The Taco Traveler

Rich and Deb joined me at Marina Mazatlan on Saturday May 3rd, and it was difficult to get going; we were having a good time there with the good restaurants, the comfortable marina, and the necessary Internet (Rich, like me, is still working). But eventually, on Monday afternoon, we got going. We needed to cross the Sea of Cortez to Cabo San Lucas, as that was the adventure we planned in order to get an adequate amount of relaxation and sailing experience into their trip. The winds were blowing out of the west-northwest, so not favorable at all for a direct crossing, especially since Chemistry can't point as high on starboard tack. The closest we could point to Cabo on starboard tack was somewhere between the Galapagos and the Marquesas. So we motor-sailed due north for the day, and put in at Punta Piaxtla, a tiny village with little to offer, and not charted at all. We arrived at sunset, so we didn't have a lot of time to find a good anchorage on the inside bay, so we just dropped anchor inside the point off the beach. We were protected from south swells, but the waves did a good job of wrapping around the point and hitting us all night. We dropped a stern anchor after dark, but didn't get it set properly so it was a fairly uncomfortable night, especially with the loud surf so close by.

The next morning we roused ourselves around 9 and I hopped in the water for some half-hearted bottom-cleaning. Mainly, I wanted to free the knotmeter, which was still stuck from so much gunk growing around it. I also had to tighten the prop zinc, which had gotten loose and was spinning and sliding free, thumping with every shaft rotation. In the course of all that, I managed to get some nice barnacle slices in my right hand, which now, 5 days later, I'm still nursing with anti-bacterial and trying to fight off infection. Those barnacles are a pain.

After the bottom work, we loaded into the dinghy for a trip to town seeking a "real Mexican experience." Well, we got it. We landed the dinghy on the panga-strewn beach and encountered a couple of fishermen. I asked where we could find a restaurante and one of them told us right there, talk with el gordito. We walked to the next group of men and the gordito ("little fat man") was easy to spot in his purple t-shirt. We asked where his resaturant was and he waved for us to follow, and he walked us to the kitchen of his house, brushed off a few chairs, and told us to sit. There was a restaurant sign, and a license, and a sign that said it was unlawful for him to sell cerveza to minors and people in uniform, but the kitchen had clearly been used much more for himself than much restauranteuring, ever. He asked what we wanted, and as is the tradition in Mexico with tiny restaurants like that, rather than go through a huge list to be told "no," I instead asked what he had. He had meat for tacos, and he had sausage and eggs. We opted for sausage and eggs, then I realized he was probably a fisherman, too, and asked if he had any lobster for some lobster tacos. He suggested we walk up the road to his friend's house to see if he had some. If he did, it would have been 100 pesos per kilo, which is about 3 lobsters - awesome. I walked with him while Rich and Deb sat waiting and Rich chased tiny chickens for pictures, but unfortunately, neither of the two people he asked had any lobster. So were were back to the sausage and eggs. He served us coffee (hot water and a jar of Nescafe in hastily rinsed coffee mugs that had been sitting on the table when we arrived), and prepared the food as we looked at each other, unsure just what we had gotten ourselves into. The food turned out to be pretty good, but we didn't do much damage to the coffee, as even after I was finished eating, the coffee was still too hot to drink. But at least all the stuff in the water was dead. We paid the man 120 pesos, went back to the dinghy and motored back to Chemistry, pulled anchor and headed for sea.

At this point we didn't have much wind, and what we had was against us, so we did some westerly motoring for a while. Eventually, the wind picked up and started turning to the north, so we could sail a bit to the southwest. As the trip went on, the wind kept turning, so we kept turning more west and eventually were heading due west towards the East Cape and Los Frailes, and sailing under full sail at 7 to 7.5 knots with 15 knots of wind just slightly forward of our beam. This meant we were heeling pretty well, and there were some large swells out there, so it wasn't the most comfortable ride. One of the coolest parts of this trip was around sunset watching a blue marlin free-jumping about 100 yards off our port beam. He looked like he was just having a good time, and was getting 5-7 feet of air for 5 or 6 jumps. He seemed to be about 5 feet long. It was a very cool thing to watch.

At around 10 or 11pm, OV started making a horrible noise. Basically, the rebuilt gears I installed several weeks ago are now fried. OV is done for the season. So OV Jr took over for the rest of the crossing, and did a good job when we were headed into the wind or on a beam reach.

