Place: El Aguila Real
Lunch: Number 4 combo (two tacos, an enchilada, chili con queso), bean dip, chips, salsa, Coke
We have about a dozen local Mexican casual restaurant brands in town, a few which have multiple locations. They all have identical business practices, almost identical menus, and use almost identical recipes. Every one of them has a lunch special called "Speedy Gonzales". But one of my Facebook friends thinks these guys are the bee's knees.
Personally, I like La Bamba a little better. Are they even still around? I haven't been on that side of town in probably a year or more. They're housed in an old KFC. For La Bamba's first year in business, the Colonel's silhouette was visible in the little roof tower thingie under a coat of green paint.
We had one Mexican place I discovered a few years ago that did their own thing, and they were awesome. Incredible enchilada sauce. Naturally, they lasted about six months.
Oh...And if you're wondering what a "chili con queso" is, it's a tortilla covered in liquid cheese. This place seems to use a flour tortilla, while others use corn. Some of the other places also put beef on it.
Beats me.
So I cleaned out my CD's and DVD's of titles I no longer needed this morning, and headed off to Half Price Books, Earth's worst book store. This ridiculous scab of an operation buys books and "anything recorded" for pennies on the dollar and resells them for several times what they paid you. Example: They say to me "We can offer you $65.00 today." I was genuinely surprised. Until I counted the items I brought while he was writing the slip and realized I'd brought 45 CD's or DVD's, working out to about $1.44 per item.
Books are even worse. After Darlene died and I was cleaning out to move, I brought in her massive collection of romance paperbacks. A good hundred or more. There were some hardbacks too...mostly ones I bought her as gifts. The complete Outlander series, for one.
"We can offer you $44.00 today, sir."
$44.
I just stare cold and they just smile back with their "working their way through college so they can pretend they're just a little bit better than everybody else for a moment longer" grins. These people are SO public radio.
The best part is if you bring something really good, because whoever is going through them immediately claims it as their own. Especially movies.
And for the prices they charge, you may as well buy new.
My personal revenge is to never spend the money I get there.
Why double-dip.
