una rata en la cocina: April 18 - Dan! Puerto Rico, Spain, and Mexico

900 calories each. And it's fine.

This was an awesome weekend. Why? Well. . . my friend Dan came to visit me! It's kind of red-letter when I get visitors, since all of my friends are either too poor or too career-minded to come hang out with me on the left coast. And I'm far too busy and important to visit them. So I was pretty jazzed when Dan said she would spend a long weekend in my rainy city.

My first order of business was to take her for a snack or two on Capitol Hill. After stopping at Top Pot for some delicious hand-forged donuts we decided to counter the caloric onslaught with a nice cup of CrazyCherry.

Not as green as you'd think.

It's maybe the best frozen yogurt ever. Not the TCBY variety, it's much lighter with a refreshing tang. I'm a big fan of the green tea flavor, but the plain goes nicely with some berries. . . and Pocky!

Berried!

The next day I took great relish in playing hooky from work. I love hooky. And do not love work. And it's the perfect situation to take advantage of by heading to Glo's.

Even Batman loves hanging (from the ceiling) at Glo's.

Under normal circumstances, I would never even consider trying to get breakfast at Glo's. It's a tiny 10 table cafe in my neighborhood, and it's absolutely adorable. They always have fresh flowers on the tables and you have a great view of Olive Way, and it's no secret that they have the greatest eggs Benedict in the entire world. This paired with the slowest service ever means about an hour and half between walking in the door and breakfast nirvana.

But if you have nowhere to be on a weekday morning, it's so worth it.

Well, eggs blackstone actually, but pretty much the same.

The next order of business was to start drinking. Don't judge! What better way is there to pass a non-working weekday? That's what I thought. So we headed to Ballard. You would too. It was the perfect place to drink in a coffee shop and take artsy sepia pictures of the decor.

Mr Spot's Chai House - so artsy.

We stopped at Ocho for some tasty tapas eatin, but Ocho was closed. So we said, go back the other way we'll stop and drink at. . . La Isla. Which is actually a pretty sweet place for Puerto Rican fooding, but since Spanish was the thought, we kept it to beer and daiquiris. Shaken, not blended. With sugared rims. And sticky hands.

Like if Bond were Puerto Rican.

As soon as it turned four o'clock, we made tracks across the street to Ocho. That means "eight" in Spanish. As we waited for drink and snack action, we got to meet the bar dog. That means "perro" in English.

"Yes, I'm cute. I know."

I think every business should have a dog. It would make the world a happier place. A puppy in every pawnshop and a hound in every hardware store. Delightful!

Erm, anyway. I'm a little sad that I wasn't hungry at this point (so much breakfast eaten!) but Ian ordered a lovely little tapa called Hongos de Jerez, which featured sherried mushrooms on crostini with some. . . green. . . stuff. . .

Fungus. But sassy.

After our Ballard adventure we made our way Hillward once more to have some drinks at The Elite, which I guess is a gay sports bar. Which is a lot like a straight sports bar, but there's a difference. I'm not sure what it is, but there must be one. If anyone could tell me what it is, that would be cool.

Another cool thing is that The Elite is pretty much right next to Taco Gringos. And I love tacos. Who doesn't!

Taco Gringos has several obviously awesome traits. One, they're located nearer to my house than the taco trucks that generally offer these tasty little soft tortilla tacos. Two, they're open super late and are drinking establishment adjacent. Three, they have a constantly rotating menu of intriguing taco fillings.

What'll it be tonight?

Obviously we had to go with the rabbit tacos. I don't usually associate rabbit with Mexican cuisine, but they were surprisingly delicious. The meat was tender with a really nice flavor, as I recall. Just don't tell my rabbit.