Taqueria La Pasadita

When I really knew-- when I was sure of it-- was when she asked me if I wanted onions and cilantro. It was the way she asked. She was singing.

Onions and cilantro?

The same way David Spade sang, you want mint for pillow? through the motel room door in Tommy Boy.

This is happening a couple of years ago inside an old Taco Bell. Except It's not a Taco Bell anymore. It's a new mom and pop taqueria inside the old Taco Bell in Overland. Same fake stucco walls. Same cyan, magenta and lavender stripes. Same bolted down prison booths and tables. The bathrooms are still outside and around the back.

The service counter is still there, but the perfectly adorable Mexican grandmother behind it lilts for you to sit anywhere. She brings you a 32 ounce hard plastic soda cup of ice water, the menu, warm chips and smokey red salsa. Then you order and she sings your taco topping options.

Her serenade erases all doubt.  You know for sure, your new favorite restaurant lives inside the shell of your ex-favorite restaurant.

Imagine a perfect world.

There is no war. No one is suffering. And instead of Taco Bell there is Taqueria La Pasadita.

You can pull off the interstate at just about any exit and get the best chorizo taco you've ever had for $1.89. The chorizo is vibrantly red, like the grilled pork at Pho Grand, and slightly crispy, like the edges of a burger at Carl's Drive In.  Squeeze on a lime, and a squirt of bright, green salsa and prepare for lift off. Or, for $5.99 on your meal card, the Taqueria La Pasadita Express in your college lunch room sells an al pastor torta that will force you to rewrite your Favorite Sandwich List. Life is amazing.

We may not live in a perfect world, but at least we live in St. Louis.

The Bike Path Bench

I don't think one can overstate the importance of recognizing a good spot when you see one. When you know the perfect place to do something, you're that much closer to actually doing it.

Imagine someone comes up to you some Saturday morning while you're out garage sailing with John in the big red truck. The guy says, "I sure wish there was some place nearby to ride my new dirt bike. The closest place I know of is in the Ozarks! You fellas wouldn't happen to know anyplace, would ya? We got some beers."

If you are the kind of person that knows more than a few places to ride dirt bikes within 50 minutes of here by highway, then make a few courtesy calls and prepare to get some dirt in your mouth.

It's not just dirt bikes that require a special spot. Any activity is improved by its proper venue. Imagine a solid earthen cup of fragrant steaming tea in the botanical garden's Japanese tea house on a snowy winter morning. Beside the arching bridges of the coy pond. Now, the cup of tea from the vending machine in the basement of the municipal courts building on day 3 of jury duty.

Good spots are crucial. Without knowledge of, and easy access to good spots, doing anything interesting is difficult. St. Louis is resplendent in spots. Good St. Louisans appreciate them.



Imagine your self sitting on this bench. Your eyes are closed. The afternoon sun is warming your left shoulder. A gentle breeze matches the sound of mostly well-maintained traffic. You open your eyes, St. Louis is strolling by.

It's a parade. From minute to minute its hard to tell if the circus has come to town, or if you've stumbled across the jog wear portion of the Ms. STL College Student Pageant. Either way, you're not grabbing for the remote.

Sandwiched between the Bike Path, gravel running path and picturesque Lindell Boulevard, in one of the largest and most beautiful urban parks in the country, this bench has a prime location. It offers many nice views.



And there is a tree that works as a urinal.



And a trash can.



And you can bring a drink, non-alcoholic or otherwise. Have you ever had a King Dewey? Its Budweiser and Mountain Dew mixed together. Like an Arnold Palmer. Probably two thirds Beer, one third Mountain Dew. On ice.

I like to make one at the Mobil on Hampton in a 32oz Styrofoam cup before I go to the bench. Just get a 24oz can of beer and a 32oz fountain Mountain Dew. Pour the beer into the soda and maybe grab a bag of pretzels. Its nice to have a salty snack when you're using other people's work out regiments in the same way you would a moderately entertaining television program.

I'll bet the bench would be a good place to meet babes.