A bit later in the night - about 2 or 3am, the wind and seas really started to get crazy. It was my watch, and the wind was off our bow and picking up to 22-23 knots and the swells were directly on our beam. It was time (or past time) to reduce sail. I stared by trying to reel in the yankee, but with the staysail using the small winch, and the wind blowing too hard to reel her in by hand, I basically just made a ton of noise. This brought Rich up, and together we managed to get the staysail wrapped up and then get the yankee reefed to about 70%. Then we rolled the mainsail (in-boom furling) down to about 75%, and we were still doing 7.5 knots but were riding a bit more comfortably. After this change, Rich went back down for a bit more rest, as I was still wide awake.

Twenty minutes later, however, I went down and suggested that if he were still awake, he had to come check this out. What had happened was the the sea had slowly turned white with phosphorescence. This was right in the middle of the sea, and I was absolutely amazed. As we approached it, I was slightly confused, as it looked like fog because of its white glow, but I could see stars through it. As we entred it, it was eerie, and awesome. The whiteness all around was consistent - it was like we were sailing through milk. Rich later compared it to walking through a forest after a big slowfall. It was quiet and white and one of the coolest things I've ever seen. As we splashed through the phosphorescent sea, even more brilliant phosphorescence flew all around the stirred up water off our bow and stern waves. Like the stars at night, something like this can't be photographed (I tried) - it just has to be experienced.

Eventually, it was Rich's turn on watch, as he wanted the sunrise shift, and I went down to try to sleep in the still very rocky and pitchy bow (I'd given up my aft stateroom for my guests, as it would be more comfortable underway and I hadn't yet tried sleeping in the forward stateroom anyway). Basically, throughout the morning the swells kept getting bigger and steeper, and we were really very uncomfortable. At one point we took a huge wave off the starboard beam and several gallons of water landed on the deck just outside the cockpit enclosure, made its way under the enclosure, and towards my computer. I thought I picked it up in time, but something bad happened anyway. I'm not sure if it was the water or the shock of me picking it up, or the wear of a couple years, but basically the hard disk drive just crashed. I pulled out my paper charts, and Rich fired up his Nobeltec, and we were able to get by and get towards San Jose Del Cabo. We kept trying to find the right heading to make the ride more comfortable, and eventually we decided to head straight for San Jose Del Cabo, the eastern sister to Cabo San Lucas. We did this so we could head a bit more downwind and try to quarter the swells. It didn't help much, but we were making better progress towards a comfortable marina. We didn't reach that marina (Marina Puerto Los Cabos) until about 4pm Wednesday afternoon, and by then we were so over-tired that we were wide awake, so we cleaned up the boat, cleaned ourselves up, and went to town and got trashed on one single amazing pomegranite margarita (and a bottle of wine). I had Puerco Pilbil because I've loved the dish ever since my buddy Jim Drake (aka "Spicecake") saw Johnny Depp eat it in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" and started making it on a regular "special occasion" basis, going by the recipe which is a special feature on the DVD. But Jim calls it "pork butt."

The next morning (and the next two days, going up to about 4 hours ago) was dedicated almost entirely to getting my computer up and running again. I've still got way too much to do to be without a computer for ten days (until I get to Seattle). We left San Jose Del Cabo and spent 3 hours getting to Cabo San Lucas, and way too much money at Marina Cabo San Lucas, but it was relatively fun as CSL seems a lot busier now, for some reason, than when I came through in mid-January.

I'm currently heading northeast along the coast on the south tip of Baja. I'm motor-sailing at about 6.4 knots at 2300 RPM, though the sailing part is pushing it; the mainsail is up but there's almost no wind. At 6.4 knots I've got a 7 knot apparent headwind, which means is blowing less than a knot on my nose. I'm heading towards the East Cape (Los Frailes, Bahia de los Muertos) and probably beyond tomorrow. My plan is to do a 24-hour stretch, get somewhere tomorrow mid-afternoon and rest for the night, then leave early the next day for 12 hours of daylight sailing, then another overnight, then hopefully a short overnight across the Sea of Cortez to Guaymas. It's 9:45 now, pretty dark with only a quarter moon, and coffee brewing. It should be an easy night, as stormsurf.com shows very little wind for the next few days, but with a little bit of offshore breeze (westerly, so on my port beam as I head north) in the afternoons. My goal is Guaymas by Tuesday so I can haul out on Wednesday, hop on a bus on Thursday night, and I've already purchased a plane ticket for Phoenix to Seattle on Friday the 16th. It will be good to be in a city again. I hope the restaurants are still open, and they have good coffee.

