Quiero dos con todo

Once again, we're going to be talking about one of my favorite subjects, food.  Somehow my Spanish has become inexplicably tied to food, but I love both of them, so no me voy a quejar (I'm not going to complain).

If you've never had a genuine Mexican taco, then you haven't lived.  And one of best places to experience the joy a great Mexican taco can deliver is in the city of Tijuana.  If you happen to be in San Diego, it's very easy to get to there, you just cross the San Diego border and there you are.

Taco stands are everywhere in Tijuana, it's hard to turn a corner and not see a taco stand of some sort.

There are basically two kinds of places to eat tacos, those that are more like restaurants with fixed locations.   You walk up, pull up a chair or sit at a table and then order your tacos and enjoy.

And there are the taco stands (puestos de tacos), that sit on a corner and get wheeled in and out everyday.   The photo below is of my favorite taco stand. 

 

 Let's take a look at how these puestos work.  As you can see by the photo above, there are lots of people just standing around.  Why you ask?  Let me explain.

Once you've chosen the puesto you want to eat at, you simply walk up to the puesto. You may have to navigate your way to the front of the puesto with your best con permiso (excuse me), but once you get there, this is what you'll see:

Then all you do is place your order with the cook:

Quiero dos con todo

I want two with everything

 Of course you can order as many tacos as you want, I typically start with two and end up having eaten 3 or 4.  They're more tasty and addictive then you think.   Now, you may be wondering what is a taco "con todo"?  

You're average puesto de taco will typically have a collection of condiments that looks like this:

There's limón (Even though your Spanish book says limón means lemon, you'll get a lime when you ask for one) , some form of salsa (which is almost always spicy),  rábanos (radishes),  pepinos (cucumbers),  cebolla (onions) and cilantro.  Cilantro is the same in word in Spanish.  You can just add whatever condiments you like to your taco yourself.

Here's a bit of Spanish you might need.

If you want to know how spicy the salsa is you can ask:

¿La salsa es picante?

Is the salsa spicy?

If you want to sound a little more Mexican, then you can say?

¿La salsa pica?

Is the salsa spicy?

You'll get one of two answers back:

Sí pica

Yes it's spicy

Or 

No, no pica

No it's not spicy

It's the second answer you need to be worried about.  Sometimes when they say the salsa no pica, it really doesn't.  Sometimes it means the person you asked doesn't consider it to be spicy.  Big difference.  You've been warned, let's move on.

When I order I keep my tacos pretty simple.  

Dos de carne con cebolla y cilantro

Two beef tacos with onion and cilantro

Here's the end result:

Another condiment I nearly forgot about is aguacate (avocado). Aguacate is practically a staple in Mexico, but I'm not a fan of it.

Now that you've got your taco, you simply take a step back and enjoy.  You can eat them right there in front of the puesto.  Take your time, there's no rush, they even offer refrescos (sodas).   Still hungry?  Order a few more. That's why you always see so many people standing around.

Once you're all done, you pay for your tacos (roughly $1.25 each) and get on on with the rest of your day.  Or night.

Ah, there's one other thing I forgot to mention.  Aside from tacos de carne, you can order tacos al pastor.

Do you see that big hunk of meat?  That is the where tacos al pastor come from.  When you refer to tacos al pastor you're referring to roasted pork.   The pork is being cooked on what's called a trompo, which you can think of as a rotisserie.

Here's a closer look:

The meat is sliced off of the trompo into the tortilla:

And when all is said and done you have a delicious looking taco:

Most taco stands offer only carne or al pastor, but there are stands that offer other types of tacos.

A close look at the sign reveals that you can order pechuga de pollo (chicken breast) and cabeza de res as well.  Cabeza de res is the meat that comes off the skull of the cow.  Typically you'll see more of a variety of tacos in the restaurants that serve tacos, like tacos de ojo (eye) or de tripa (intestines).   I don't think I'll be reporting on the specifics of those anytime soon.  Well, more like never. 

If you've been intrigued by the street tacos of Tijuana, you're not alone.  In fact, you're in very good company.  Rick Bayless has talked about how great the tacos of Tijuana are as well.

If for some reason you can't see or play the video, here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86cCss_VkCw

There you have it, everything you need to know to enjoy street tacos in Tijuana or any other part of Mexico.

There are few more things I want to share with you about the street food of Tijuana, so stay tuned.

Lastly, if I haven't mentioned it before, you can finally follow this blog on Facebook.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Perdiste el tiro

Pockets is a very popular place in Tijuana, Mexico to play billards, or as we say,  pool - Juego de billares, or billares for short.

It's is an awesome place.  It's a chain (cadena) that has locations (locales) in Mexico and the US.  If you're ever in Tijuana, think about stopping by.  It's a great place to grab a beer (cerveza) and a hamburger (hamburguesa) or some wings (alitas).

I rarely play pool, but I let my friends talk me into going.  Luckily they also taught me the lingo I needed to  know and now I'm going to share that information with you all. 

First things first.  The table is called a mesa de billar. 

The cue sticks are called tacos. Or tacos de billar to make sure you don't get them confused with the oh-so-tasty comida called tacos.

The pockets are called buchacas. The corner pocket is called esquina. The middle pocket is called medio.

The bolas are divided into las chicas (solids) y los grandes (stripes).   And the eight ball is called la bola negra.  The rack is called a triángulo.

You quebra (break , from quebrar) with la bola blanca.  You may also hear the verb romper used, but my friends seemed prefer the verb quebrar.

When it's your turn to shoot, you're going to tirar. You can say, "Voy a tirar".

And if you're like me, the next thing you'll hear is your friends telling you:

Perdiste el tiro
You missed the shot

As if I couldn't see that for myself. 


And sadly, I also became quite familiar with:

No tengo tiro 
I don't have a shot

If you're going to call your shot you can say things like:

El tres en la buchaca del medio
Three ball in the side pocket

Metela en la buchaca de la esquina
Put it in the corner pocket

Voy a golpear la nueve con la seis para meterla en la esquina
I'm going to use the six ball to put the  nine ball in the corner

And that's it for today.  If you have some  billards related vocabulary or phrases in Spanish please leave them in the comments below.

Lastly, if you want to brush up on the reglas (rules) of the game, take a look at this page. It's in Spanish, but it's not terribly hard to read.  And speaking of rules, they actually are different from the rules we're used to here in the US, so make sure you get that clarified before you start.

I had a great time playing pool, but unfortunately playing pool in Spanish didn't improve my game. Now I suck at pool in two languages.

Oh well...