Rick E.'s Profile

North Sacramento's best taqueria is not Chando's, but with all the hype surrounding Chando's (especially since that first Sacto MoFo event), one solitary undescriptive 5-star review and extremely bright yellow and red signs have not been enough to draw any attention away from that hypestorm to drive the Yelp audience into Flor Morena. So, lemme try 'n do what I can!

You're gonna think I'm making this up, but...

Remember the prices at Los Jarritos 10-15 years ago when you could get a combo plate of two tacos plus rice and beans for under $4? Well, those recession-busting days are in again at Flor Morena. The everyday special is two tacos with rice and beans for $3.99! But more importantly, these are really great tacos wrapped in tortillas which are handmade daily. Surely, Chando elevated adobada to an artform on his upright spit on the sidewalk, but you really should try Flor Morena's adobada! It's lovingly roasted to tender perfection, not too sweet (despite the biggest pineapple chunks I've seen in any pastor or adobada!), and far less saucy and salty than Chando's. It tastes great all by itself, but also surpasses Chando's by lending itself to the compliments of any additional salsa you might choose from their selection of four offerings which pair with the complimentary tortilla chips. The best salsa is actually the one they call "mild"...a creamy orange salsa with a delectable hint of smokiness. (Dear "Tough Guy", a salsa should not be judged purely by its heat. Salsa was perfected by savvy cooks who were attempting to make lesser cuts of meat easier to eat. Salsa is not about conquering fear and pain; it's about what flavors go best together.)

At $9.99, the parrillada is one of the cheapest sizzling platters of a dazzling variety of meat that you can order. A party of four can split it and top off their individual appetites with one or two more a la carte options. Pupusas make a surprise addition to the menu. At $2.99, these aren't Sac's cheapest pupusas, but they are the largest I've seen (roughly similar in size to a hearty pancake), and plenty good. I peeped a nacho platter that someone else had ordered, and it looked like the most appetizing I've seen in a long time, so Flor Morena's now on top of the list the next time that craving strikes.

I'm not sure what fast food chain used to occupy this building on this blighted stretch of Rio Linda Blvd, but the yellow and red paint on the place really picks the area up. It's not as pretty on the inside as the bright and cheery exterior suggests from the street, but that drabness is uplifted by very friendly service. On our second visit in back-to-back weekends, the young lady at the counter treated us like her favorite longtime regulars. We will be coming back again and again for the best budget Mexican food that can actually shake a stick at some of the better overall taquerias in the region!

I thought there'd be a flood of Yelps already for Squeeze Inn's new Midtown location, but maybe everyone's still waiting for their burgers.

I'd grown accustomed to long waits for Squeeze Inn orders even before the original location had been featured on Food Network, but now that this new location is just four short blocks from my office, I figured the close proximity would be a good tradeoff for the wait, and therefore this grand opening would be the day for me to become reacquainted with my old fave. But, alas...my buddy and I both were faced with some of the worst food service incompetence we've ever experienced anywhere. We were told to expect a 30-minute wait, but it wound up taking 55 minutes after ordering to leave with our orders.

Things looked positive at first. The place was packed, but everyone had already ordered. I was quite surprised to discover a cash register with no customers in front of it. We both ordered the Squeeze w/ Cheese plus bacon. I said hold the onions. The cashier told us it'd be a 30-minute wait. The plush sofa in the east foyer area had just become vacant, so we plopped down and lost track of time talking about the DeMarcus Cousins vs. Coach Westphal debacle. We certainly burned up a lotta time scouring our brains to think of every possible head coach replacement, all the way down to ex-Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik. What a raw deal he got in Denver just when they finally started getting some talent!

Soon, we realized that we'd been waiting for 45 minutes. So, we stood up and started having a look around. We didn't recognize anyone who had been there longer than us. But apparently, there was one person who'd been there longer. He was demanding a refund. My buddy asked the counter help about the status of our orders while I began to observe the kitchen staff. I couldn't believe how slow the employees behind the sandwich board were working. They couldn't possibly work any slower if they tried. The dude appeared to be pausing several seconds after loading each tomato slice onto a burger as if to be sure that it wouldn't fall off the side. He was wrapping to-go orders like he was trying to change a sleeping baby's diaper without waking him up.

