Mediterranean adventure

"Do you want to go to the locally-owned small cafe or the national chain?" I ask as we stand on the corner. The executives in the group look at each other, but say nothing, so Scrunch and I just start walking to The Atlantic, choosing the cafe. I'm happy knowing that my comfort food is just ahead of us.

As we enter, I spy the large table for our group of five and grab it. There are a lot of tables for four, but this is the last for more.

Our friendly waitress asks about Joe and Jared and takes our orders. Mary goes for a chicken gyro, Brady opts for the beef gyro with fries, our server chooses vegetable lasagna for me and Jon goes for the chicken pita sandwich. Following my recommendation Chuck orders one of the house specialties - Cevap (lamb and beef sausage) on panini with rice and salad.

As an afterthought, Chuck decides to get some dolmas for an appetizer which are served almost immediately to rave reviews. I wait patiently, watching the grape-leaf wrapped morsels disappear, as I think "dolmas might be one of those foods worth giving up vegetarian" -- but only for a second. They do look and smell great!

Over a single Diet Coke (Chuck) which has a fizz factor of 8 (maybe a bit high for a European-style cafe) excellent iced tea (surprising our waitress, who usually brings me coffee "weird!" she says) and "very watery" water, Brady tells his story of the being accosted by a panhandler while pumping gas, Mary tells of an encounter with another unsavory character, and I relate my (latest) drunk on the train story. Jon's got nothin'.

It's time for the out-of-context-quote-of-the-day: "If any of you guys need Viagra, I've got sources."

The plates arrive two at a time, just a little past the time we were expecting, and Chuck's arrives last. He marvels at the similarity to food he ate while in Bosnia.

After eating my balsamic vinagrette dressed salad, I enjoy the perfectly portioned vegetable lasagna (served with four slices of excellent bread) which is delicious as usual. Mary, Brady and Jon seem to like their meals, and Chuck raves about the cevap.

Walking back to the office our thoughts turn to ballet dancing attire and acorns and we all agree it is worth the walk, and wonder why we don't visit The Atlantic more often.

Sound clip of the week


Anna, Nadja and the rest always make sure the service is great: 9/10.
Vegetarian options: 9/10
Overall: I give The Atlantic a 9/10 if only to allow for room for improvement.

A Trio of four

As we approached Cafe Trio, I'm guessing that Scrunch, Wingnut, Brady and I all were thinking the same thing: how long is it going to take us to park this time?

You see, about a year ago, we visited Cafe Trio. Scrunch was driving. And driving. And driving. Around and around the parking lot, looking for a spot. The rest of us were laughing. And guffawing. And chortling. We eventually had to park quite far away, and the entire incident lives on in our memories as an "epic" start to that particular lunch.

Unfortunately, I remember the parking incident more than the food from that day. I remember that the food was good. But that's about it.

So as we entered Wingnut's big-rig and Brady suggested that Cafe Trio serve as our lunch destination, I couldn't really remember what to expect. But when we were able to pull into an open parking spot right next to the restaurant, I knew we weren't going to be disappointed.

We ate al fresco, and even though it was a scorching hot day and we were not near any misters (sigh), the awnings kept us cool. Well, except for Scrunch's left arm, which got a bit of sun. But we all decided he's young and is sure to recover.

For lunch, I chose the pasta carbonara, because, well, it has bacon. I love bacon. (For more on bacon, go here.)

For the non-food-educated among you, carbonara is a sauce for pasta that contains eggs and bacon or ham and grated cheese. And Trio does its carbonara right. The dish was big enough to be filling, but didn't leave me feeling stuffed. The sauce was substantial, but not too heavy. The bacon was flavorful, the peas were firm (nothing worse than mushy peas) and the noodles were cooked al dente, as they should be.

The service was excellent (servers were present, but weren't hovering). The Coke was a bit flat, and a few flies were buzzing about, but otherwise I have no complaints about Trio.

Of course, you really ought to get a good lunch at Trio, because it costs more than we in the GPaK Crew usually pay. For my lunch, with tip, I shelled out $18. Yikes! That means Trio is not an every-week place. But considering the quality of the food and the chance of an epic parking experience, it definitely IS a once in a while place that the Crew will visit again.

— GPaK

Sound clip of the week


Man-up possibilities: 8 (Wingnut's pizza was huge!)
Food quality: 9
Fizz-o-meter of Coke: 7
Service: 8
Overall: 8.5

Tacos Don Rafa

There is no way in hell they will go for this, I told myself.

But at least some of the boys (Brady and Jon) truly "manned-up" and took my challenge to enjoy a truly authentic Mexican food cart meal along Salt Lake City's famed State Street Friday. In fairness, GPak and GMac were out of town, while Big Red chose to wear pink today, carry a purse and go elsewhere.

"There won't be anywhere to sit," Brady complained this morning. But I assured him that the Sears parking lot at 800 South, famous for numerous fatal shootings, had places to sit, namely the foot-tall concrete wall separating the sidewalk from the parking lot.

Tacos Don Rafa did not disappoint. I couldn't decide between the burrito and the tacos, so I ordered both. Hell, those combined with a $1 can of Diet Coke only came to five bucks (Six if you include my tip).

I sunk my teeth into the chicken burrito — that I decided to eat "naked" — first. Bad choice of words for me. I could say "stripped-down" but either way you dirty-minded readers would think the worst. But I did choose to enjoy the flavors of the meat instead of piling on all the extras like other restaurants do. And it was delicious.The tortilla was grilled to perfection, albeit a little thin for this monster burrito stuffed with generous portions of grilled chicken, pinto beans, rice and cheese.

I finished about three-quarters of the burrito before diving into my two beef tacos and this time they were fully dressed with a wonderful combination of tomatoes, green onions, white onions and jalapeños.

There were a lot of jokes around the office about getting sick, but I had quite the Freudian slip when I suggested to Big Red I might get Gonorrhea from eating the tacos (I was thinking diarrhea ... but obviously my mind was elsewhere! LOL).

On a 1-to-10 scale, for food quality, I give a solid 8. They get a perfect 10 for their reasonable prices. And after watching a couple of guys visiting from Turkey devour their one-pound chicken burrito, I'd have to give Tacos Don Rafas a 9.5 on the Man-Up scale.

-Wingnut