones al ajillo; instead of lots of garlic and
maybe a sprinkle of chile flakes in a butter or oil base, these
had a lot of chile flakes and a whiff of garlic in a substrate
of margarine. Swimming in this was half a pound (12) of sweet,
crisp, tender, perfect shrimp that pretty well satisfied me, but
if it had been butter or oil I would have been even happier. On
the side reasonable rice and a salad, which I actually ate.

Lilli ordered a mini ahogado; when it came I was thrilled to see
that it was a full-size pork loin sandwich on a crusty roll, sauce
on the side, so there was a chance that I'd be able to get her to
eat a reasonable amount, but all the cajoling I could do didn't
help, and she ate an ounce of pork and a bite of bread and downed
two glasses of Concha y Toro Cabernet - not nearly enough to
sustain her, but she refused to ingest any more. Here the sauce
was the more traditional thin tomato-soup-like liquid.

We suffered three blood sugar collapses on the way back to the
hotel, culminating in a taxi driver who tried to cheat us but sort
of failed to do so.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
* Origin: Fido Since 1991 | QWK by Web | BBS.FIDOSYSOP.ORG (1:123/140)