After a few minutes of looking around, the staff told us that they might have let our orders go to someone else. So, they asked us to order all over again. I guess I was pretty incredulous-sounding when I said "Dude...We can't just start over." We're only supposed to take 30 minutes for lunch, y'know. But then, in a flash, the manager put our orders together in two minutes. If you can do that for two orders, why can't every order come out like that?

We did get a free order of fries out of it, but we still had problems with our orders which we didn't discover 'til we got back to the office. My burger still had onions. My buddy's was missing the bacon. Otherwise, the quality is what we'd expected based on past experiences at the original location.

They gotta get this figured out. I'll give 'em one more chance, but will call ahead first.

As far as I know, Taqueria Mi Lindo Apatzingan is the area's third restaurant to offer the specialty of the fourth largest city in Michoacan. In Apatzingan (pop. approx. 90,000), it's all about the enchiladas which they serve under a layer of fresh cabbage which has been flash-pickled so that the vinegar percolates through the enchiladas, ensuring that your very last bites shall be tantalizing. (El Palmar in Carmichael-adjacent and Tacos Apatzingan on Franklin Blvd just south of Fruitridge are the other two restaurants in our region which offer this.)

Located in the former location of Lalo's (not to be confused everyone's favorite Mexican restaurant on 24th Street) in the half-blighted Rio Linda Shopping Center, Mi Lindo Apatzingan is friendly and all aglow in orange color bouncing off the walls and tablecloths. It's got everything you expect from a taqueria, and nothing you don't except for these enchiladas en el estilo de Apatzingan. You can also have your enchiladas done the regular way. The complimentary chips and salsa feature three typical salsas, a fourth salsa brimming with radishes, and escabeche (y'know those pickled jalapenos and carrots, right?) that tastes like it was made fresh (I've seen so many places shamelessly serving the canned stuff!). Their chips are quite remarkable for striking the perfect balance between the coarse mealy texture I like and wafer-like thinness that my buddy requires (he's very sensitive about anything you gotta chew or chomp too much).

Al pastor is always my meat choice. It's not very spicy or sweet here, but I liked TMLA's juicy and savory style of pastor which I presume they prepare as a slow-cooked roast. Many places grill it over fire as if on a Weber grill behind the backdoor until the pork curls up into tiny chewy chunks, which isn't necessarily bad. I just especially like my pastor prepared as a roast. Slow roasting is an act of love. Fire-grilling is barbaric. Barbarism has its time and place, such as at an NFL-pregame tailgate party. Taqueria Mi Lindo Apatzingan's definitely got the love in its kitchen!

In the former Dairy Queen across the street from Mills School, a barricade of white iron bars over the windows gives a forbidding appearance, but the aroma of authentic Mexican flavors invites you into Lucero's Taqueria. This friendlier, cozier alternative to Taqueria Las Morenas is just a couple blocks up East Main, and it boasts a broader menu than Las Morenas including pupusas. The secret of the pupusa's brilliant flavor and value has gotten out in larger cities, but I'm pretty sure that this is the only place peddling this comforting Salvadorean delight in the Klamath Basin.

I tried a pupusa and two tacos al pastor during my first visit to Lucero's. The tacos contended toe-to-toe with those at Las Morenas on the flavor front, but they were packed a bit more generously, thus snatching the crown. The pupusa was different than others I've eaten...crispier, less moist, pounded flatter but with a larger diameter approaching a personal-sized pizza. Pupusas are always provided with salsa and curtido (sorta lika a spicy slaw of pickled carrots and cabbage). Unlike other curtidos I've experienced, this was mostly shaved carrots, but it was okay. Lucero's pupusas are not my favorite pupusas, but they were imminently edible and then some, and a good gullet-filling value for $2-3.

Old Dairy Queens can be repurposed as Mexican restaurants pretty naturally, especially on the interior where the brickwork--seemingly in a state of arrested early decay--resembles a quaint little taqueria in old Mexico. I ate at an ancient place in Tecate with a similar vibe.