TT

It's called "El Ancla del Oro" (The Golden Anchor) in downtown Mazatlan. Absolutely incredible, nearly packed, and I was the only gringo there. It's basically the Hooters of Mazatlan, where the only women there are the servers, and they all dress, uh... in tight stuff. I asked for a menu, but no menus there. What you do is go outside to the fish vendors on the sidewalk, get some fish or shrimp or a lobster, and bring it in and they cook it however you want. I had a couple of tiny (8oz?) Pacificos at 10 pesos each, and then went out to browse the fish. I decided on 1/2 kilo of some medium-sized fresh shrimp from one of the twenty or so vendors. I sat down and the waitress came over, asked how I wanted them cooked, I said "a la Mexicana" which is spicy with tomatos & peppers & hot sauce, and with a couple more (tiny) beers. I think they have those beers so when the guy gets home he can say, "Si, mamacita. Tomi dos patas de cerveza, pero fueron *pequenitos*!" ("Yes, sweetheart, I had two buckets of beers, but they were *tiny*!"

She brought a platter of side dishes - carrot salad, some cucumbers, and a few other things, and soon after brought my shrimp. It was excellent, and they only charged 30 pesos to cook 'em (or maybe the 30 pesos was for the side platter). So I sat there, noticed by several of the guys and I think pointed out as the only gringo in the place, but comfortable enough watching futbol on the tv and... people-watching, I guess you could say. A band started up (Ranchera music, I believe, since they all wore straw cowboy hats), and they played for a while as I finished up my shrimp.

I left that place and hopped into another pulmonia and went back to the boat. It was still only 2:30 or 3, but I laid down and slept on the settee, then woke up at 5 and just went straight to bed. Woke up this morning at 7:30 and am now on my way to the Marina District, which is a couple hours north of the main harbor. I've radioed ahead and Marina Mazatlan is expecting me and has a slip available, so I can get the boat all cleaned up for my guests who fly in tomorrow.

TT

This content is copyright Sean Anderson 2007-2010, reprinted via site feed. Original content at http://www.tacotraveler.com.

After waking up this morning in the La Cruz anchorage, I got a hail on the VHF from Dick Markie, the dockmaster at Paradise Village Marina. After switching off the hailing channel he told me to come on in - they had a spot for me. So I motored over, saw a mamma whale and her calf lounging around (ho-hum) and entered the Nuevo Vallarta breakwater. Docking was a piece of cake with experienced dock hands. You'd be amazed how crazy it can get docking a boat when there are dock hands who don't know what they're doing. So often they just pull and pull, and can really screw things up. In La Cruz, the guy who took my bow line pulled so hard that the stern nearly went into my neighbor's boat. Luckily I got him to stop pulling long enough to get a stern line on, but sheesh. I've single-handed myself into enough slips, and seen enough overzealous help from inexperienced boaters or dock hands, that often I'd rather do it myself. Anyway... these guys were perfect. They were relaxed; they let me do the work with the engine, then they tied the bow and stern lines perfectly while I hopped off and tied the spring. It also helped that this slip is hideously large. It's a 51-foot slip and extremely wide.

I didn't do much today as I'm still getting used to the heat. I walked around a bit, and had lunch at the yacht club, worked a bit, then laid down for a nap. I'm a great napper when it's 85 degrees out. Tonight I went up to the shopping center after reading some reviews of local restaurants. I had a very good coffee (triple espresso macchiato) and then went upstairs to a churrascaria, which was very good. If you haven't eaten at a churrascaria yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. It's a Brazilian thing. You get yourself a salad and some sides, and then these guys walk by with skewers of all sorts of meat and carve some off onto your plate. The one in San Francisco kicks ass, but I can't remember its name. This one was okay. The meat was good but didn't stand on its own, flavor-wise; it definitely needed the hot sauces the leave on the table. They also need better salad and sides. But for 180 pesos, it's not bad.

