Dude, burgers. Plus more Mexican awesomeness.

Dude.

On the way back from the beautiful Yakima valley, my parents and I stopped in Sunnyside for some delicious Mexican eats. I happened to know that right down the road from my favorite Sunnyside eatery was a little burger joint that sells fried asparagus.

I was just hungry, but now I need shoes.

And, apparently, New Balance shoes.

That is weird.

Let's all go to Burger Ranch!

Frozen New Balance cakes!

The shoes looked pretty nice, I guess. Right next to the soft-serve machine. I can't figure out whether burgers and shakes make people want to update their footwear, or if shoe-shopping makes people crave deep fried mushrooms and asparagus. But apparently this set up is working for the owner, because according to the counter girl, he's been doing it for a while.

It's a Mexican food garage!

We decided to pass on the New Balance and ordered a few items to take down the road to Tacos Apatzingan. I discovered it last year, and they have some of the tastiest tacos I've had the good fortune to consume North of the border. Or South of the border. It depends on which border you're talking about.

Time to make the tacos.

They have my favorite kind, too. Lengua! And luckily for my parents, al pastor. And actually, they appear to have an incredible amount of beverages. I had the horchata, which was absolutely delicious. Not too sweet, with that nice ricey flavor and just a touch of cinnamon. Mmm. Mild.

Hot saucy goodness.

I ended up getting a couple of lengua tacos and one taco al pastor. Add to that cilantro, onions, lime juice, and some serious salsa and you get a great and satisfying meal. But my parents will not settle for satisfaction. They require nausea-inducing excess. So we broke out the Burger Ranch goods.

The classic.

Onion rings! Though they were the good kind (complete, fresh onions hand-dipped and fried) I found them to be too heavy. I prefer my onion rings with a light breading rather than a medium batter. They were meh.

The twist!

Asparagus! I am basically a fan of anything asparagus, so battered and fried falls into my "hell yeah!" category in this case. They were cooked just to tender and not floppy inside the crispiness, and the accompanying sauce brought out the sweetness. Sweetness!

The delicious!

Sweet potato fries! I effing love sweet potato fries. How I lived most of my life without them is a complete mystery to me. They're like regular french fries (which are already awesome) only with that light sweetness that makes them awesomecross '98.

Check out that spread.

Yeah, that was a lot of food. A lot of food that some people would say doesn't really make sense together. To those people I say, shut up! You can't tell me what to love! DON'T JUDGE ME!!

ahem.

Cases upon cases. . .

After the lunch and a couple of hours down the road, we stopped into a combination restaurant, laundromat, convenience store, and Mexican bakery. I want one of these down the street from my house. It's a one-stop shop!

upon cases and cases!

Their pastries were all lovely. And there were a ton of them. Probably about 16 different kinds, and they were incredibly well stocked. Almost like they were planning for something. Like a block party. Or a wake.

I should've gotten some flan, too. Damn.

Next to the flan was something that caught my eye: fresh strawberries in cream. I was totally on board.

Berries 'n' goo!

I'm not quite sure what the cream consisted of - it was a kind of yogurty consistency with the flavor of lightly sweetened whipped cream. It was nice with the sweet, juicy berries. And it made our whole car smell like strawberry. Which should be a constant state of being for everyone's car.

Like a buttery halo.

I also picked up this little cream-filled pastry horn for later in the day. It was fairly unremarkable, except that it serves to further demonstrate my gluttony and I really liked this picture.