I've loyally returned to Las Morenas each of the last dozen times I've visited K Falls, but from now on, I will be splitting my allegiance, and when I don't have enough time to eat at both, I will be choosing Lucero's as my new favorite.

I've not had Mexican food this abysmal in quality, freshness, and flavor since....hmm, I wanna say 1982 in Jacksonville, Arkansas, but maybe it was only 2 years ago when El Camino Real in Sacramento was breathing its death gasp. So why 5 stars? Simply because I've never had so much fun laughing so hard at a restaurant doing everything so wrong...from the Swanson's "Hungry Man"-style flavors, gruel-like texture of the rice, a 110% buy-in to the concept of "quantity over quality" that would make Cici's Pizza look like the epicenter of the slow food revolution, and the most hilariously inept counter service I've enjoyed!

Really, the story begins with my expectations based on the name "Taco Shop". It looks so smart and bold on the FOOD NEXT EXIT sign by logos of McDonald's, Burger King, and Latino's Mexican Restaurant. Look at those choices! I never eat megalo-corp burgers...and well, maybe next time I have the patience to be waited on, I'll try Latino's 'cos HEY...just imagine if there was actually some guy in the city of Shasta Lake whose name is Latino, and he has a Mexican restaurant!!! How's that for bold in the 51st state of Jefferson? I'd no sooner expect to eat at Black's Soul Food Restaurant. Further w/ this joke, you say? Is Tosh.0 still auditioning replacements?

Y'all know the history of the small-t small-s "taco shop" and how it's different from your regular taqueria? It started decades ago in San Diego with Alberto's Taco Shop, the progenitor of the stoner delight known as the California burrito. The Cliff's Notes say that when Alberto died, his sons and heirs split the family business into a bitter sibling rivalry which divided the original "San Diego-style taco shop" into Alberto's Taco Shop and Roberto's Taco Shop. Impostors swooped in, and like a virus, this scourge of taco shops proliferated across the west with names like Adalberto's, Gualberto's, Caliberto's, Rigoberto's, Beto's, Baldo's, etc., each doing their utmost to undermine the ideal of authenticity and quality.

I truly do hate these taco shops, and yet there are times when a begrudging visit to a SD-style taco shop is too convenient to ignore, such as when you are in certain suburbs where primarily only white people live, or in methy dive towns such as...you guessed it, the city of Shasta Lake.

Until you know better, when you see that Taco Shop sign on I-5 northbound, you must think that's your last-chance Mexican food for at least 2 1/2 hours. And last weekend, I had no idea that Taco Shop was anything different from [Fill-in-the-blank]-berto's. Little did I know, I'd've come nearly as close to authenticity at Taco Bell or Taco Time. This food was as Mexican as the taco bar at the Wendy's "Superbar" buffets of the early 90s, or the Bonanza family buffet taco bar of the early 80s. All from a can...gloppy, groadie, engulfed in the blandness of Sysco Food Systems' enchilada sauce. The only plus was the volume of food for the money. I can't think of a place that loads you up so much for less. Recession-buster tummy-filler for folks who will settle for the lowest quality! Any-Berto's would seem like the greatest Mexican food ever by comparison.

Upon entering Taco Shop--empty except for 2 pasty old folks--my buddy and I walked into a heated tirade of an employee in the open kitchen stacking prefab industrial taco shells as she complained that their shift always gets stuck doing all the prep work. The cashier stared blankly over my shoulder, seemingly oblivious to me as I stood 3 feet from her across the counter. Without expression, she asked "You ready to order?" As I began to speak, she turned and spewed forth a most vitriolic tirade of her own blasting the night crew's laziness: "THEY HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO, AND HERE WE ARE GETTING SLAMMED & WE GOTTA DO EVERYTHING!!!" This angsty spiel went on for 2 minutes at jugular-engorging volume and intensity, talking in circles coming off like a total prima donna while her colleague actually did all the work of stacking those taco shells. I had to let out a pathetic *ahem* to get her attention. As I rummaged my wallet for exact change, she continued her tirade again.

