Chilltown Bears

Carlos in the garden at Taqueria Downtown

Right on the corner of Grove & Grand Streets you’ll find Taqueria Downtown, our favorite local haunt for Mexican food.  It has everything we look for in a haunt — it’s nearby, you can wear what you want, the food is tasty, and it’s cheap.

The menu isn’t huge, but the portions are! You’ll find tacos, enchiladas, flautas, burritas, quesadillas, and brunch on the weekend– no guacamole though!  They have soft drinks which include some funky imported ones, but it’s BYOB if you’re looking for something stronger.

The friendly staff takes your order as you walk in and you pay at that time.  Take your drinks and order-number-on-a-stick to your table and the food is brought out to you.  Your choices include indoor seating as well as outdoor — a cute garden out back with tables and picnic benches, as well as a few sidewalk tables up front.  Taqueria Downtown has take-out and delivers too if you’re not planning on venturing out.

There’s nothing foo-foo about this place.  In a word, the place is chill – a good thing to be in Chilltown. Is it the best Mexican food we’ve ever had, Ay Yay-Yay-Yay? No, but we give it two and a half Yay‘s. It’s a comfortable neighborhood spot to take your honey and friends to when you don’t feel like cooking or spending lots of money.  We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we do. CARLOS

Yay! Looks like the 3-hour time limit on how much socializing Joe can withstand has finally disappeared.  As much as we would have liked to have gone to Chicago this past weekend, he’s not ready yet for that much time out and about.    But last weekend I noticed that he did well at the Fur Ball, even danced! This Saturday we spent the whole day out shopping, eating, and even caught the new Indiana Jones movie.

Sunday we drove upstate to spend the day at the home of our new friends Jorge and Scott in Rockland County. We had a lovely time at a BBQ there with about a dozen other bears. (The bears were nice, the food was tasty, and the day was glorious– I love driving up the Palisades Interstate Parkway on days like that.)

Monday, another glorious day, we spent out back in our garden with Ryan, chilling, grilling, and getting some sun.  About 5pm we were joined by our friends Jay and Rich, who live nearby.  We chit-chatted way into the evening, then strolled over to this great ice cream parlor a few blocks away that makes all it’s own stuff, Torico (@ the corner of Erie and First in JC), and scarfed down their delicious creations.

Looks like you’ll be seeing us more and more in months to come.  Who knows, we may even visit the Dugout soon! CARLOS

It was a light day for me schedule-wise and I could see Joe was climbing the walls, so we decided to go for a drive.  We ended up at his office in Englewood Cliffs.  Long drive.  He hadn’t seen his co-workers since he went on disability in mid-February.  Not one person said “Oh, it’s You.”  It was all hugs, kisses, and tears.  A sickening display, LOL.  They’re all like, ‘now don’t come back until you’re fully recovered’… meanwhile I’m like, ‘back to work you lazy bastard!’

Just kidding, really, but it is taking every ounce of strength I have not to turn from Florence Nightingale into Nurse Ratched.  Familiarity breeds contempt as they say.  We’re no exception.  Almost 14 years of our almost 18 years together we’ve been in each other’s company 24/7, first co-owning a business for many years, then after we sold it, going to work for the same employer.  I hear people congratulating other gay couples on their years together, and I’m like, honey, we measure our relationship in dog years!

But I digress.  This post is about chicken– spicy saucy chicken.  On the way home, we drove down River Road hugging the Hudson and decided to stop at Whole Foods in Edgewater for lunch.  I glanced past the salad bar and noticed for the first time an Indian Food bar.  The savory chickpeas were nice, so was the eggplant/potato mushy-stuff, but the Chicken Tikka Masala was *delicious*  Better than any I had ordered previously in a restaurant.  I wanted to bathe in the heavenly stew.

So my latest fixation?  Learning how to cook Indian food well.  The test kitchens are open!  I just located dozens of recipes– even found crockpot ones.  Tum, tum, tum, tum… TUMS! CARLOS

I joined a client and some of his staff yesterday at Bar Stuzzichini, a trendy Italian bar/restaurant in Manhattan’s Flatiron District for a business lunch.  I love eating Italian in NYC, be it on Mulberry Street in Little Italy or up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I’ve *never* been disappointed with flavor and have never left hungry.  Bar Stuzzichini was no exception when it came to flavor– everything was delicious.

I ordered their version of tapas called Stuzzichini Misti and chose three items for $14 – polpette (meatballs), arancini (rice balls), and caponata (a tomato-eggplant spread for bread.)  When it arrived, it consisted of 6 teeny meatballs, 3 rice balls the size of gum balls, and two tiny bread slices with a thin spread of caponata. They couldn’t be serious.  I thought of sweeping for hidden cameras.  When no one popped out from under the table, I realized this was my lunch.

Getting ready to leave I was wondering where to go for the rest of my lunch.  The waiter brought the dessert menu though, and I was like, whew, that’s better!  I ordered the sfogiatelle – a pastry which I was really looking forward to.  It came, delicious again, but 1/4 the size of any earlier sfogliatelle I’ve ever eaten. Sigh.

We exited the restaurant, said our goodbyes, and I then found a Zaro’s just a block south.  Yeah! CARLOS

No, no, no, not RETARD, its RETARD, with a French accent, like in Je suis arrivé avec 45 minutes de retard au rendez-vous. I was 45 minutes late for my noon lunch with my friend Dan at A.O.C., a great French bistro on Bleecker Street at the corner of Grove in Greenwich Village.  I’m usually punctual for basically everything, but this morning getting ready to go shower I fell asleep on the couch watching People’s Court. The last thing I remember was Judge Marilyn Milian telling some guy with a bowtie that he had made a real “arroz con mango” out of things. Read more »