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HARLINGEN — The city streets have entered the dead zone of the hot mid afternoon, and I find refuge in the colorful dining room of Taqueria El Buen Pastor.
There’s a freshness here and a relaxing silence as I choose a table against a wall for a mid-afternoon lunch. The calm and the quiet eases my mind, but of course at the same time I feel the emptiness of it all because the lunch crowd is gone and it’s too early for the dinner rush.
I am alone, and I embrace the quiet but yearn for the conversations of a more active time in the restaurant’s journey through the day.
The menu at this pleasant place at 105 W. Tyler Ave. offers fine choices of chalupas, enchiladas and tacos. There’s a pork chop plate, the grand Tampiquena plate and the familiar burgers and fries. My eyes land on the fajita plate, and the waitress asks if I want chicken or beef. I say “los dos,” and she takes my order back to the kitchen.
As I reflect on this a few days later I realize I’ve fallen into another monotony, this time in the choice of foods at restaurants. I almost always go for the fajitas or the quesadillas. Why these habits of familiarity creep in with all my vigilance against the predictable and the routine I cannot explain. Why didn’t I choose the chalupas or the enchiladas?
I consider for a moment the matter of convention. I took breakfast a few days later and predictably ordered an omelet. Why not huevos rancheros? Why not the migas? I think we all tend to go for the familiar because it’s the easier way and sometimes we just want to do without thinking, But again I’ll look for something beyond the familiar in the future.
But now, back to my first meal of fajitas.
As I wait, an older man has taken his seat on the far side of the restaurant followed a few minutes later by a younger fellow in work clothes who picks up carryout while country music plays and the glittery streamers shift in the slow air.
The waitress quickly brings me a plate of sizzling fajitas with grilled onions and peppers and warm corn tortillas, which I enjoy immensely. I eat quickly, much to my dismay upon that realization, and resolve to take a slower journey through my meal upon my next visit.
The following Friday I come in for breakfast. A high tenor and a thundering bass fill the dining area where customers have filled several tables.
Two older gentlemen talk over coffee and a waitress with a face beaming with the fresh morning sets two plates before them. They talk, sip coffee, dip small portions of food in sauce or refried beans, eat slowly, savor each bite and continue their conversation.
I like the atmosphere of this place; the vibrant yellow and the freshness of the blue so reminiscent of Guanajuato or San Miguel de Allende. A partition runs through the middle of the dining area, and there’s a full lunch buffet which will open at 11 a.m. I like the large agua fresca jugs on the counters, the bouquets of roses and the mariachi hats.
Even in the quiet of the morning there’s a festiveness about the color of things and the arrangement of things, just as there is in the silent early morning streets of Puebla, Morelia and Saltillo.
The waitress quickly brings me a plate of sizzling fajitas with grilled onions and peppers and warm corn tortillas, which I enjoy immensely. I eat quickly, much to my dismay upon that realization, and resolve to take a slower journey through my meal upon my next visit.
The menu offers breakfast tacos: bacon and egg, chorizo and egg, machacado and egg, and egg-a-la-Mexican. All these wonderful egg tacos, of which chorizo is my favorite. But do I get the chorizo? No, I get an omelet. A very good omelet, but still an omelet like I always get instead of chorizo, which I haven’t had in years and which I love very much.
The omelet arrives quickly, and it’s covered with melted cheese with sides of creamy refried beans and potatoes and hot corn tortillas. My dilemma about routine and not eating chorizo evaporates as I anticipate the delicious breakfast before me.
I ponder a moment and then determine that I will eat this meal the way it should be eaten. I follow the example of the two gentlemen at the next table — I sometimes wonder if I even know how to eat slowly — and think about each flavor of each morsel and make sure I absorb more fully every nuance of the taste of something. I reflect now on the grandeur and the simplicity of things. It is as Mother Teresa said: “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