The rest of tonight I've spent working and checking prices on the Internet in preparation for my next visit to the boys. I'm still trying to figure out a plan for the next 90 days, as I have until June 1 to get north of 27 degrees latitude (out of the Tropical Storm Zone) for boat insurance purposes. I even toyed with the idea of keeping the boat in the Sea of Cortez, in Guaymas or sailing around even farther north, but the bus trip from Guaymas to Phoenix/Tucson or El Paso is $100 round trip, and the plane fare to Panama City isn't any different than from San Diego or LAX. So yeah, I'm still on track to head north towards San Diego / LA in a week or so, though I could be stuck in Cabo for a couple weeks waiting for weather. There are worse places to be stuck.

Tomorrow I'm going to ride my bike into downtown PV. I've experienced enough busses and I need the exercise. Here's hoping I survive PV traffic. I think I'll wear my helmet. The Mexican Superclasico (Chivas of Guadalajara vs. Club America of Mexico City) is tomorrow at 5pm, so I'll be looking for a crazy Mexican sports bar with paper streamers and fireworks to watch that. Ole!

TT

Just returned to the boat today after visiting the boys for 10 days while R was on a business trip. Got up at 4am, kissed the boys goodbye as they slept, and drove to the little Panama City airport, locking the keys in the trunk for R to pick up later. Quick flight to Memphis on a Northwest Airlines shuttle, then Northwest from Memphis to Puerto Vallarta with only 20 other passengers. Crazy. I walked up to the desk after getting into Memphis and asked if there was an exit row seat available, and the lady smiled, clicked her computer keys for two seconds, and out popped my new boarding pass with a seat in my very own exit row. It was an Airbus A320, which seats about 150, and there were only 21 of us. I'm just glad they didn't cancel it. What's going on with Northwest? They were so nice, and it was a great flight. Just surprised they aren't more full, I guess.

Anyway, I landed in PV, got through Immigration and Aduana, then navigated the tangles of taxi drivers to get across the street to the bus stop. I did get one taxi quote to La Cruz, and it was much cheaper than I expected (350 pesos, $35), but still, I knew I could manage the bus ride for 15 pesos ($1.50). Arrived here about 2pm and was very happy to see Chemistry again. She looked great, as Denali and Malavika did a thorough cleaning before they departed. I've heard from them that they're in Zihuatanejo at the moment (a couple of days ago, anyway) on a boat with a couple and a young child. So it's a great fit for everyone (with childcare assistance!) but probably a little crowded, I imagine.

The marina here in La Cruz is coming together, and as they continue to evolve it's only going to get better. Christian is the manager here, and he knows service. I just wish they had a desalinator like Cabo; the water is fine for showering and washing dishes, but isn't potable. The upstairs open-air restaurant / bar opened since I left a couple weeks ago. Like all restaurants, they'll have growing pains as the staff learns things like timing (had to keep defending my food from being picked up by eager bussers), but it will be a great place soon, as the food was pretty good. With all the help floating around they have hands available for tableside service, so they probably need me to teach them how to make a kick-ass caesar and add that to the menu. But I'll avoid the "pretentious diner" label here and save my caesar recipe for my own restaurant, someday.

For lunch I had steak fajitas after starting with chips & guac. Para tomar, I had two Sol cervezas and a Jimador margarita. Total price for 1.5 hrs of munching and sipping and working on my laptop with the free wifi: 250 pesos or about the same amount I would have paid for just that margarita in Vegas ($25) if it were a bit closer to a double. My 50 peso note was a decent tip for that meal, and tonight for dinner at the taco stand off the Plaza, 50 pesos included a decent tip. I had a "taco vertical" (my own phrase) of carne asada, pastor (pork) and chorizo (sausage) along with one Pacifico. Total price, 42 pesos. Crazy cheap.

I'll be here one more night before hitting the sea again and making my way down the coast. It's about 140 miles to Tenacatita, which will be my next stop since I was unable to get all the autopilot repair parts I need to rebuild OV's Linear Drive unit as even Raymarine is out of stock for another couple weeks. If I would have gotten the parts, I probably would have gone to Puerto Vallarta where I could get help on the rebuild if I needed it. That's ok - OV Junior, the backup wheel pilot, is doing just fine. I love it here in La Cruz, but I'm looking forward to getting moving again. The Mexican Gold Coast is calling, and I think I may be hearing whispers from Costa Rica. My goal is Panama City, Panama by April 1, so I can stay with the boys for their spring break. In an effort to confuse myself and every ticket agent, gate agent, immagration and customs official along the way, I'll be flying Panama City (Panama) to Panama City (FL).

