Grandpa Gotta Eat—Carne Asada Con Camarones

Ooooooooh! Mexican Food...

Grandpa got out of cooking tonight (deferred to tomorrow), so today's food entry is actually from a restaurant we ate lunch at earlier in the day.

The place is called El Rancho Market, and as the name implies, it's actually more than just a restaurant. It's pretty much a full-blown Mexican market with baked goods, desserts, and all kinds of Mexican sweets. Oh, and don't forget the roasted chicken. They usually have a batch of them searing on the outside grills and man does it smell good.

Then there's the restaurant.

I think I've been there four or five times now, with the rest of my family having gone a few more times. So far, we've only been disappointed with what we ate there once. Every other time has been really good.

Today the place was pretty packed when we stopped in, so it took a while to get seated. It normally doesn't take me too long to make up my mind as to what I'm going to get. I usually get some plate with carne asada (grilled flat steak), be it with rice and refried beans, or street tacos (also with carne asada, but also shredded chicken).

The grilled shrimp was a new addition I decided to try. My wife ended up getting the exact same plate.

_{Images by Glen Anthony Albrethsen. Copyright © 2018.}

Service is really quick there. It wasn't long after we got our tortilla chips and salsa that our waitress brought out our meals. I hope you can tell how big that platter is because it was much larger than a normal dinner plate. All of it was good, even the rice this time, which can sometimes be dry. I was pretty hungry, so I ate the rice before I even got to the tortillas.

As you can see, they were homemade corn tortillas (also bigger and thicker than most) and they were steaming hot! I cut up the carne asada and grabbed some beans and pretty much wolfed it all down.

My wife also ordered an appetizer—a ceviche (raw fish with chopped tomato and onion bathed in lemon juice) tostada, and by the time she was done with it, she didn't have a whole lot of room left for her main course, so ended up bringing it home.

(I, of course, managed to eat all of my plate, except for the salad and cooked onions.)

Afterwards, we both commented on the fact that the carne asada wasn't quite up to par with times past. Not all of it, anyway. The first strips I had were pretty good, but then I got into some gristle that was harder to chew. Not sure what happened there.

All in all, though, another good experience. We'll just need to get there a little earlier next time so we beat the crowd.

One of the ways you can tell whether or not an ethic restaurant (of any kind) is good is by the clientele. If the people whose food it is are there eating and enjoying it in great numbers, you know it's got to be good. El Rancho Market is one of those kinds of restaurants.