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an authentic experience

I’ve been feeling a little bit of the imposter syndrome. You know, when you start getting closer to the life you always wanted – the doubt still lingers. The questions are echoing in your mind, asking yourself if this is real or..  you just feel like somewhat of a fraud. Blog posts have been so few and far between lately because I think it’s getting harder to reveal my true self and my true voice. I’m putting myself out there much more than ever, but it’s the edited version. And my blog posts have always been real. Or at least I’ve tried to make them so. It’s also been hard with all that’s going on in the real world, to feel like any of what I say is important. But here I am, and I’m just gonna do this.

Out of every five or six new places we try, we mayyybe only are going to return to one. That’s why we’ve found ourselves in an eating out rut especially when it comes to BuHi. Can’t help that we know what we like! But the other night we tried a new (new to us) spot that Ben has had his eyes on ever since we went to Hello Chicken. It’s right next door to Hello Chicken, also serves chicken, and we were willing to take the risk for the possibility of a new treasure. As it turned out, we struck gold. El Autentico Sinaloense Pollos Asados:

Sinaloan grilled chicken, pollos asados. Very similar to the Mexican food we’re all familiar with, but with a focus on the chicken. It ended up being one of the best finds we’ve discovered in quite a long time. It was all the things that we love and cherish about Buford Highway – chock full of flavor, affordable, friendly, and off the beaten path. We didn’t know what to get but they were having a special (as you can see by the sign in the window) – buy a full chicken and get half free. So we did. Perhaps they were trying to offload some chicken? We didn’t care.

When you get the chicken, you also get tortillas, delicious (and very spicy) salsas, hot dog pinto beans, and rice. In addition to the chips and green dip that were dropped on the table when we sat down. I was able to resist the tortillas, but I did have to shovel some rice into my mouth. The chicken was DUH-licious. Slightly on the dry side but I can definitely forgive them for grilling up loads of chicken like this. It was just really tasty, tasted like I was in my family’s backyard grill party. If my family were Sinaloan. Every flavor pronounced and bright.

I will warn you, there was no AC. So we were sweating it out, with spicy salsa and sweat coming down our foreheads for this chicken. The server was really gracious and welcoming. He recommended we try these lamb tacos and goddamn, they were good. Like real good. I’m not even a fan of lamb, but I ate this all up.

SO. This is now officially on our list of BuHi must-try spots. ALL this food cost like $25 and we had enough chicken left over to eat for another meal. It’s not the perfect experience, but for the value it’s insanely good. There was soccer on the TV and Ben got to have his favorite Jarrito soda. What more could we have asked for? It may be too hot to come here too often in the summer, but we’ll definitely be back very soon. I forgive them for no AC, and there are not many restaurants I’d say the same for.

Muchacho

Atlanta is – b l o w i n g – up with new spots and I haven’t even been able to keep up. Time is precious and also I just love supporting the businesses I’ve already fell in love with (i.e. here, here, and here… I can’t believe I’ve been writing blogposts for that long..). Every now and then though I’ll slip in a new spot for a lady date. By the time I got to Muchacho, it had already gotten all over the media so I knew very well that it had social media friendly things like coffee, avocado toast, and tacos. So I knew I had to make it there at some point and experience it for myself.

First impression was that it was wayyy smaller than I thought it was going to be? Even though I knew and had previously been in that building, I just imagined it being… more! There are really not that many seats to sit and enjoy your coffee. I was meeting with my friend Kelly who I knew was going to have a stroller and it was cold outside but I could not find any seating for us inside. Thankfully there were heaters on the patio, but still. Something to know before you try to go in on a weekend. Our visit was on a late Sunday afternoon so I can’t imagine what the morning is like.

The best things about Muchacho were this golden latte (I think it’s like cinnamon honey syrup or something else delicious?) and the friendliness of the staff. However what I did not really love was the food. Which was truthfully pretty disappointing given that instagram food pics more or less drove me here. This is where 8arm excels heads above Muchacho. I first fell in love with 8arm for the relaxed vibe and the warm baristas and then, at the time, Sarah Dodge’s pastries did me in completely.

I very much prefer the toasts at Spiller Park; Spiller Park does toast right. The tacos feel very out of place to me here. Perhaps I need to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe Sunday was an off day. But there’s just no reason to get tacos at Muchacho when it’s more or less billed as a breakfast and coffee shop. The tacos were edible, but I honestly can’t even remember what they tasted like. Back to that golden latte…

Conclusion? You can go for the photo, go for the design, enjoy the atmosphere – the patio area is huge but it was cold on the day I went – and get a latte. I didn’t try any of the grain bowls so maybe you should try one of those. Don’t think I’ll be back though, now that I can say I’ve been there. Atlanta keeps growing so I’ll just keep moving on.