Mocajetes and Gayme Night

Tonight is Thursday, and that means Date Night! Rocio came right on time, and Sue and I were off. First stop was the Jardin for a drink, where we sat at a park-side bar and had a glass of wine, enjoying the crowd. Sue's classmate Suzanne was walking by and joined us for a bit. This was a nice relaxing way to start the night.

Next stop: dinner. We went to a new place called Los Milagros, a bar/restaurant a block off the Jardin. Unlike all the other empty restaurants we have been to, this one had some people in it. In fact, we were the only Americans there, as the rest of the patrons were hanging out at the bar. It was like having dinner AND a show, as we watched the semi-inebriated Mexicans do their thing, and enjoyed a great guitarist. But as usual, we were the only ones ordering food.

We opted to try to go on the light side, and ordered a salad and and entree to split. The salad was a delicious mix of lettuce, tomatoes, goat cheese, and artichoke hearts. For the entree, we ordered the mocajete, a mix of steak, chicken, shrimp, nopales, and some other vegetables cooked in a green sauce in a sizzling pestal shaped dish. It came with refried beans, guacamole and tortillas. And despite vowing before dinner to have a little and take some home, we wound up devouring the whole thing. It was awesome. Here's how it looked:



After dinner, we committed ourselves to go to a party at Eli and Joseph's house, for their once-monthly "game night". We met them at a benefit a few weeks back, and they seemed like fun people, plus Sue and Joseph bonded since they both grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and are one year apart in age. They had about seventeen people there, including the super-cool Angelina Jolie look-alike Crystal Calderoni, a couple of other parents from our school, and assorted artists and creative folks. We did a dice game called "left/right/center", and then played Taboo, which was a little challenging for the Spanish speaking folk. Eli and Joseph were great hosts, and we all had fun. It was great to branch out a little and get to know some other people, although the focus on the game made it harder to socialize than an unstructured setting. But nevertheless, we had a great evening.