Food For Thought: Porto-Bella

One of the only reasons I want to get the iphone is because of the slop machine food app (Urban Spoon). If you ask anyone who knows me they will immediately roll their eyes when you ask them what it's like deciding where to eat with me; I'm indecisive. And by indecisive I mean it takes ages. My friends have actually install a lengthy questionnaire in order to help fix the problem.

"What genre of food"

"I dunno."

"American?"

"Hmm..."

"Chinese?"

"Hmm..."

"Fast Food or Sit-Down?"

"I dunno.."

"Ok. Left or right?"

"What?"

"LEFT OR RIGHT?!"

"LEFT!"

"Ok. We're on the 8 West. Left or Right?"

"Oh god."

When I hear about the iphone I heard only about the slot-machine app. One look at that commercial and I said: "YES! I WANT THAT!"

Easiest decision ever.

Yesterday, Urban Spoon did not fail. My friends and I have made a promise as a group to go and explore San Diego's diverse culinary opportunities, so instead of hitting our same ol' spots we actually let the roll of Urban Spoon decide. I was off the hook.

Ritual Tavern: interior decor think lumber jack married a victorian. Dark wood panel outlined the seating area with dark flowery curtains and creamy beige walls. A deer's head proudly hung in the center of the tavern just as you walk in and know, you're in North Park. Dining out in North Park has a special touch to it. Cooperate-run chains churning out all the same appetizers, all the same entrees, and all the same desserts are not part of the North Park experience. What I love about the neighborhood is that your taste buds are in for an adventurous treat, every time.

The Tavern has an extensive beverage menu. Lots of ales, hard ciders, reds, and whites. A dessert wine too. I opted for the light version of a hefweizen (according to our lovely waitress who was very helpful and informative and I'm sure has actually enjoyed the food she serves). A Pint of RB Hula and I was already satisfied.

The menu was small in the sense that it didn't hand you a buffet of options. (That's one of my problems with the "American" way. WAY too many options. Sometimes, especially for food, you gotta just trust the chef and the owner to tell you what's good.

However, Ritual Tavern had an option for all food lifetsyles: carnivore, vegetarian, chickentarian, and vegan.

Now vegans, I admire your cause and kinda understand what you're getting at, but growing up in a rich Guatemalan food culture, being a vegan would be turning my back to my ancestors, which in turn is disrespectful and being disrespectful in any Latino culture is not tolerated whatsoever.

But the balsamic, herb-marinated portobello mushroom with grilled onions on a rose petal ciabatta sounded AMazing. And different. And going to a new place I felt it was only right to go outside of my food box.

My dish would be served alongside the Tavern's house fries. The ketchup was homemade.

Yup, home-made.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have achieved a new level of ketchup and it was excellent. Fresh and just the right amount of mushiness, I've tried greatness and I'm sorry Mr. Heinz, it was not you. Heinz is street-walkin' cheetah compared to the purity of Ritual Tavern ketchup.

But the sandwich. It appear ominous at first. One thick, black portobello sat in a bed of lettuce, tomatoes, and grilled onions. This was the menu's vegan option, but I felt no sinful guilt against my choice to have it. This felt right, and I knew my Guatemalan ancestors would forgive me. (I had and cooked frijoles earlier that week. Con queso fresco. I had paid my respects).

My first bite was juicy. My sandwich was inking all over the place but I didn't care. With my tide-to-go pen, I really don't care anymore. The messier, the better. The portobello was perfection. For several years now, I have completely fallen in love with the mushroom. As a kid you try to give me a mushroom I look at you like you gave me a dead kitten.

But today my palette screams for mushrooms. This sandwich with the light, fluffy ciabatta made me understand why the portobello is like the grandfather of mushrooms. A mushroom so great, it can be meat. It can be its own sandwich and it's a offer you simply cannot refuse.

The house fries were quite good. Thin and crispy-they added a good crunch to my meal and well the ketchup, you know about the ketchup...

I finished and I said a silent "well done" to all the vegans out there.

Well done.

I am chickentarian. And my friend Kristiana tempted me a bit with her choice of the chicken on prairie roll with avocado but my portobello treated me, and my tummy, right.

It was a different experience to look around at my fellow neighboring diners and see similarity. Gumbo at three tables, chicken on prairie roll on four, and my portobello shared with 3 other diners and a few at the bar. The thing about the small menu is that it brings an unexpected unity in our dining experience, not just with company we choose to go with, but with the company we don't notice are around us-sharing in the same variety of dishes and others enjoying the exact same one as you.

Great food I love as much as the loyal company it keeps.

In a country where others see us as just a bunch of fatasses looking out for the next McDonald's, I like to write the good fight against such awful stereotype. America, the great melting pot, is a playground for food exploration. No culture is left behind, and though you may think your area is limited, look harder, or drive a little further. Good food is waiting for you out there.

Take a risk.

http://www.ritualtavern.com/

Purple Elephant

I worry a lot. Especially as of late.

I blame my mother. And my ambition. Together, I really can't just-sit.

Every day it gets a little bit worse. The anxiety ebbs and flows, but nevertheless present. My white elephant. Although, for personal taste I see it as purple. My giant purple elephant sits in the corner of my living and appears out of nowhere.

