St. Louis Tacos: The Real Deal

Sooooo....tacos. I have an odd, inexplicable penchant for tacos. Tacos of many different types and styles. I tire of anyone calling such a bastardized item “authentic”. There are Mexican, New Mexican, Texas, Thai, Korean.... the road goes on forever and the party never ends. I have developed a preference generally for simple soft corn tortillas with some type of meat and a little lime and cilantro. They seem pure to me and when I discovered i could get them down on Cherokee Street it was yet another thing that made me smile about St. Louis. Sure, we have lost our brewery to Brazilians, the cardinals are owned by some rich boys from Country Day and every large company worth it’s salt has run (not walked) out of our little town. But we have some damn fine tacos.

La Vallesina with it’s outdoor dining is my favorite but on some days my inadequacies at Spanish can limit my meal. So this week I went on a small but interesting taco binge trying two new places. The first is The Farmhaus. I had tried to dine there last Friday fro fried fish but they were “sold out” when I went. The Farmhaus is open for dinner but has reved up a small, ravenous fan club for it’s daily Blue Plate specials. They tend to be comfort food and started being whatever they wanted to cook. There are no choices. you pay 10 or 11 bucks and you eat whatever they serve you with a side, salad and a drink. If nothing else it is a cute idea. So I went with my niece and nephew this Tuesday because the Farmhaus has announced taco Tuesday. I was unnaturally excited. the place is sparse in decoration but was already filling up at 11:30. The salad was suspicious to me with the dreaded “field greens” which I view to be weeds but they had an excellent dressing and in an effort to continue to broaden my tastes I ate it. They have flavored iced tea which is a strike against them but the water was cold. they then served each of us three tacos, chorizo, carnitas and veggie. They were all good but surprisingly the chorizo was the best. they were served plain with a lime along with Spanish rice and big meaty beans (which i hate but understand that I am in a sad, unschooled minority. It was all good. My complaint is that they were not great. Tacos should be great. i will not need to go back for Taco Tuesday but I look forward to experiencing other Blue Plates. it is a great kitschy idea. All you need to know:

http://www.farmhausrestaurant.com/farmhausabout.asp

Which brings me to my favorite, great kitschy idea....the taco truck! They have had these out in L.A. for years. Large wagon like trucks with a ull kitchen jammed inside. In L.A. it was the Korean taco truck that really got peoples attention. They were hard to find but a treat and developed quite a following. The thought of getting food from a truck is VERY appealing to me. I fondly remember the ice cream stock and the hot dog stand and the taco truck seemed a natural. For the last year I had been blathering in my tiresome way to friends that I was going to revolutionize St. Louis cuisine with a taco truck and that my son could run on it on his graduation. Alas he graduated and got a job and I got distracted...probably by a shiny object or perhaps a gum wrapper, and it never happened. And them the bastards stole my idea.

This is what a taco looks like on a car seat...as you drive.



So after taco Tuesday at Farmhaus I was leaving court on a Wednesday and got the tweet from Cha Cha Chow that the taco truck was outside Barnes Hospital on Euclid and Forest Park. Yes, I follow both Farmhaus and Cha Cha Chow on Twitter. Yes, i am not cool or young enough to be on Twitter. Get over it. I was done with court at 11 when I got the Tweet heading back to Clayton. Why not? I want to say for the record that it was an excellent decision. I pulled up behind the truck illegally parked on Euclid (and i illegally parked behind it). there is something illicit abd buying your food from a truck, especially when you are driving up behind it. it is kind of like a drive by shooting... with food. I hopped out and jogged to the sidewalk side of the truck and asked after the tacos. They assured me that they were life changing and I ordered the chicken, the carnitas and the fish. 9 bucks. I think that breaks down to 3 bucks each. The pork was mouth watering and flavorful with a verde that was not hot but very bright with great tomatillo bursting out and served as god intended on corn. The chicken was similarly flavorful with cheese and onion. the fish was a little disappointed because it was covered in their mayo, cha cha sauce.

I ate them all in the car as I drove. Even the fish. they did not change my life but it was oh so good and I know i will be hitting the taco truck at least a few times a month. If you do not tweet I think you can find it through their website of Facebook page but go hear to get the delicious menu.

http://chachachow.com/menu.html

Cha Cha’s Taco Truck, if they play it right will become a cherished St. Louis tradition. Even for the sober. Go there. Now.

Keep Your Head Down? Really?

For whatever reason I have started to end phone conferences and emails to some people with the phrase “Keep Your Head Down”. I have no idea when I started to do this or why. I keep trying to stop but it just keeps fitting the situation no matter what I am writing or saying. It is, a little odd, even for me. For years I have been making fun of a classic local lawyer I have the pleasure of dealing with all the time named Vince Vogler.