Minutes later, we were choking down our food with so much delight to have found a portal to 30 years ago when this kinda food was accepted as...well, acceptable. "I'll never complain about how bad Mexican food in Davis is," I said. We'd hafta bring some young nitpickers up here another day to show 'em what Mexican food was like when California was Reagan Country everywhere but the Bay Area, and no one ever visited SF's Mission District on purpose.

The next guest walked in, and Miss Thang the cashier flippantly asked him: "Did you wanna order something else?" And he just shrugged..."Um...I haven't ordered anything yet." We tried our best not to laugh as the two employees carried on as if they were oblivious to our presence.

I hope Taco Shop endures as a beacon of hilariously abominable food service!

This has got to be one of the saddest casinos ever. I've never been at a casino where the sense of desperation among the gamblers was more palpable. Does anyone really ever think twice when they see a warning on the wall about problem gambling and a number for addicts to call for resources? Apparently not at Kla-Mo-Ya!

Truth be told, I'm not a gambler myself, but I'm not here to judge anyone for their gambling problem. I have some beloved family members who have loved to gamble too much. And I have my own problems...such as too keen an affinity for buffets! (Is 2012 gonna be the year I make any progress toward getting back to my old "playing weight"?)

So, yeah...My buffet addiction is what brought me to Kla-Mo-Ya. The first time was in April 2002. The buffet was the worst I'd seen since the Wendy's "Superbar" of the late 80s/early 90s. The choices were paltry, and the quality, freshness, and appearance of the food was an immediate turn-off. Several leaves of lettuce in the strictly-iceberg salad bowl were wilty, white, yellow, or even brown. Nearly everything looked like it had been sitting for far too long. As hungry as we were, my friend and I turned back. Thankfully, the hostess let us have a look before we agreed to pay, so we didn't hafta fuss over a refund. That really was the only positive we could take from the experience.

Incredibly, the worst turn-off was the aggressiveness of the obviously drunk panhandler we passed. (Have you ever happened upon someone so drunk, they emitted a fog that made your eyes sting? It was like sticking your face near a nebulizer that had percolated rubbing alcohol!) She strategically blocked my path as I attempted to enter to ask me for--or was it more like down right demanding?--money to take back to the slots. "THAT MACHINE TOOK ALL MY MONEY!" she yelled in a barrage of booze breath. "GIMME SOMETHING, MAN!" An employee came close to calm her down. On the way back, she blocked me again and tried to tug at my heartstrings, plaintively beseeching me--"I don't have any other hope"--as tears welled up in her eyes. There's no way to win in that situation. It's just depressing.

Years later, I'd noticed new developments including the truck stop at the entrance to the casino and a new facade, so I wondered if maybe Kla-Mo-Ya had straightened itself out. Things certainly did look better from the road, but upon entering the casino, I found the same kinda bleakness I'd experienced during my first visit. The buffet was entirely outta commission, apparently due to health violations. And this time, there was more than one down-&-out soul begging for money in the parking lot and near the slots.

I google'd Kla-Mo-Ya casino to see if I could find the health report (I sometimes derive a sick sense of pleasure in reading these kindsa reports! (does that make me a terrible person?)) and unwittingly found two different community message board threads where the casino was getting blasted unanimously for mismanagement and accused of nepotism. It does seem like this place needs a shake-up because I've only randomly visited twice nearly a decade apart and left utterly disgusted.

It certainly does seem like the place is plagued with pretty severe mismanagement. The place is a scattery mess inside. Everyone seems sad. The least of all its problems is me leaving hungry. For any community advocate who espouses the wrongs of casino proliferation (I can drive to eight different ones within an hour of me), Kla-Mo-Ya seems the obvious poster-child.

Kircher's is more than just friendly, functional, neatly organized, and centrally located. My friends and I enjoyed uncommonly courteous old-fashioned customer service with patience and helpful consultation. And the variety of taxidermy overhead, which ranges from deer, elk, and antelope to moose and large cats, features several majestic pieces.

I've been to the Klamath Falls area several times in the last decade, but never visited Chiloquin proper until this weekend when I came with my friend Todd on a mission to put a new community radio station on the air here. His Common Frequency organization helps communities launch new low- and full-power non-commercial/education radio stations all over the USA.

