I’m bellied up to the bar and there’s salsa music warm and splashy through the speakers, filling the room up. The roar of voices one over top the other, climbing to the high ceilings like the bubbles in my glass. I’m in a place called Fonda La Catrina, and there are Cow Tongue Tacos on a plate in front of me, and I am happy. Everyone is happy. The bartender is dancing around behind the bar, putting liquor into glasses and the kitchen staff is moving in the back, kicking food out to customers who are sitting in their own personal slivers of elusive springtime sunshine that’s smashing through the windows and glowing on the patio. There’s a couple beside me at the bar and she’s teaching him how to eat Posole. What to put in it, what not to put in it. He caught a tongue lashing at the beginning when he dipped a tortilla chip in it.

“Don’t do that when you meet my family.” she says.

“I wont.”

Still though, they’re happy. They have Mexican food in front of them, how could they be anything but. Georgetown bustles by outside the windows and now and then a lone shadow crawls over the street as a jet passes overhead, coming in for a landing at King Co. International.

I was genuinely surprised by the food in this place. Having just come back from Mexico, I was thinking I might have the bar set a little too high in my head. That I might wander out of there saying something douchey like, “Not as good as Pedrito’s in Cerritos” But when I pushed the door open and wandered out into that florescent sunshine, all I had in my mouth was the word, “gahdamn.” and some left over cilantro.

Written By:

Kellen Burden