For years Vince has been ending conversations with “Get To Work” or “Get back To Work” which tended to be great ways to end conversations. Vince is always good for a long and sometimes funny story normally relating back to the time when people used the word “mimeograph”. Anyway, you always know when your done with Vince because suddenly you hear “get back to work” and you know the call is over. This is handy.

I believe I started saying “keep your head down” meaning “stay out of trouble” or “don’t be noticed” or “stay off the radar screen”. All of this is pretty good advice. In fact it is REALLY good advice. All the time. People can never successfully play “whack a mole” with you if you keep your head down. If you do not stand out or say obnoxious things to people, they often will not have the need to take a shot at you. Obviously when people are shooting at you, “keep your head down” makes even more sense.

I came to realize though that if i was telling someone I needed some work out of them that “keep your head down” was an admonishment like “keep your nose to the grindstone”. Think about that one a little bit. But of course if you are working, your head is down. You are watching. You are also paying attention. Arguably, paying attention is a good thing.

It has also been advice I have heard myself... as a younger man, when i thought I was going to be an average golfer (I never quite made it there) but often when my slice would be the most pronounced or when I was busy watching my ball go into the lake my father in law or a similar figure of importance and sage would say, “keep your head down”. That is good advice. All the time when your swinging.

Like I said, I do not know how I started saying and typing this. It is trite, presumptuous and perhaps even a little...shallow. But until I can break myself of it. Keep you head down. And if you cannot keep your head down.... then get to work.

Best of 2010 Music

Best Music of 2010

Sure it sounds easy to crank out a list of music no one else has heard, that no one else cares about and of course that...twangs. BUT IT IS NOT! It is hard... it is DAMN HARD to quote Wesley Snipes in “White Men Can’t Jump” but yet hear I am again. Another year... another failure to review a diner. But I want to tell you, I think there was a lot of great music this year. While listening to all this music I read the blog of Bob Lefsetz and internalized his rants about how cashing in does not matter, only loving music, being talented and working hard. How there has never been so much good music out there but there is so much that counter intuitively... it is hard to find. That now what matters is the filters, the trusted sources for recommendations. I am NOT one of those.

Hollerado: “Record In A Bag”. Damn this was fun. It is an unlikely choice for me. Straight ahead rock n roll with a driving guitar and drums. This band is Canadian (Manitck Ontario) and decided that they were going to make it on their own. They hopped in a car from somewhere up there and went as far as their gas money would take them. They then went to bars and offered to open, or to play before the opener... for nothing. Each morning they went to Best Buy and bought a CD burner and burned a bunch of CD’s and then returned it that afternoon. That evening at whatever show they played they sold the discs in ziplog bags. And they survived. It is more then a story. This is good music. Download the song Juliette. Do it now. You will smile. http://www.hollerado.com/

***

Frightened Rabbit: “Living In Color”. WHo would of thought a Scottish band? I would have thought that little block of land was played out. But this band grabbed me with this CD. Lots of good songs and it rocks. The title track, the uplifting suicide song “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”, “Nothing Like You” and “Not Miserable”. Dense arrangement and the pained, pained Scottish lilt. For me this CD was a departure from my normal tastes but it was just so well done and it grew and grew on me... like a fungus.

***

Elizabeth Cook: “Welder”. Best CD of the year and right in my wheel house. It grabbed me at first with an obvious painful song, “My Heroin Addict Sister” and then made me smile with “El Camino” but pretty soon I found myself listening to the whole CD over and over in my car when traveling. “Follow You Like Smoke”, “Its Not California”, “Girlfriend Tonight” and the painful hilarious (for me) “When you say yes to beer you say, no to booty”. I heard that. her voice is just awesome. She looks like a little girl but i would place her at 40 and her guitarist husband Tim Carroll is an old alt country favorite. If you like shit like Lucinda WIlliams... and I do, you will love her. This is my gift to you. And you owe me.

***

Joe Pug: “Messenger”: I got hooked on him last year. This CD is better. His song writing is poignant and probing and often painful. Of the group this year I think he is the best song writer. far and away. The CD is good, song after song but the high spots for me are and were “Messenger”, “The Door Was Always Open” and “Speak Plainly Diana”. This good good stuff. This guy will be one of the greats over time and the questioning religiousity of many of his songs speaks to me like almost no one else.

***

There was other interesting stuff:

Ben Wilkins does Ben Folds" Whatever and Ever Amen" sound as well as Ben ever did. This is really a nice EP and you should listen to it.