Kircher's helped us immensely toward meeting the challenge of erecting a 50-ft temporary radio tower in a tall ponderosa pine behind the home of the gentleman who is hosting the radio station in his kitchen.

Our daredevil friend Ryan was supposed to climb the tree, but he chickened out before we left from our home-bases of Sacramento and Davis, CA, 4 1/2 hours to the south. Thankfully, our junior welterweight friend Sean was game to go after his roommate lent him some climbing gear and a rappelling tutorial. It was still our plan to send a brave soul up that tree. But when we got there on Saturday and looked up, we feared certain death...or at least serious injury.

We hatched a plan to raise the tower by rope if we could build a mast section by section, but first, we need to get a rope over a branch at least 50 feet up. Our host shot an arrow with a string tied to it, and it dove over a branch about 55 feet up. We tied the end of the string to a length of rope just over 100 feet. Had the arrow gone any higher, we'd have been outta luck! With the first step of the plan successful, we headed toward Kircher's unsure about what materials we might use to build the mast, but we knew we needed something easy to concatenate without using too many tools (since we brought so few (and many of the tools that Todd did bring came from the 99¢ Only store (I learned that duct tape from said stores won't even stick to itself, so you're better off with Elmer's glue!))).

We milled and mulled mopishly around the store for 2-3 minutes before a gentleman asked if he could help us find anything. Although Todd is the master of ambiguity, Sean and I let him be our spokesman since we were spending Common Frequency's limited financial resources. Our leader enshrouded even us in a cloud of obfuscation, but the friendly representative cut through the cloud and led us into a room in the back of the store with several varieties of conduit in 11 1/2-ft sections. The copper pipe looked attractive, but we were told earlier to steer clear of that unless we wanted the tower dismantled immediately by meth addicts. The gentleman revealed some of the differences in price between the varieties and suggested ideas for concatenating the poles into a long mast. Finally, he demonstrated the easy fit of PVC pipes with alternating male/female ends, and that surely the most sensible.

Our crack staff of non-handymen did succeed in raising the antenna 11 1/2 feet at a time, attaching another pipe to the bottom and drilling in screws to make 'em extra-secure. Just as the last section was affixed to the bottom, we did have a little scare as the giant mast sorta buckled in the middle, but we had tied a rope to the mid-section and pulled it tight to the tree as we sorta maypole-danced the length of rope around the trunk in spirals before tying off the end of it in a knot that probably isn't in any Boy Scout's manual. But hey...whatever works!

If only Radio Shack in K Falls was as helpful, the new voice of Chiloquin would already be on the air. A rare type of audio adaptor is now on order and will be delivered by next weekend.

I've been eating at this place for months now, so I don't know why it's listed today in the "Hot New Businesses" section as having opened on August 4, but if it brings more attention to Taqueria Mi Estrella...more power to 'em!

This place is on the short list of places selling tacos for $1.00 in Sacramento, and they're plenty good for that price or even 50 cents more!

Gotta love the hand-written signs on the windows, written in gang-inspired tag graffiti style, but no so well...as if the writer is a neophytic middle-schooler. You can't really make out some of the words or prices too well. But it's a friendly place....at least once you're indoors in the ultra-bright fluorescent lights.

There are places I prefer, but when I wanna stay close to home and eat Mexican on Stockton Blvd, this or Taqueria Agave are your best choices...especially since Taqueria Pancho Villa took a dip in the quality department after taking over from La Favorita.

Hundreds of thousands of people cross the Yolo Bypass daily on I-80 between Davis and West Sacramento without thinking much about what lies below the causeway. At 70 mph, it must pass for most commuters like a blur of reeds and cattails, but when you drive over the west levee and into the bypass, it really is a lot more fascinating than you'd expect.

As soon as you enter the wildlife area, a sign points to two choices: south to the Hunter Creek Station, or straight ahead for the "auto tour". So, if the only way you might enjoy nature is to NOT break a sweat while chilling in your climate-controlled automobile, viewing wildlife safely behind your windshield, RELAX...you needn't feel the least bit of shame to treat this beautiful piece of the great outdoors like a drive-thru (just don't litter!). In fact, it really is the only way since the place is too expansive to explore much by foot, and the three-panel kiosk has a notice posted which discourages bikes(?!?!).