I try not looking at it. But it's purple, so I really have no choice.

Ambition is an odd thing. It's a very fine quality to have but at the same time, it kills you. It kills you when you let it sit idle, even for a few months. My ambition does not do idle. If I'm not doing something towards the overall proactivity of my life and my life's goals, I'm pissed. And agitated: no bueno.

When I was 14 I made a decision: I would do it all. I would study, I would play basketball, I would try out for the musical, I would volunteer, and I would run for school president; I would leave no stone unturned. I can proudly say that I accomplish most, except the school presidency-damn you Kyle Copeland. When I reflected on all that I had done that June, graduated with the "Best Student" award, I nodded and told myself that this feeling is what I wanted; I wanted to be impressionable. Wherever I went and whatever I did, you would remember me.

9 years later, I still want that, but it proves, with each passing year, to be more difficult to obtain, or maybe I feel more afraid. Ironic, huh? 14: fearless go-getter, 23-hair twirling worry-wart. I thought the older, the wiser. Hm.

I believe my fear to come from the place of idleness. Yes, I write to you all here, on this blog forum, but after my 30 minutes of writing and editing have passed, I am back.

I've been waiting at the fork in the road for a whole year and well, I'm just over it now. NYU stop torturing me so. L.A. please don't torture me if I go.

One side of the country or the other. I'm going mad.

I need to apply myself. I need to show someone I can do it all. Fear comes from the unknown. And waiting is the infinite unknown.

My Island

Yesterday was the series finale of LOST. 6 years of biting my nails, pulling my hair, hold my fist in anxious agony in the air, crying, and gasping, and thinking about the last episode for two weeks after its aired. Granted, I must be honest and confess that I started late. Half-way through. So 3 years. I will not disrespect others who have started from the beginning.

The finale came on at the end of a very eventful weekend. Friday through Sunday were all a rush to the head. Friends walking across stage after stage. Screaming and waving proudly and lovingly, I lost myself.

Though we were not on an island, being chased by ravenous polar bears or haunted by whispers, we were in it altogether. "It" being college. The Big Times. The Don't-Fuck-Around Time (even though most do and did) but we wanted something out of the four or five years we spent at San Diego State. You come here and tell others you are there, high academia does not come to their minds. They see a visual train of parties and booze, loopy girls, and horny guys.

But trust me, it's a misconception or really a reflection of a minority.

In my group (The Herd) we felt larger than our school and the lost souls who majored in business. (I'm sorry, but most times out of not people who say their majoring in Business at SDSU are the ones who couldn't major in undeclared.)

We crashed unknowingly into college, hitting the land of Zura first. Dorm rooms, dorm halls, dorm showers, dorm food. The ravenous polar bear was actually the guy who wouldn't stop being half-naked-preying on the floor's female virgins. A half-naked man dressed in a tuxedo thong in the dorms was like a polar bear in the jungle for me: I never saw the logic.

We traveled away from Zura and headed to caves-the first apartments. They were dirty, messy, and home. We gathered and help each other cook, and sustain life. Learned out to go out for our food and collect it. And I got a job. I got a job at Blockbuster and life-our lives-would never be the same again.

Watching Lost for the first time is so like that first and final shot. Your eye shoots open and you, see. You see the beginning of a fascinating journey. I was Jack my first night in the dorm. I laid there, not being able to move, my eyes unable to close and the noise around me, muted. I had no idea where I was and how I got here.

Throughout LOST you are as the titles says: lost. They have set up a labyrinth and the end seems impossible. College is this-seemingly impossible. Instead of cutting down jungle trees and hunting boars you're cutting down courses and hunting A's (The rarest meat).

But it's your fellow survivors that keep you sane. You're not alone, and that by far could be what college is truly all about: not the educating (of course you learn) but about the surviving. And you choose in the beginning whether you want to die alone or live together.

I know this a real cheeseball analogy I'm throwing at you but please, bare with me. There is a point and or really hell, this is just how I see it. Deal.

I always choose to "live together" because I am only as good as my friends. I am only a better person because of them. That's why I highly believe that husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends must be friends. You have to both "love'" and "like" the person. There is a difference, and it makes all the difference.

Over the years people have figuratively died out of the herd. You make friends-you lose friends. The black smoke monster eats them up-they were no good.

Jacob is embodied in the professional world awaiting us at our collegiate end, telling us we're all its "special candidates-" if the resume is right.

Watching the end of LOST hit close to home. Close to this entire analogy I laid out for you. Fans talk of the sad goodbye to a show they were connected to for 6 years, and I, I said goodbye to college a year ago, but my friends, will now be moving on to say goodbye as well.

"The Herd: SDSU Years" is a series coming to the end this August.

The series finale is of a certain time we have spent here: living every day with them. Knowing and sharing the small little things: what they eat, when they shower, and how they burp.

I have the Sawyer to my Jack. The Kate to my Claire. The Hugo to my Ben, and the Locke to my island. Your own life, is unexpectedly the best written show out there-besides LOST.

So Thanks Damon Lindef, J.J. Abrams, and Jeffery Lieber.

Thanks Darrell, Gina, Kristiana, Megan, Shanna, and Alex.

Happy Graduation to you both-I love you (Lost and you guys).

Namaste.