The way Mexican restaurants work is really amazing to me and is something I know I will miss once I'm home. In Glasgow, the waiters at the Mexican restaurants literally run to make sure you get your food quickly (and get out the door quickly). Service at my Mazatlan in Brentwood is similar, though they seem to literally run less frequently.
In Mexico, no one is in a hurry for anything. Especially at meals. That doesn't mean your food doesn't come quickly, because it does. But you'll never have a check brought to you before you explicitly ask for it; it's considered rude and pushy if they do. There's never any waiting for a table. It seems all restaurants always have empty tables. And you just walk in and choose your seat.
The place we ate this night, though, was a typical taquería that was not exactly your idea of a restaurant. It was open to the sidewalk. In fact, our table was on the sidewalk. There was a pastor man (not a preacher, but a man cutting the pastor meat off the pole it was on being roasted over the fire) also on the sidewalk. People would walk by and chat with the owner/manager/cook. He would come out, lean up against the cars parked parallel to the sidewalk and just chat. If someone wanted to eat and there wasn't a place to sit (at these places, there are far fewer tables), people would just order it and eat where they were, standing up! Several people came to get to go orders.
Ashley got pastor tacos and enjoyed watching the pastor man cut the pineapple from the top of the pole and shoot it into the air and into his hand, holding the tortilla. I had hoped to get a video, but he stopped. We figured we'd be back the next night, anyway, it was so good!
I had a torta, which is basically a sandwich. It was with the pastor meat, too. We each had delicious horchata (another thing I'm going to miss terribly) and raved about the guacamole. We had gotten quesadillas on the side as well, just in case. I was unable to eat all of my food since tortas are so big. Two quesadillas, three tacos, two horchatas, and a torta, and we still came in under 100 pesos. That's less than about 8 bucks. Really?!
I like to sit after I eat, and we could've without being rude, but there was a crowd forming, so we decided to walk up the block some and explore. We explored right into a pastry shop and bought a piece of tres leches cake. Ashley got some merengues. As we passed a fresh market, I decided to buy a jicama so Ashley could try it. It's a root of some sort and I really like it. With a little lime and chile, it's really good, but it's pretty good by itself.
We marched back to the house to make the plan for the following day.
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