Tacos El Mapache

The first stop on the Great Houston Taco Experiment 2009, to find the best tacos al pastor in the city. We hit up a few places that were rumored to have great tacos al pastor and Tacos El Mapache was on the list. I would describe these as having more of a roasted, rustic flavor than you find in other places. Definitely good, but not my absolute favorite. Gets a 10 out of 10 for ambiance though...a taco truck in a gas station parking lot with no seating. How great is that?! You eat your tacos standing, which provides the perfect opportunity to converse with other patrons.

Galveston Hurricane Watch

With hurricane Ike scheduled to hit Texas this coming weekend, evacuations have been ordered for parts of one of my favorite vacation spots, Galveston Island. The Spot restaurant is clearing the deck of all impailable objects. For creepy voyeuristic people like me, you can watch the preparations live via their webcam here:
http://www.thespotgalveston.com/webcam.html#webcam

The surf already looks pretty rough. I wish them all well. Stay safe Galvestonians!

UPDATE: As of 9:45pm Eastern, there is a strongly worded warning from the National Weather Service that anyone remaining in Galveston will face "certain death"! Despite this, people continue to party on the deck of the boarded up, tableless, coastal Spot restaurant.

http://www.thespotgalveston.com/webcam.html#webcam

Update 2: As of Tuesday September 16th, all Galveston webcams eerily remain frozen with images from Friday morning, before the storm hit. The damage is wide spread and catastrophic to Galveston and other coastal areas. Message boards are abuzz with questions from residents and visitors wondering how their homes and businesses faired as access to the area remains limited. No word yet on if The Spot survived the storm.

Update 3: This was just posted on a message board:

The Spot is still there. The ballanese room and pier was destroyed and
pushed onto the road up against it. I think it will be fine though. Mostly
superficial damage as long as the water didnt penatrate the interior

Yeah! The Spot survived! Lets hope residents can get back to their lives quickly.

Updates

I thought I would update a few of the previous posts:

Live Restaurant Webcam

The Spot restaurant in Galveston moved its webcam. If you like to watch people eat al fresco, next to the ocean, click here. And last time I wrote that the camera was turned off when the partying bar action started but I think they might leave it on past restaurant closing, so you CAN watch drunken Galvestonian merrymakers! I prefer watching the surf cam which is below the restaurant webcam, although it makes me long to be at the beach.

International Candy

Here are the results of the international candy taste test:


Japanese Hi-Chew: The texture is one of my favorite things about these candies. Extra chewy but not like taffy, more like an extra firm gummy bear. Slightly sour, not too sweet (although someone in the comment section suggested otherwise).


Glorias from Mexico: (in the red wrapper) These extra soft and gooey caramel candies are from the Monterrey area of Mexico. The taste is very similar to typical types of caramels, but the texture is not as firm and they stick to the paper. These are made with goat's milk and often are sprinkled with pecans. They can be found at some airport stores in Mexico dedicated exclusively to "leche quemada" which are various types of goat's milk caramels. Although I don't recall how much I paid exactly, I do know the price can be steep compared to similar quantities of other types of candy.


Middle Eastern Candy: (white and brown candy in front) The ingredients are primarily pistachios, sugar, and starch. It looks like it would taste similar to a caramel but actually was more like a hard gel with pistachios. Although the pistachios are the dominant flavor, they also have a slightly fragrant flavor that I can't identify.



Japanese Candy in a tin: I put my fellow knitters on this one. Per Amber, "Mmmm! These are good!" I would describe the flavor as slightly more mature (less sour, less sweet, more authentically fruity) than something like Brachs hard candies. This might be an incorrect perception and based solely on the fact that the container is similar to a flask. It's entirely possible that it's the exact same recipe used by Brachs.



Dineometer Complaint Department

In the last edition of As the Blog World Turns we mentioned the addition of the Dineometer Complaint Department. Well, now, knitwithcats is whining about how overworked she is so like any good future Fortune 100 executive I promoted her to Senior Vice President in charge of complaints and promised to give her some help. So, if you would like to be added to the Dineometer Complaint Department, mentioned in the next edition of As the Blog World Turns, you must:

A) Get that this is just a joke
and
B) Indicate your interest in the comment section. We would prefer that you have previous Dineometer experience as a commenter or frequent Entrecard dropper. Spammers leaving gratuitous links to their websites will have their comments deleted and several large pins will be added to the groin area of the Spammer Voodoo Doll.

Live Restaurant Webcam

No time to visit Texas? This live webcam at The Spot restaurant in Galveston will allow you to virtually visit. The only problem is that they turn it off after the restaurant closes, even though the bar is still open, which is probably the period we would most like to watch via video. Drunken Galvestonian merry-makers are probably very entertaining.


http://www.galveston.com/webcams/thespotvideo/frameset.html