The Great San Diego Crawl of 2013 Part 1

Wow.  A commencement of brotherhood.  If you don't know us well, you don't know what we've all had going on.  It has been a rough six months in general for the members of The Order of the Taco.  We have had some pretty low points in the last few months.  Personally, professionally, psychologically, it has been just one of those periods in our lives.  We all share with each other, so the burden feels lighter sometimes because we can lean on each other, but feels heavier because we do try to all carry every bit of weight that we have for each other.  The culmination of everything forced our hand.  We made our decision, Tacoteering in San Diego.  Please read through this entire blog.  There are lots of pictures and a description of the twits, turns and good times that we shared.  This will be split into multiple blogs.

The trip was like a sequel to the movie Swingers in some ways.  Some of us brought emotional burdens, some of us were stoic, others dramatic.  Some just tried to party the whole time.  In the end, we all showed up in a different vehicle!  Mike and I drove down together in the van with two kegs of beer.

SELFIE!

Sunrise on our way up!

Some flew like Big Chris and Brandon:

Pilot Randall!

Brandon before take off!

Paul and Peck drove down together, Mark went solo, Nate surprised us by driving down by himself, we were all ecstatic he joined:

Nate was not drinking while driving, or was he?  This was on the excursion, just a great photo of him, I know you wanted to see him.

So, what do you do on a drive down like this?  I drove, Mike however enhanced the trip for each of us:

Mike was converting the lines.  He was making sure that the CO2 could get to both kegs of beer that he had made.  Pretty great idea.  Pretty talented man.  I know, I make very few good decisions, but when it comes to my closest friends, I really have knocked it out of the park with some amazing people.  What did the back of the van look like you ask, well, we have a picture for that too!

Yes, those are two delicious home brewed IPA's.  

So we all met at the Buck Monstrosity's house.  It was a awesome.  We greeted each other, got a surprise when Nate walked in the door, went over the plan for the day.  If you don't know me well, I always plan my work and work my plan.  I had everything mapped out, a description of each location, called to make sure everyone's hours of operations and that they were open over the weekend.  Yes, every detail and minute was scheduled for this trip.  

Our first stop was Tacos El Poblano.  Yeah buddy!  This place is interesting.  I feel a bit pricey, but interesting.  

Looks fancy, don't worry, its not.  The inside is pretty cool.  Great big cones of adobaba.  

The menu is alright:

Our tacos were small but good:

Action shot of James, don't try this at home, he is a trained professional:

What did our table look like?  Yeah, it was beyond full.  How did we feel about the food?  Pretty mixed.  Birria was great (4) lots of nutmeg thought.  I mean heavy handed.  The Adobaba was strong, I thought it was good, Nate was not a huge fan.  Asada was a 3, pretty average and the Salsas were a 4.  They were really good.  Here is a look at our table:

After this great meal, we went out to the van to grab a quick refreshment and head on to Tacos El Gordo:

Our next stop was just a few miles up the road.  We went to a place I've blogged about before, one of my favorite places of all time Tacos el Gordo.  This little gem is a TJ original.  They have four locations, three are in the greater San Diego area, one is in Vegas.  Yes, right on the strip.  Now you know where to eat when you are out there.

Love this place.  The sights, smells, sounds...

What a great shot of Bucky ordering and the chef cutting pastor right off the cone.  Yeah, this place is something special.  Again, don't try to order with the skill and tenacity that Bucky does, he is a trained professional.  We liked the food at Tacos el Gordo.  I would suggest sticking to the pork and beef adobada.  We would all say to avoid the Tacos Aztecas.  They are like a 2 when everything else sits about a 4+.  Salsas are good and their peppers are delicious.  

This concludes this part of the trip.  Why would I cut it off here?  Why would I not finish the story of what happened at Tacos el Gordo?  Well, because a couple of things did happen there.  From after this moment of Bucky's order, things started to get fun.  Jokes are going to be made, things will be broken and yes, stuff goes down.  More blogs to come.  Today?  Tomorrow?  I don't know, I just know that when you read it, I think you are really going to enjoy hearing about the shenanigans.  Thanks for reading, Stay Excellent.