TT

We're here! And we've already found the best taco shop in town. We were led to this taco shop by a fisherman or a captain or something, named Jesús. We asked him where we could find this repair place, and he said he could fix my outboard. So we talked about that and told him we'd bring my outboard by after we ate, and he had just the place for fish tacos. Malavika put it nicely: "That's a small town for you - not only does he tell us the best place, but he walks us right to it." So after we walked with Jesús for a few blocks, found the taco shop, and gorged on fish tacos for $0.70 apiece and carne asada and shrimp tacos for $1.00 apiece (the whole meal, for all of us, including a beer for me, was $10), we went back and brought my outboard to Jesús. No luck. But he was a good troubleshooter. We narrowed it down to either the ignition core assembly, or the CDI unit. It's just gotta be something electrical. So hopefully I'll be able to buy those pieces tomorrow at the local Yamaha dealer. They're definitely installable myself.
 
Dick Dato on Boundless recommended this marina (Baja Naval) to me. It's cool, but for some reason the boats around here float around like crazy. I mean, like being tied up fairly tightly but still creeping away from the dock and then coming crashing back into the dock with the spring of the lines. It's odd. But Chemistry is protected by four big bumpers amidships. They have free wifi, cheap fuel (it's up to $2.65/gallon) and just very nice people. We'll hang out tonight and get lots of sleep (I'm tired now - it's 6:30), and then check into Mexico tomorrow morning, fill up the fuel tank and jerry jugs, and then head out for Turtle Bay late in the afternoon. It will be nice, now that we've had the daytime arrival we needed, to have the daytime departure we need so we won't be quite as sick out there (or sick at all, one would hope). I'll remember to actually take the ginger tables this time, and not just put them in my pocket.

And oh yeah... there's this application I'll be uploading position reports to. I had trouble sending on the SSB today, but hopefully I'll get it figured out soon. Anyway, the postion of Chemistry will be available occasionally at:
http://pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=WDD9964
Note that the thing is only pretty cool - it does things like make you go over land masses if the two last updates happen to have land between them. For this leg, I swear we went through the Coronado islands, and didn't run up on the beach at Rosarito.

TT

I've just been reminded by my lunch why I registered this domain name in the first place. I sit now, in The Upstart Crow bookstore / coffee shop in Seaport Village, downtown San Diego, after having just had lunch across the sidewalk at Harbor House restaurant. My idea was (and still is, I suppose) to have a searchable database and user reviews of not just restaurants, but locations and "passion foods." To allow people who are passionate about a certain sort of food to be able to find The Best Fish Taco or The Best Creme Brulee or The Best Caesar Salad or The Best Steak or The Best Eggs Benedict in any city they happen to be in around the world. Of course, it started with just fish tacos, but I've expanded it to all my favorite stuff.

Yes, I'm sort of specific in my tastes, and other peoples' favorite fish tacos may be nothing like mine, but whatever, it's my site. There will be certain criteria for each food. For Caesars, did they overload it with cheese? Is it spicy? Garlicy? Too thin / broken (no egg yolk, usually)? Can you taste the anchovies? If not, can you get real anchovie fillets on the side, or do they use a paste? So at Harbor House, the Caesar was pretty good, but failed on the anchovies (they use a paste) and though I'd requested "easy on the cheese" it came loaded with semi-chunky (but very good) parmesean. No fresh-ground pepper was offered. :/
 
For Fish Tacos, what sort of fish? Fried, grilled, baked? How's the white sauce? What's the filler like? Cabbage, cilantro, chopped peppers... whatever. And the one thing that really gets to me... do they have a freakin' hot sauce besides goddamned Tabasco? Harbor House, no. Good tortillas, good cabbage mixed with cilantro (stuff your own), good fried flaky whitefish, bland pico de gallo, bulk mixed white and yellow pre-shredded cheese (bleh), a mediocre white sauce, and no hot sauce but Tabasco. And so close to Mexico, too. Arrrrgh!

Oh, and the server brought my tacos like 8 minutes after she had brought my Caesar. I was about 5 bites into it. Nice timing.