Once you're on the floor of the bypass, it's surprising how far below the I-80 roadway you are, and it's all the more mindboggling to imagine how much water is coursing through the entire bypass during those rare occasions when Sacramento River is threatening to approach historic flood levels, and the excess flow is diverted into the three-mile-wide channel. Although much of the bypass on this day was dry as a bone, I left with a greater sense of awe for the expertise of the professionals who manage the delta and the entire Sacramento River watershed.

With its location in the path of the Pacific Flyway, this place is particularly special for local birdwatchers. I'm not such a bird fancier that I know dozens of species, but I can tell herons from egrets. It was only egrets today, but it was awesome to see several of these take off as they were spooked by the crunching sound of gravel under my tires. Their wingspans were so immense, but I never considered until today how much energy it must take for egrets to flap those wings and get airborne. Until they achieve a graceful glide, the first few strokes look quite laborious.

The auto tour route heads further toward the center of the bypass than I had expected. The gravel is well-groomed with minimal washboarding, and all but the most egregiously customized passenger cars can travel easily at the posted 15 mph speed limit. No dubbed-out donks or lowered rice rockets, but any stock automobile will do fine on a dry summer day. The beginning of the auto route winds through some working rice fields before fallow rice fields which sometimes fill up as ponds to provide habitat areas. Parking lots appear every few minutes so that you can get out on foot and have a closer look at the flora and fauna. The southernmost parking lot had one lonesome picnic table. So, I presume that you can bring your lunch so long as you pack out the trash.

Closures due to flood management are actually rare even in the late winter and spring, so I'm curious now to see how the bypass looks different from season to season. It's so easy to access, and it's free.

Behind homeplate at the Grant High school baseball diamond is Sacto's newest taqueria. Just like Chando's Tacos, Luna Delicious takes over an old down-filtered burgers & shakes drive-in in a rough patch of North Sac that's known for its crime and boarded-up commercial spaces. Whereas Chando's has prospered against the odds, this place *really* has mucho trabajo cut out for them.

In addition to the tacos and burritos, Luna Delicious offers pambazos, barbacoa on weekends, and tortas en estilo D.F.. I don't know how these compare to Sac's reigning champs of las tortas chilangas (El Abuelo, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl, or Lalo's), but the tacos ($1.25) and burritos ($3.99) start at much cheaper price points than Chando's, which is probably smart since this place lacks the visibility of Chando's as well as the incredible momentum which Chando's has created for itself. This place is really starting from a major disadvantage location-wise.

So far, I've only tried the tacos. I was disappointed that al pastor or adobada was not among the meat choices. I chose carne asada, which was middling in quality and texture. The chunks were sorta on the dry side, but that wasn't anything that some salsa and a squeeze of lime couldn't cure. It wasn't apparent if the tortillas were made by hand, but they had a bolder corn flavor than your standard tortilla. A C+ taco at a B+ price = a solid B value, which should rate a four-star review. However...

The service was surprisingly unenthusiastic. It took awhile to draw the sole employee's attention, and he was kinda gruff. Efficient, but unfriendly.

Cash only!

¡Buena suerte, Luna Delicious! You're gonna need it to survive in this graveyard of a location which robbed DPH of its best soul food in Temptations by Us in about a year's time, and Maya's Burgers before that.

My advice to Luna would be to make the facade more colorful and inviting (visible from Marysville Blvd even?), add some kinda spicy marinated pork to the menu, maybe take the final prep of said pork outside to play up the street food angle as Chando's has, and most importantly, make amigos outta strangers. Value your customers....Make 'em wanna come back! And do your best to become the fabric of DPH 'cos you're not gonna get much traffic from elsewhere on this stretch of Grand Avenue unless you set your sights on becoming the very best taqueria in ALL of Sacramento if not Northern California. People won't pass dozens of taquerias to go to a mediocre one in the DPH. It's not worth the travel or the crime risk that people perceive.