One of my best friends from school, Bennett, is from Dallas, but you would never know that just from talking to him. His dad is from Boston, and his mom is Australian, so he does not really have a southern accent. His dad is a personal injury attorney in Dallas and his mom is an interior designer. I am pretty sure that Bennett gets his creative side from his mom. He really is one of the most talented graphic designers I have ever met. He sent me a creative resume that he had been sending to graphic design firms and marketing and advertising agencies so I could edit it for him, and I was incredibly impressed. Right now he is living in Austin, which just does not seem to be the place to start a graphic design career. He said the biggest firm there just recently fired around twenty employees, so he did not think he had much of a shot getting a job there. He has been considering a move to Chicago, though, where there would be much more of an opportunity for employment. I would be really excited if he actually did move to Chicago. I would get to see him much more often.  

My mother just called and was so excited.  She went to a garage sale and found a beautiful Oriental rug that she purchased.  She has been looking for an Oriental rug in Chicago for a long time, but the prices in the stores have been too expensive for her.   She is living on her Social Security monthly payment and doesn’t have a lot of extra money to spend.  Every weekend she and her twin sister, Aunt Pat, go to every garage sale they can find.  They usually never come home with much but love to go to these sales just to meet people.  They spend a lot of time just going from one sale to the next.  She said this was the best garage sale they have ever been to.  Aunt Pat found some kind of vase that she wants to put in her family room.  Mom said the prices were really low as the people were moving out of town soon and wanted to get rid of a lot of stuff so they didn’t have to pack it up and take it with them.  They were moving with their daughter so they didn’t need all this stuff anymore.  Mom said Aunt Pat and her are planning to go back tomorrow to see what other deals they could pick up.

There’s really nothing like a good taco.  Not in my opinion anyway.  That’s why when I move somewhere new or visit a friend in a new location of the city, I am on the lookout for all the local taco joints. 

 If almost everyone I know has a favorite taco restaurant, then they certainly have a place they wouldn’t buy a taco at to save their lives and we’re all sure to argue about which one is the best.

 There’s Arturo’s on the corner of Western and Armitage and right next door is Lazo’s, a sprawling affair of a restaurant where blaring karaoke music can be found at almost any time, day or night.  Both are twenty-four hour locations but I’ve never been able to clarify if they are competing businesses or sister restaurants.  You’ll get shitty food at either one and frankly my sope has been hard as a rock at Lazo’s on more than one occasion.  To their credit, I’ll admit that their salsa is one of my favorites but it is mild to comparison to that of, say, El Barco Mariscos.

 El Barco Mariscos on Ashland Avenue has two of the spiciest and most unique salsas that I have ever tried.  Horchata is a must for the salsa connoisseur at this location, as a margarita is not enough to fan the flame from your tongue.  The food is excellent and a bit pricey but well worth it once you see that one wall of the restaurant is a giant glass alcohol cabinet filled from floor to ceiling with different brands of Tequila.  When you order dinner, you get not just the standard fair with beans and rice but you get a two foot oblong plate filled with a cornucopia of vegetables in addition to your beans and rice.  Each table has a basket filled with key limes, which you may or may not choose to accompany your shots of Patron, which at four dollars each, come pretty cheap.

 If you get a cornucopia of vegetables at El Barco, then at Puebla, a little farther north up Milwaukee Avenue, you get a cornucopia of margaritas.  Their margaritas come in several flavors, on the rocks or frozen, and you can order one in an astounding four different sizes.  The food is great, the atmosphere brightly colored, and the salsa a bit more manageable for the mouth, which make for this restaurant easily being one of the best twenty-four spots in the city hands down.

 My favorite local taco joint though is Cardona’s.  At 18^th and Laflin in Pilsen, it’s a little off the beaten path now that I live up north but it’s well worth the trip, I swear.  And you can make that trip anytime twenty-four hours a day.  The place has zero ambience and I’ve even had the experience of stepping over a drunk customer who passed out in front of the entryway but the food is divine.  It’s so divine that I never even liked chicken tacos until I ate one at this place.  It’s all in the way they prepare their chicken.  Most Mexican restaurants either have shredded chicken or small pieces of cut-up chicken.  Cardona’s serves their chicken tacos with a thin chicken breast on a bed of warm corn tortillas.  Add lettuce, tomato, Chihuahua cheese with avocado slices, a dollop of sour cream and splash of red or green salsa and there you have it: the best taco in Chicago.