Dining Out

Street tacos cost nine pesos. About 80 cents each. Ev eats four, I eat three, Maia eats two. Add drinks and dessert (home made flan!!) and supper on the street comes to less than $15. Cheap. But still, it’s a night out, and it’s a celebration when we go.

heading en masse for street tacos

The little stand that draws us, week after week, never has enough chairs. The boys (who out number the girls by about three or four to one) usually cram into the stand’s small interior, while the adults push together the remaining tables and chairs on the street. Ordering is chaos—we can choose between chorizo, adobada and asada tacos and there is always someone new who needs the translation: Carne asada? You can have that anywhere. The Chorizo is good. But adobada is a smoky grilled pork that is marinated in orange juice and flavoured with cinnamon, cumin, garlic and pasilla peppers…

 Maia, Sam and Mairen (Maia and Sam discovered they are in the same Vancouver-based homeschooling class)

 The food comes to the table as haphazardly as we did, “Who ordered three adobada and two chorizo??” The bugs bite our ankles. The condiments: grilled onions, radishes, four types of salsa, are passed from hand to hand. The kids run wild. We remind them about cars. One of them cries. Someone leaves to buy beer. The girls lose their table to a local family.

 It’s not the cheapness that draws us. It’s the sustenance. It’s being at a big table with a group of fellow wanderers. The conversation shifts from homeschooling, to mast corrosion, to adobada, “How long do you think it needs to marinate?” 

Everyone has dessert.