Costello's new CD "National Ransom" is another winner and essential for someone who loves his body of work (like me).

Arcade Fires new CD is on everyone's best of list. I know it is good but I just cannot like it that much. Still I keep listening.

Avett Brothers: They continue to develop their sound and their following. "And I love You" is really solid and for an alt-country fan like me is essential but....

Elizabeth Cook...Welder. Buy it. Thank me later.

THE Cruise Day 3 and 4: We Go Somewhere

The Cruise Day 3 No Stops

You wake up on the boat. You eat. You float. Not a lot more then that happens. You notice a couple of things, or at least a copuple of things get confirmed.
1. The food is not that good
2. The food is plentiful
3. There are a shitload of people on this boat
4. Since we are not going into port anywhere they all think that they will swim and sun today.
5. Drinks are expensive
6. It kicks ass to have a room with a balcony to hide/drink on.
7. There are several pools. None of them really for swimming.
8. There are several hot tubs but none of them are that hot.

The people who are on the cruise tend to be from all over. I know it costs a lot of money to cruise but you would never know it from the people. They tend as a group to be unattractive, appear unhappy and appear pushy. They are in a word...me. I sleep a lot. I have a few Red Stripes. We go to dinner in the upscale (upcharge-CHA CHING) restaurant called Chops. The food is pretty good there. Better then the wedding fair in the main dining room. Not Smith & Wollensky's but not too far off. We go sit in the hot tub at night. Tomorrow Mayan Ruins. We go to bed.

***

Day 4: Costa Maya

Costa Maya is a made up town. Evidently the cruise lines all conspired to have a deep water port and town here because they needed one. It fir. Hurricane Dean blew through here in 2007 and leveled everything so they built a new little Branson outlet Mall complete with Senor Frogs and a Hard Rock Cafe and two other chain places and a load of jewelry stores, souvenir stands and t-shirts. Awesome. They also allow you to take a 2 dollar cab ride to town Muhahual or something. The town is like every port town we later find out with crappy shops and with people hustling you for your attentions and your dollars every step (literally every step) of the way.

We split up and Pat and I go and wait for a charter we have scheduled to go see Mayan ruins. While waiting, Pat pukes. We never determine why. We get on a bus and ride to town and hook up with a nuclear family of three from somewhere in Georgia. We all get in a mini van. The Georgia people are fat and appear (sound) stupid. The man forgot his "click camers" (I do not know what that is) on the bus so we drive back to the port.. We get the camera. The mini van we are in breaks down (equipment breakdowns seem to be THE common thread in the Caribbean). We drive 45 miles north through mango swamps and through a military check point complete with small child in fatigues carrying a machine gun. On the way our guide suggests we buy soem fresh pinapple from aroadside stand and put come chile peper on it. The fat family declines as does Pat but I do. It is VERY good.We go to ruins. The fat family keeps asking questions and "the Mayan calendar and things they heard on the discovery channel about the world ending in 2012. Based on their questions (including the fat kids questions about human sacrifice) I find myself praying it would end sooner. He shows us a town where the Mayans lived 1200 years ago and points out a face carved in the rock. The fat kid insistes that he see an entire tableaux that evidently has been missed by the thousands of people and archeoligists who have viewed it before. We go to climb one of the two large pyramids. The fat kid comes along with us while his parents sit and sweat. It is muddy. The Mayans disappeared about 1200 years ago. The fat man thinks it was aliens. I think that I would like for aliens to make me disappear. All during this time pat takes about 200 pictures of nothing. We drive back to port.

Where we find our four compatriots drinking fruity drinks out of long, plastic tuble like cups with name tags on from Senor Frogs which say things like "easy "and "Horny". I asses the situation and take a cab inbto town. Manalana is a fishing village and I saw several huge tubs on wheels filled with fresh snapper. I have cab driver take me to a bar with a dirt floor and I go in saying "cook me very fresh snapper". They nod. I insist on seeing it. They bring me out a fish that is perfect, [ink, a little sea weed in the gills and stillfresh with rigor mortis from being caught. They gut it on the bar. I am the only person in the bar. I say how much and they say 19 dollars. I have 26 dollars and it is a 3 dollar cab ride back to the boat. i ask them to throw in a beer. They agree. I sit there and watch this extended family go out to the beach and hustle people on the street but I sit in the shade sipping my Dos Equis. I explained that I just wanted the fish cooked who and as they kept offering me options and I kept declining they got happier and happier with me. They brought me another beer "no harga". Eventua;ly they brought me a beautiful (seriously beautiful fish with skin head and tail all in tact, staring up at me and screaming "EAT ME!" I did. It was awesome. I asked for a little chile and they brought me a green sauce I watched them mix up and I wanted it for side two of the fish. being smarter then I used to be I dabbed a little on a small piece of the fish and ate it... and almost passed out. Way too hot. Still...i used just a litte, folded it up in some soft corn tortillas with rice and it was awesome. It made my day. Fresh fish in a fishing village cooked on a very hot fire...to die for. I will never go to a fishing village again and not try to replicate this experience.

