Eat the Menu Aftermath: How I Got a Week

This is part of a series about my quest to try all of the yumminess at local restaurant Tacodeli. See my eat the menu tag for the other parts of the series. Scores are summarized here.

Life is crazy. When I was Eating the Menu at Tacodeli a couple months ago, I was hoping the people who worked there would get to know me well enough that I wouldn't have to give them my name when they took my order. I never expected more than that.

But then, at the end of June, I got a direct message on Twitter from Tacodeli. "Hey Jon!" it started. "I was wondering if you could give Roberto (owner of Tacodeli) a call? He'd like to talk to you." The message ended with cell phone number of the owner. I called immediately.

The Tacodeli twitter crew had been keeping Roberto up-to-date about my quest, and he thought it was hilarious. He wanted to do something to celebrate. It took us a few tries (and one lunch with almost too many tacos), but we found a worthy recipe for my taco. Putting together the description hit three very different parts of the menu, which seemed appropriate:

• From Vegetarian/Frontera Fundido Portabella: "Oven roasted portabellas..."
• From Chicken/Mole Taco Chicken: "...smothered with a traditional, made-from-scratch mole. Garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco. (sauce contains nuts)"
• From Breakfast/The Jess Special: "...and fresh sliced avocado."

Ok, we had to edit a little to mix those together, but it comes out as the Jon the Geek Special, "Grilled portabella mushrooms smothered with our traditional, made-from-scratch mole and topped with avocado, cilantro, onion & crumbled queso fresco."

I'll give the taco an official taste soon (complete with photo), but wow is that thing good. I hope others like it and help me convince Roberto to make it available more often than just this coming week.

Speaking of that... in addition to the special, Roberto decided to put together a Jon the Geek Week, starting this Sunday, 8/22 (my big sister's birthday)! He also printed up some official Eat the Menu cards. If you get a card completely punched (and all you have to eat is the tacos, he's making it almost easy), he's going to have a prize of some sort (I don't want to say more in case there's a problem with the planned prize). All because I randomly decided to try everything and blog/tweet about it!

Oh, there will also be a "wrap party" for Jon the Geek Week, Thursday night at my "home" Tacodeli (Tacodeli Central). Details here.

The future is awesome.