Rating: Friday Hangover lunch mission. It started out in the usual fashion… “Uhhh dood, where should we go eat.??” followed by 30 min of myspace, followed by.. “Im hungry!” followed by 5 min of email followed by ” where should we go? ” and “dunno…..lets just get in the car..”

so we did.. and i think the only name dropped so far was Trudy’s.. kinda boring choice and risky on a friday afternoon, what with all these yahoos prancing around north austin just getting off their 9-5 and ready to cavort on pay day..driving north on mopac, i make a gut decision to get off at Anderson - with a tentative plan to hit some uncharted territory just east of burnet..but there.. whats that? it says “Casa Chapala” and its in the corner of a standard strip mall.. lets check it out..had to bust a U-y and we pulled in..

the crew is Me, Cabeza, Thumbie, and evl_E.. and we wuz ret to get our eat on..

its tucked conveniently next to some cosmetics and eyewear, a gift shop.. this is a god-forsaken strip of americanism for ya.. not a likely location for a QTX (quality taco experience) .. diamond in the rough? the early signs pointed to yes.

we walk in, the decor is clean, colorful, well done… if not a little too sterile.. but it was a nice change and definitely not what i expected..It was actually a little bit upscale. the waitress is wearing some traditional mexican garb, looking nice and proper… we’re seated and receive our drinks almost immediately.. evl_E got a pinapple agau fresca with he says was amazing. the first thing truck me like a truck was the MENUS.. huge, leather-bound menus, all done up fancy and shit.. damn.. they got a brother-in-law in guadalajara or something? so we start to browse these things when someone spots the typo - burned in to the front cover of every one of these… [pictured] The guy responsible for this prob had his knees broken, but damn if it wasnt a beautiful mistake.. we worked on the “carter” jokes for the rest of the meal…

next, the bus boy comes up to our table and asks how spicy we want our salsa..”whuh?………..uhhh.. very.” from there he proceeds to put some ingredients into a grinding stone bowl and mash us up some fresh salsa.. they even gave us a bowl of beans to support the experience.. I was impressed.. they dont do this shit anywhere else (in austin at least)..more clues would later be revealed but at this point I was pretty high on the experience.. I think my “atmosphere” rating was hovering around 9..the salsa was ok.. not as good as one would hope when made before you eyes.
we ordered, the waitress impressed me by not needing to write down our orders.. granted, I had toked a spleef on the way out the door and my mind was easily blown at the time, but still thats a talent.. especially since 3 of us had the sampler combos which futhur added to the complexity.. she calmly got our requests and walked away..then we ate the chips.. there was only one other table of people in the restaurant at this time so we figured our food would be along shortly.. we continued to eat chips.. no more chips..evl_E spots an unmanned plate of tortillas on his way back fro the can and brings it over to the table.. we munched on these.. (not homemade) in lieu of chips.. the service was beginning to lag.. itd been 15 min or so.. my hangover was creeping in, I got lazy and broke a tacotown guideline- I filled up on chips!..

food finally came.. at least 20-30 min later.

the plates were huge.. i got a chile relleno, picadillo taco, and chimichanga combo with rice and beans.. I dug in.. the relleno was very good.. everything had a te-mex/ninfa’s kinda vibe.. the picadillo taco was a little dissapointing.. not savory, the meat was a little dry.. I moved on to the relleno.. good. so cheesy, cooked to perfection.. it mixed well with my rice and beans..teh chimi was average.. I have to complain about the iceberg (dead ahead!) lettuce that was sprinkled on my plate.. iceberg lettuce is fucking useless.. you might as well sprinkle wood chips on my meal.. i had to get it outta my shit it was tainting the fine mex. unnecessary filler.. let that be noted in the catefory of “Things I Believe In Very Strongly” .. i was beginning to run outta steam.. so I i put up the white flag and asked for a box..

overall. the eperience was positive.. its close to my house, a good place to take you parents or something.. its clean, and unoffensive..its a safe choice for beginners I guess.. I will probly go back with my Pastor, Al.

on the way out I noticed all the awards, write-ups, etc on the wall.. Turns out this is a small franchise of joints from Washington state.. Whu? no wonder they were trying so hard! they had a plaque proclaiming the Guiness Book World Record for “Worlds Largest Burrito” .. the had pictures to prove it.. amazing.. I dont know how I can deny how bad ass that is.. it shows that you can change the world with this stuff. our resolve is strengthened by this news.. we applaud your endeavors, Chapala!

check this muh out if you’re over by northcross mall. be sure to ask them about having your next event CARTERED by Carter..fabulous.

• Service: 6 (started off good, but they got lazy at the end, extra point for the salsa made onsite)
• Atmosphere: 8.5 (interesting decor, nice things to look at, clean.. well done)
• Salsa: 6 (fresh is good.. but coulda been done better)
• Food Quality: 6.5 (good, not great, but worth goin in my belly)
• Price: 5 (a little on the high side, but the portions were big and the amenities called for it..they gotta cover the cost of those menus!)

overall:
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