I went back to the boat, ate, had shots, fell asleep.

The Cruise Day 2: Bon Voyage

Royal Caribbean is a fine cruise line, not that I have any idea what I am talking about. I have never sailed on another line and the last time I was on this one was 17 years ago. They tell you not to arrive before 1:30 but we woke up bored and tired and after running to Marshalls to get some golf shirts for Pat (who seemed to pack not realizing he might need shirts...WITH COLLARS!)we left the downtown Courtyard Marriott and headed over. The cruise lines all leave from one big terminal in Miami and it is something to see several boats all tied up there in the water. i was relieved in my way of overcompensating that our boat, "The Liberty of The Seas" was the biggest. my children informed me that it currently is the 3rd largest cdruise ship around. My children are of course my children which makes them hopeless liars and over dramatizers of the "facts" in our life. I could get on Wikipedia and check their facts but lets say it was a big ass boat and leave it at that.

Arriving at the terminal we got to wait in our first line for security and then to get the passes which would allow us to charge things while on the boat. You might find it curious to charge things on the boat. Isn't everything paid for? Well, that is how they get you. Your food and lodging is all paid for but... you want a soda, you pay for it. Any kind of alcohol...pay for it. A can of Pringles..."cha ching!". Merchandise of all kinds, extra amenities and shore excursions, a massage, a shave with a straight razor, a picture of the family, an upgrade on your wine, a lost towel, pictures which are constantly being snapped by their on board phtogs... it goes on and on and you get the picture. So you wait in line and you get your card. For four of us our card was pristine. Pat's card had one punch because he was only 20 and poor Laura at 17 had the dreaded two hole punched card. Pat could gamble, but not drink. laura could do neither. Oh the humanity.

We finally got through the check in and got to our rooms. The kids were on the interior but Sandy had bucked up for a room with balcony on it for us and it was delightful. Other then the bathroom it was as large a room as a typical Holiday Inn. Very comfortable with all the amenities including mini-bar (Cha CHING again). We set off to explore the boat walking around the upper decks and seeing the pools, hot tubs, running track, health center and "Flow Rider". The Flow Rider was a 20 foot padded slope with water shooting up it allowing you to boogy board or surf if you could get the hang of it. My wife quickly discerned that we could rent exclusive use of it some time for an hour (CHA CHING and a half) and so we reserved some time for later in the week. Wednesday.

We got some lunch at the Windjammer Buffet and I found it very...food like. My kids all got hot dogs and pronounced them great and the fries...greater. I thought the food was exactly as expected, a high quantity of average food with a reasonable amount of diversity. The iced tea was instant. The pizza had that troubling too much humidity texture. Everything was buffet and at the entrance their were 4 hand santizers and everyone was admonished to use them. I am NOT a germaphobe and think this a creepy habit we have gotten our civilization into but my wife explained how paranoid ships had become about germs AND that in a buffet we all used the same serving utensils. This provided some amusement as you watch the people get the alcoholic stuff on their hands and then rub them and wave them (waving is the key) to make the stuff go away. It was a weird little dance.

I then sat in the room on my balcony and waited for us to pull out. I love the ocean and being on the 10th floor of a floating sky scraper is very, VERY cool for me. As you pull out of the Port of Miami you pass their container storage and it is kind of...wow. A lot of stuff comes in here... and goes out. You also cruise by Key Biscayne and a few other private islands. I do not live on a private island...yet. Unfortunatley next to us, divided only by a plastic divider was a crew cutted, big gunned, heavy tatted 30 something and his two kids. I am sure there was a wife in there somewhere but I never heard from her. Men who look like this... for some reason...bother me. They look like they have so much to prove. This guy looked like the asshole older brother Chet in "Weird Science" and he had a camera with one of those 10k bazooka lenses and was taking pictures and ignoring his children who were screaming constantly...DADDY...DADDY...look at this!...or THAT!...in loud..surprisingly childlike voices. If that was not annoying enough for this old man he also had an iPod player and rather then burden himself with head phones he blared bad music from the 80's and 90's. Lots of bad metal but then even more annoyingly he had the complete Sheryll Crow collection on the mix. I had to go in and close the door... sobbing quietly to myself.

