It's not hot, it's spiiiiceeeey

Tonight Cary and I decided to try Garden Of Taxco on Santa Monica Blvd, a Mexican restaurant. We've been meaning to try it for so long, that we can't even remember who referred us, or what we had heard about it that made us finally want to try it. We knew nothing about the place when we pulled up to the valet. Boy were in for a treat, not just the edible kind.

The second you walk into the place, you know its not going to be just a meal, but an experience. I was just itching to get home to blog about it (I'm such an official geek now). I would have taken a lot more pictures, except the place was lit for vampires and you could barely see your nose on your face.

We walked in behind a group of seniors. I REALLY wanted to take a picture of them. The 6 of them had to collectively be over 450 years old. They were in great shape and dressed up for the night out, the ladies all had their hair did, and one of the gentlemen was sporting an earring. You could tell he was a real manimal back in the day.

There was a couple of minute's wait and so we killed time playing Frogger (we also had the choice of Ms. Pacman and Galactica as well). I sucked, but Cary totally killed it.
As soon as we were seated, it became very obvious we were in for a much bigger treat than we could have expected. There was entertainment oozing out of every crevasse. From the vinyl bright red booths, to the roaming guitar player, to the no tequila in the margaritas (como say wah?), to the"we have no menus", to the amazing luck that we got to sit across from the table of old timers and listen to their conversations.

The table of rockin octogenarians recognized the guitar player and one of the ladies squealed with excitement that she remembered him from 20 years ago and asked him how long he had played there. Sure enough, he admitted that he had been playing guitar there for 21 years. He played Guantana Mera and Amorita Corizon for us. Then shifted back and forth till we tipped him.

None of this even comes close to the stellar performance given by Grrregorio (you have to rrrrole your tongue). He was the waiter who came to take our order.

Gregorio: Good evening. What can I get you folks this evening

Us: We don't have menus yet

Gregorio: We have no menus here!

Us (exchange of blank stares and silent uuh and huh and wha)

Gregorio: Tell me what you like. You like cheeken, beef, shrrrimp, or feeesh.

Us (exchange of blank stares and silent uuh and huh and wha. still trying process that there are no menus)

Gregorio: You like cheeken, beef, shrrrimp, or feeesh.

Us: Well um do you have like tacos...

Gregorio: (A little offended at the notion)We have no tacos here! We serve everything authentic Mexico city style with appetizers and desserts.

Us: huh, so what do you serve?

Gregorio Authentic Mexico city style with appetizers and desserts. Tell me what you like.

Us: uuuh, ok, well, how about the shrimp and the chicken.

Gregorio (with much pride and soulful intention): We serve a chicken in a creamy cilantro sauce. Very taaaaaAAAAsty chicken. Chicken is so good it seems like the chicken was bourrrrrn in the sauce. We have another chicken in a mole sauce, its spicy. Not hot, but spiiiceeey.

He continued with 4 or 5 different preparation options for each the chicken and the shrimp.We couldn't help that we were totally cracking up. We really had to try hard to bolt it down and not just loose it. He seemed totally straight and didn't even crack a smile, except for being sweet and polite. Then we noticed that he was the walking talking menu for EVERY table there. One by one we listened to him recite the menu for every customer. It was too good, I took notes of what he said (on my iPhone). I really wanted to get a picture of him, but he was on the go the whole time. So finally, just to get a shot of Grrrrregorio, Cary pretended to take a picture of me with big G in the back. You can see him in mid-schpeel. Check out the vinyl red booth too. sweet.

I get very shy when it comes to taking pictures of people, its so intrusive. Plus it was SO dark in there that a camera flash is like superfly TNT and everyone turns and stares. It disrupts the ambiance.

Lucky for my loyal readers, I had a maglite on my person and Cary was nice enough to hold it over our authentic Mexican appetizers. Here's our amazing mini-beef burrito (really good actually) and a scrumptious chicken enchilada, we didn't order them, they just came to us as if we were in the old country, back in Mexico city.

It also comes with a side of the Mexican versian of torshee which is not quite like the Persian version of pickled vegetables, but is garlicky and good.

I finally got up the nerve to ask Gregorio if I could video film him reciting the menu to the couple in the table next to us. He said it was not necessary because he already knew their order because they were regulars. So after I said please and pouted a little (you can hear me), he gave an abridged version of his menu recital. If you listen closely, you can hear some of the good stuff. Start at 1:30 into the video

We had such a good time. I'm definitely going back.