Dos Taquitos - Yr 1, Day 282

Raleigh, NC

If I thought Fords Garage (http://mitcheryl-rv-journey.blogspot.com/2015/03/ft-myers-fun-day-272.html) was an awesome place, this one tops it by a thousand fold!!!  My jaw dropped even before I walked into the place and it's still in the dropped position!

This is a description of the place from their website (http://www.dostaquitosnc.com/), which is as riveting as the restaurant:

It is an organized mess. Arts & crafts flying in the air, dancing at this wonderful Mexican rhythm; huapangos, sones, rancheras, jarochos, nortena, sinaloense, duranguense, boleros, and so on. Pictures of famous Mexican painters as well as some unknown Indians cover the already colorful walls and ceilings. It is a Mexican tianguis: baskets, hats, junk, clay pots, ponchos, pictures, mirrors, and even dry chiles that to the untrained eye it will look like a bunker after an explosion but, everything is in its place."

The food was equally phenomenal.  The portions were enormous and everything was freshly made - not the same stuff you get in a commercial Mexican-style place (it is privately owned by someone who wanted to recreate his home in Mexico).  Kicking self for not having taken photos of the food!   Drink-wise, they make a lot of their own infused tequila which they add to specialty margueritas.

Jessica gave me a wonderful new camera for my birthday so for a change, I have some great pictures to share (these were all taken in practically the dark.  In fact, I needed to use the flashlight on Jessica's phone to read the menu).  Unfortunately, the batteries ran out so I wasn't able to get any good shots of the outside patio and bar area, which were equally as awesome as the inside.

Great company with our daughter and son-in-law

Outside, at the entrance:

Some of the decor inside.  It would probably have taken a few hours to get photos of EVERYTHING.

There is a train track running along the ceiling (train passed by about every 10 mins)

Hats hanging from the ceiling

The wall next to our table.  House is made out of bottle caps

Pretty "jelly" lights

Pretty mobile

The menu

Table lamp

As for the rest of our day / week:  Passover begins on Friday night.  This is the first year we are not in the house.  In some ways, preparing is much easier and in other ways it presents some challenges.  One of the requirements is that all leavened products must be removed, down to the micro crumbs behind the refrigerator (the original "spring cleaning").  It's a plus that we don't have as much kitchen to clean.  We also covered all of our counters with plastic; we now don't have nearly as much space to cover.  It's a minus that we don't have an extra refrigerator and freezer to store what we can't use for the 8 days (graciously, Jessica will let us put our stuff in her frig and freezer for the week). On the other hand, we need a completely separate set of pots & pans, plates, cooking tools and utensils.  Big minus as we don't have room to store an extra set (all our Passover stuff is still in the storage locker in NJ).  The plan is to use paper/plastic goods all week (and buy 4 forks, knives and spoons, a spatula and spoon from the dollar store) and either just buy 1 small frying pan, 1 saucepan and 1 pot that we can store in a small box, OR (as Mitch wants to do): replace ALL of our cookware (get rid of the current set) and after Passover use the new one for the rest of the year and then do this every year.  I like my idea better.  We'll go to Walmart today and see which method is more economical.

We're hoping to have a campfire tonight and to invite our new friends.