Its definitely a good place to spend a sunny weekday afternoon. You get to hang out in Forrest Park, but with more interesting traffic and fewer people laying on blankets then at the World's Fair Pavilion. You might encounter a Dance Walker, or a Rolls Royce or a three legged dog. If you're there early enough the Compton Drew Investigative Learning Center Middle School Dolphin Bicycle Club might ride by on there matching black red and silver Mountain bikes. I wanna be a kid in that club so bad, I could do something crazy.

Ice in Styrofoam cup.

I'm not gonna make the hard sell on this. I don't know if this is the best bench in St. Louis or not. But it's a good one and we've been coming here for a while. It's on the map. A good meet up spot.

Don't take my word for it.



Roger Brockman knew this was a perfect spot.

Woofie's

We sometimes forget that St. Louis used to be one of the biggest cities in the country. It was San Francisco. The new edge of the country.

Around the turn of the last century, kids sat sulking in their New York City tenements waiting for the day they could afford to leave filthy New York behind and move to the big green end of the world in St. Louis. It's important to remember.

St. Louis is over-filled with history. It's running down the side of your 32oz Styrofoam cup, making your hands sticky.

We hosted a World's Fair for Christ's sake. There is a case to be made that the hot dog was invented here.

What if every time you stopped by the 7-11 on Southwest Ave for a chili dog, Guy, the attendant, handed you a white hot dog eating glove with which you clinched a naked hot dog between your first two fingers and thumb?

Where would you put the chili?

Apparently that's how frankfurters used to be served. Then some upstart business man brought his sausage and his box of white gloves to St. Louis, the big city, in search of fame and fortune. Instead what he found was hungry St. Louisans who wanted nothing to do with his kid gloves. They said things like, "You can keep the glove pal," and "What do I want a glove for? Just give it to me on one of those rolls."

Voila! An icon is born.

I wish I had been there at the moment of conception. The first guy to put a hot dog on a bun and top it with a squirt of yellow mustard. I wasn't.

But I go to Woofie's in Overland. So I'm not sweatin it.


Woofie's

Imagine its 1983. You're 22 years old. Your buddy has a 1960's small body muscle car with shitty brakes, shitty paint, cigarette burned interior and ashtray full of roaches. You are riding shot gun. Tall cans cost a quarter. It's a Saturday night in early September. Alice Cooper is on the radio. You're in the Parking lot at Woofie's. This is the beginning.



Woofie's At Night

Tonight could end anywhere, but it starts with a Coney Dog and a large Coke. A perfect base for a night of swilling cheap beer in tall cans still wet from coolers of ice, each can from a different gas station in a different part of town. The American Dream.

In St. Louis you can still touch it.

Go to 1919 Woodson road in Overland. Ask Paul. He got the place 14 years ago. He loved Woofie's hot dogs so much, he and his buddy mowed lawns for the owner just to be close to the action. Then the owner died. Paul got Woofie's and his buddy got the lawn mowing business. Paul sleeps well at night.

Unless he stays up painting signs or brainstorming new topping combinations. Go to Woofie's. Look at all the hand drawn and painted signs. Paul made every single one. His wife says it's like a grade school art project.


Paul The Owner

Woofie's is the monument to St. Louis' ownership of the hot dog. It's the proof. As far as I know there is no bronze plaque at the fateful spot where wiener first settled into bun one sunny day in the 1880's. But there is Woofie's. You can take a picture of a Chili dog the same way you can take a picture of a monument.


CONEY DOG: A Woofie Dog With Special Chili, Cheese, Chopped Onion & Pickle

In St. Louis a good thing can go on for ever. It just takes passion.


The Best Dumpster Corral In The World
Hand Painted by Paul

My Friend's Cheap Car

I don't know how much my friend, The Driver, paid for the Party Van. No amount would be too much. *


How Much Does Perfect Cost?

I'm starting to think the two most powerful words in the English language are white van.

The Human Crumple Zone is one of the areas inside the Party Van. Take off your hat and come in. It is in front of the rear bench seat, just behind the cockpit, from the sliding door to the wall. If you want, you can use the un-lined Spanish Conquistador's helmet. No one will think less of you. There might be fireworks. There will be shouting.

