New Freckled Record!

Oh, I can always count on you guys to help me in quest to gain as much weight as possible. That's what friends and family are for. In the case of a couple of weekends ago, I had family to blame for the extra pounds I was carrying around come Monday morning. And I had them to thank for helping me set a new record: Seven eateries in only two days! Really it was nine if you count the places we went twice. (If you remember, the old record was six eateries in three days.)

After I finished up in Redding I raced home in eager anticipation of what I knew was ahead: Visitors! Oh, how I love visits. Especially from people I like ;) My two cousins came up the other weekend- Baby Mama and her Baby's Daddy- and we had a grand ol' time. At least I'd like to think so. I'm sure they left wondering how much longer I'll survive up here with all the food and drink consuming that I've got going on.

Baby Mama and Baby Daddy came up on a Friday evening... sans baby. You know what that meant, right? Time to par-tay! They were looking forward to walking around and having a couple of cocktails, and I was looking forward to showing them how I roll/waddle.

Our first stop was just down the block from me (isn't everything?). We strolled into Zocalo- which is a fancy Mexican food place- right at the end of Happy Hour and were able to order up some of their specialty drinks. We all started off with their house special Blackberry Margarita:


This little mix is pretty tasty. The blackberries give a nice tartness and the Agave (natural sweetener) made sure to mask the alcohol just enough that you could drink and drink and drink and drink and not feel it... until you stand up. It was a little too sweet for Baby Daddy... his next drink was a Caipirinha (let me try this out... KIE-purr-een-YAH). It's normally made super strong with Cachaça, which is a Brazilian distilled liquor. It's been a while, but I don't remember this version to be anything to write home about. Baby Mama on the other hand, was perfectly content with the sweet Blackberry Margarita:


The happy hour prices were $5 a drink... but normally they're $10. I recommend trying it out first during Happy Hour... and then decide if it's worth going back to pay full price. In my opinion, they're good drinks- but not great. So I'm a Happy Hour girl there :)

One thing that didn't cost a dime, and is a great thing about this place... is that they give you chips and salsa with your drinks, even if you're sitting at the bar. But it's not your every-day chips and salsa:


At Zocalo's they give you freshly made tortilla chips, two different salsa choice (one is sp-sp-spicy and the other is mild) and a bean dip. The bean dip is my fav. No, it's not Frito-Lay bean dip (does that even contain beans?). Here they mash up some really smokey tasting black beans (and I'm sure some other stuff) and top it with some crumbled Cotija cheese. Now those close to me can tell you that I don't normally like smokey-tasting food, but the smokey flavor mixed the Cotija- and sometimes dipped again into the salsa- is pretty good. It's nothing fancy, but it's the perfect compliment to their cocktails.

After we were done with our drinks and chips we decided the night was still young and we still had A LOT of room left in our little tummies. We decided to head over to this fab roof-top bar/club thingy/place. I would go into more detail, but what would that leave me with to write about tomorrow?? Come on people! I've got to keep you coming back for more!

So let me revert to my old career and give you a little teaser: "Coming up, the story of three pretty young thangs who spent a night on the town that included cougars, a near brush with the Governator, and a Hot Bag of Donuts... after the break." Take that Katie Couric!