We hit dinner in the main dining room. Oddly enough the captain had not seen fit to invite us to his table (an oversight I am certain). We had two waiters, one from India and one from Turkey. It was here where I started to notice that none of the cruise employees are American. They were hard to understand foreigners of all stripes. Still they were nioce although the Turk had a VERY irregularly shaped head. The food is always good on cruises but never great. It is like going to pretty good wedding reception every night. We had ordered a "wine package" which meant I got to chose from a wine list of about 20 wines every night and that was a nice upgrade. At the end of dinner we were introduced to Dexter, the shot guy. They sell a specialty shot every evening (cha ching) in a special shot glass, you get to keep. A different color every night. BRILLIANT CHA CHING!

We sent the kids on their way and Sandy and I had a night cap at "Olive Or Twists". They had a nice little combo and lounge singer. We went to bed. The ship had pulled out and the Florida Keys had trailed into the sunset before darkness gobbled the sky on our first day at sea.

The Cruise Day 1: Getting There IS Half The Fun

Soooo...It was my wifes 50th birthday coming up. She told me that she had originally scheduled the cruise before her 49th. She is a very thoughtful woman and thought a family cruise or some family vacation would be a good idea. Jon is 23, Pat 20 and Laura 17 and sooner or later they would all be going their separate ways and even if not leaving us and St. Louis would have other obligations with jobs, spouses families. Not only celebrating her birthday but the idea in my mind was a last hurrah for Beckerdom.... this little thing of ours. Perhaps as the late Hunter Thompson said, go out with a bang instead of a whimper. We had last cruised on our ten year anniversary over 17 years ago and my memory of the cruise were hazy and not altogether pleasant as it was not a particularly good time in my life for reasons which I cannot even name. Neither of us had been in a hurry to go back but where were you going to go with your family? An all inclusive really offered little other then togetherness, swimming and drinking and with two arguably under age children seemed like a poor call so, a cruise it was.

We left on a Saturday evening out of the Lou and flew into Miami bringing back some conflicted memories of a few jobs ago when I was a frequent visitor to the town. We got in around 9 and took a cab to the downtown Courtyard Mariott. It was very downtown and although not "sketchy" it did very little to encourage walking around. We took Jon's girlfriend, the lovely Lydia along with us and we decided it was not too late and we took a cab over to Southbeach. South Beach on a Saturday night around midnight is a crowded carnival of humanity and vice. Immediately a good parent wonders "what the hell am I doing here with my children?" Left without a good answer you hop out of the cab and see what is what. We walked to the ocean and Pat ad I walked in. I love the ocean. I love the smell of it and the taste of the salt but other then Pat the rest of the group was not similarly afflicted.

So we headed back to the strip and it is a STRIP. Ocean Blvd. runs along the ocean surprisingly enough and is literally lined with restaurants and clubs and all manner of humanity. Everyone is dressed to party and gays, straights, transgender, anglo, black, latino and everyone within 50 miles who can get there is wandering this strip, eating, drinking and debauching. It is loud and hosts and hostesses at each place are hawking to get you to look at their menu and have a seat. So we waked from the south end to the point where the action petered out and then walked back and found a large booth on the street at the Clevelander. There, we took it all in and there was much to take in. there was a suped up old Impala with a car alarm randomly blaring, there was a parade of people tricked out for the night, classy, slutty, sketchy, beautiful and horrid. Oh the humanity. The food at the Cleavelander was surprisingly good and we had a few beers as we watched a young man on the front porch of the hotel and his...girlfriend?...make out (and I mean make out in the most graphic, private dance, inappropriate way possible) but mainly we just watched people... and marveled at our sheltered (for me blessedly sheltered at this point) little lives.

We were also approached by a nice young African-American gentlemen who complimented on me on my family and struck up the patter of a true hustler. he was a rapper pushing his product with poorly wrapped CD's and although a little intrusive, he explained that he was doing "inspirational rap" and that he was different. I smiled as he told me his girlfriend was writing songs for Taylor Swift and he smiled when I told him that being from St. Louis we were Nelly Loyalists (and obvious lie and overplaying of my hand). I ended the standoff with him by paying him 10 bucks for his CD and he asked me to email him my comments. His name was heat Rock. I would like to say I could recommend him. They also had a cigar roller on the street and I went back and bought some cigars for the trip. They were average with a sweet wrapper but... they gave me something to smoke while on the boat and waiting to get somewhere that I could buy a Cuban (cigar, not an actual person).

I was wrong by the way about this being "how the other half lives". , this is not the other half but the other .0001 percent but God bless them all, they make out world a richer place and while exposing your children to it might not seem smart... it did seem very Becker. We were out till about 2:30 A.M. Too late for a Becker.