Amiga’s

CNN taunts me today. Scrolling along the bottom of the screen is, "Today is Tuesday, May 23rd, the 143rd day of the year. There are 222 days remaining in 2006." 222 days? A while ago being 1/3 done felt like a huge accomplishment that just easily flew by. Now the 2/3 remaining seems like a daunting task. This seemed like a perfect excuse to try out the new Mexican restaurant that opened up downtown; Amiga's.

Amiga's opened up in place of a tiny hair salon. My city is fairly small and doesn't have "hole in the wall" type eating establishments, but this is the closest we've come so far. When Shannon and I pulled up I could smell bacon immediately. Apparently today's sandwich was the BLT, which was already a bit of an indication about the level of authenticity we were getting into, despite being touted as "the best Mexican food in town". I really liked the feel of the place, like you're just walking into someone's kitchen. It's a very small scale operation; something I could see myself potentially running with Shannon or something, only with an entirely different menu.

The woman working there was really friendly and I told her I was trying to decide between two dishes. I ordered the dish entitled Mexican Rice, Beans and Chicken or Beef. I picked the beef. It was that or something called tortilla pie, but after seeing that it was just 5 tortillas layered with ground beef in between, I decided on the rice and bean dish.

The beef reminded me of the Browned Beef and Gravy I made back in February; just salty, slow-cooked beef. The rice just tasted like rice, despite being speckled with "Mexican mix" type seasoning and what I had expected for the beans (refried or otherwise as a side dish) was just a few kidney and romano beans mixed in with it. I was not impressed and made proper use of the 6 different types of hot sauce on the lone table. Shannon ordered the bean dip, which was a side of sour cream, a side of commercially prepared picante, some Tostitos and canned refried beans on top. The price was very reasonable for a take out meal, but so is McDonald's. It's a far cry from anything I'd ever want to eat again.