Anyway, not much more to share. This place (Upstart Crow) is a special place to me. It's where I came many many days before going to work at the Marriott while in college, and I'd sit here, in this very window seat and write in my journal. I'd practice writing (describing the people who walk by, the smells here in the coffee ship with the books and the dust and the french roast), confiding in my journal, writing crappy poetry, and I think I even did some sketching. When I was really adventurous I'd turn around and grab a Heidegger or Derrida and see if I could even come close to decifering what the hell they're talking about.

So that's what I'm going to do now. Baffle my brain with some Heidegger, drink some good French Roast, and create some writing that's absolutely not for public consumption. And maybe eat a cookie; hey, I'm riding my bike everywhere!

TT

It's hard to know what to write about, sometimes, at least to an audience of friends and family reading this thing and experiencing the trip along with me, vicariously. Sometimes I feel like Andy Rooney (or, on a better day, maybe Jerry Seinfeld), stating the completely obvious just because it happens to occur to me: "Did you ever notice how you feel full after you eat a lot of food? What's with that?" Sometimes, though, the things that are blatantly obvious become too familiar and are interesting to call out, like in an old essay/speech I wrote for my little sister's wedding when I noted that the appliance brand Frigidaire, if you've ever thought about it, says, simply "frigid air." Duh. Can you imagine the internal company conflicts when they started to make ovens?

I've been noticing a lot of those details, lately, with all the time I’ve been spending by myself. Those little bits of life that escape us in the everyday, but sometimes need to be acknowledged. Things as simple and beautiful (and yes, clichéd) as the stars, planets and galaxies you see on a clear night at sea. I tried to describe this idea to a friend the other night, as some sort of Zen exercise I read about several years ago where they teach you to feel and taste and live every moment, starting with the very simple act of eating a raisin. One single raisin and you're supposed to eat it for like five minutes.

Anyway, I felt one of those moments hit me today sitting at my table, sipping my coffee and waiting for the first lunch course at a restaurant here in Eureka called Hurricane Kate’s (“Dining with a Twist”). A lady walked in, very distinguished, very nicely dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and grey slacks, very little makeup, nicely done hair. She looked great but didn't look like she took hours preparing herself. In short, she was beautiful, and she seemed to be about seventy years old. I gathered that she ate there almost every day, because the waiter/host said, in a friendly and familiar way, "Where's the old guy?" She smiled a bit, but with a hint of worry, and I couldn't hear exactly but I imagined/lip-read she said something to the effect of: "Oh, he won't be coming today. He's not feeling so well." She's someone I would have loved to have a meal with and talk to. And it wouldn’t be unreasonable to recall that little-sister wedding essay again here, as at the time I was enthralled by a particular song in the Counting Crows’ song “Long December:” All at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl. That line was a touch-point in the wedding speech, and comes to mind again now, thinking about this beautiful older lady who still glows. Like all hopeless romantics, I imagine myself – many years from now – with someone like that. Someone who in her seventies will still look amazing and will still go about her day, but will love and worry and never be far from me when I’m not feeling well enough to go with her to lunch.

And on a lighter note…. The experience at Hurricane Kate's kept getting better, as the food was amazing, too. After some great coffee (French press), I had the Mulligatawny stew which was very flavorful and I won't be able to really describe it so I won't even try. For the main course I had a Margherita Chicken sandwich that was probably the best chicken sandwich I've ever had. Grilled chicken with roasted poblano peppers, avocado, romaine, tomato, cilantro pesto aioli and jack cheese. And the side put me over the top and made the meal in itself blog-worthy: Sweet potato fritters. Three balls of deep-fried sweet potato that were so good I had to take the last one back to the boat. I finished the sandwich, so it was like asking the waiter to wrap up my five remaining french fries for later, but it's worth it. Well, after just thinking about it again I had to finish it, and it's not quite the same when cold, four hours after it'd been cooked, but it's still very flavorful and ... great. I need more descriptors if I’m ever going to be a food critic. Anyway, when the fritters are fresh they’re crispy on the outside and warm inside like a Krispy Kreme doughnut, but perfectly spicy and sweet-potatoey. I'll be back there again, probably at lunch... hoping to see the lady there again.
 
TT

Note: I've expanded on this a bit in an "I Saw You" episode.