Gastric Popocatépetl

It's not always easy eating for you people. I hope that you appreciate my intestinal sacrifices if not fortitude.

I was particularly gluttonous yesterday and without getting unduly scatological my stomach ultimately decided to stage a minor rebellion.

I suppose my digestive travails started at lunch. I had a pretty busy morning and finding myself in Bonsall, decided to look for a place where I could both find nourishment and read my newspaper in peace.

I settled on Tekila, the new mexican fusion restaurant, nearly had the place to myself as I was there early. Perfect.

The salsa at Tekila Fusion is damn good as are the flour chips they mix in with the corn and I downed the whole bowl of each.

Lunch was a shredded beef enchilada, rice and beans. Although the shredded beef was great, I prefer it a bit drier and crispier and Manny said that he would put it on the grill for me next time. But it was a really nice, albeit spicy meal.

I have friends from the business in from the Bay Area and made arrangements to hook up with them at the beachfront resort in the afternoon. Another couple from Oakland and their child joined us and we decided to all go out for good "mexican" again. I had told them about La Especial Norte and the chicken soup previously and they were game to try it.

The dealer's wife was pretty funny. She said that the trick for her was figuring out who in my profession was truly broken and and damaged and who was potentially repairable or something like that.

We got to La Especial and after a brief wait were seated. They ordered pozole and mole, tortilla soup, this and that, the whole nine yards. I thought that I should put on a show for the kids and ordered the molcajete. Because the dish is so loud and over the top. While my molcajete at Tekila a few weeks ago was served in a decorative plastic mortero, this baby was served in a giant stone molcajete and arrived sizzling, basically boiling like a simmering volcano. And continued to boil for a good three minutes, at minimum. You could hear the thing approaching from ten yards away. The folks at Tekila said that the health department wouldn't let them cook in stone, La Especial doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

Beef and nopale cactus leaves, whole chile peppers and jack cheese, percolating in a potent mexican witches brew of very high heat. It was an amazing dish but not anything I need to repeat for a while. I do believe I lost stomach lining yesterday. This stuff would certainly take the chrome off the bumper. Wonder what it did to my insides?

I think that my fellow diners enjoyed the meal. I was consumed with my own meal, the entree is huge, couldn't deal with anything else. A wasn't very impressed with the tortilla soup. Chips were stale, lifeless and boring. One of our compatriots is Colombian, he liked the mole but he might have just been making nice. I have had the mole at La Especial and it is a bit overpowering, I prefer it with a slightly lighter touch. The reports were that the pozole was excellent. The flan was frankly terrible, pale, it fell apart, very little creaminess.

It was an okay meal, very decent, pretty inexpensive as well. Company was great. My go to stop when I am sick, the chicken soup is truly wonderful. This morning I didn't feel so good, will spare you.