La Puerta

La Puerta is closing it’s doors after 34 years on Pike & 11th. Looks like they’re moving to the 2nd floor of the Broadway Market. I believe a club/bar is going in the existing space.

it’s not the worse ever either….it’s in the middle…and coming from Texas where there are Mexican restaurant aplenty…I think I know LOTS of whether a restaurant of this type is good or not…and like i said, I’ve better to far better ones and i’ve been to worse ones this is somewhere in the middle….and when i moved here from Tx, I knew I’d be leaving the best Mexican restaurant ever: La Mission, in Midland, Tx….the town is a wort on the devil’s rump, but La Mission is the best ever….so much so, that when I go back there for visits (twice in the last 5 yrs) I made sure that I went there to eat a nice big meal….

my boss was buying me lunch and the waitress chided me for ordering first, it made me feel at home. my boss made fun of me for the rest of the day.

as for a critique of the food…

i won’t touch anything but the nachos. the nachos are the best nachos on capitol hill. i’ve written poems about those nachos.

Nice things you could say about eating here:

• When you notice that the waitress is inept at operating a water pitcher after decades of experience, and think that it speaks metaphorically about the establishment, it makes you feel smart
• Learning that making food extra greasy isn’t a guarantee that it’ll have any flavor proves that your own rudimentary cooking is relatively expert
• Employees lumbering around like zombies because they’re so far beyond caring make the place feel like the setting of a Far Side cartoon. You like Far Side cartoons!

I suppose there’s better Mexican food elsewhere but this place feels just right. Plus it’s mere blocks from where I live — isn’t that what really matters about a place where every margarita make you wanna have five more?