The Human Crumple Zone is the perfect classroom, laboratory, dance floor, arena and abattoir. Feel free to leave something behind.

Deep In the Crumple Zone

In the party van you can do anything, but it must be done with vitality.

The first step is letting go. The Driver has done this many times before. He does it well. I would say he is in control, but he knows there is no such thing.


The Driver**


What should you know going in?

It's going to be fun.
Relax.
Trust Me.

OK?

"Driver, begin!"

The music is making you punch the ceiling with ecstatic metronomic gusto. The dance floor is moving at 70 miles an hour, maybe sideways. You aren't alone. Gravity is there. And The Driver. And whoever you brought. It's raining. The rain is punching the ceiling from above.

Don't bother inviting the rain to your party. It's already there.

The ceiling is made of metal. But It feels good to punch because of the head liner. Ice in a Styrofoam cup.

This is the beginning. Explore.

GO TO THE SOURCE!!

* This picture, and the detail shot, are not of The Driver's actual Party Van. This is someone else's Party Van that I found. An "older" slightly Hoosier Party Van.

** This is actually the driver.***

*** REALLY.

Porter's Fried Chicken

If you could have any super power what would you choose?

Invisibility is perfect for watching girls get undressed. But when you choose invisibility you've declared yourself a creep. Flying would be amazing. But it draws a lot of attention, and flying in St. Louis in the winter requires so many layers that sometimes it's just simpler to drive. Invincibility is boring. Time travel is an especially wriggly can of worms. It makes never being born dangerously easy.

I've known my ideal super power for a long time. It came to me one day in High School.

My super power: Every meal I ever ate would be the most delicious thing I've ever eaten, just slightly more delicious than the last thing I ate.

Simple and practical. I love to eat.

The fried chicken at Porter's is not the best thing I've ever eaten. It's just the best fried chicken. Infallible. Porter's made me understand why there are places like KFC and Lee's Famous Recipe.*


The Best Fried Chicken

On paper Lee's Famous Recipe should be my favorite restaurant. But in the real world, tip-toeing the Shrewsbury-Maplewood border, there is a fried chicken joint called Porter's. It's in the perfect nobody of a strip mall, right between the laundromat and the pool hall. The name of the strip mall is painted on a rock out front.


Porter's Fried Chicken


Laundromat


Pool Hall

I get the two piece or three piece special depending on hunger. Special means all breasts. Slightly more expensive.

The first time you come in the girl at the counter will explain that all the meals and snacks come with mashed potatoes, slaw and a biscuit. But if you want, for an extra 40 cents, you can get fries. The second time you come she'll ask, "Mash and slaw?" The third time she won't need to ask. The fourth time explain it to someone else.


Catfish Dinner with Tartar Sauce

What makes the perfect chicken place? Porter's does it with a skyline of of white cardboard boxes waiting to be greased-thru by hot salty chicken. And a Lions Club of Webster used eyeglass collection box. And a bowling league trophy. And the occasional fried feather. And greasy floors and Thrifty Nickle classifieds. Phone in orders encouraged.



My buddy John's family has Porter's every time one of his 6 siblings has a birthday. Maybe the parents birthdays too. Fourth of July. Sunday nights. Family reunions.

John was the one that brought me to Porter's. And he was with me the day a representative of the St. Louis Tall Club tried to recruit us. He was also there when three of use fought vicious hangovers to get our Motorcycle Permits at the DMV branch across the street. After a restorative fried chicken lunch, resplendent with perfectly mixed Cherry Pepsi in a 24oz Styrofoam cup, we got our permits. We saw Shady Jack in line at the DMV, he got his motorcycle permit at 15 and a half. I got mine at 28.

Lets get down to brass tacks.

The reason Porter's is so amazing is that it made me realize that I don't need a super power to love fried chicken. I just needed proof of its existence before I could accept that there is such a thing as good fried chicken. Now, I can even kind of enjoy bad fried chicken. It's a powerful feeling.




* As a matter of fact, the next business down Big Bend past Porter's and the pool hall is a KFC. There is only Shrewsbury ave, a creek/drainage ditch and a thin parking lot in between. Mr. and Mrs. Porter are not sweating it.