El Azteca IV - Reducks (and the chicken was good too!!)

Mr. Box and I stopped by yesterday for lunch at this spunky little Mexican
concern on 19th St. between Market and Chestnut, the same place we
reviewed last summer.

As with El Vez, we had another unusual seating experience, but this time it was quite pleasant. As we walked in, a cute Spanish waitress asked if we wanted the table for two near the door, but we declined, citing our freezing hands! So, she took us towards the back of the place, then, as if entering another dimension, we made a left-turn into another room. Turned out to be the dining room of the bar next door called Togo's (we think).

The room was a little Austin Powers-ish, with oversized green olives for seats and curvy colored seat-back cushions against the walls. We were the only ones in there, so we just sat back and enjoyed the atmosphere of solitude and silence, quickly broken by our usual inane chatter about co-workers.

(Oh - someone needs to put signs on the bathroom doors - no less than 10 people came to use them during our meal, and all of them had trouble finding them, they even had to ask the distracted bartender at the empty bar, who - to our amusement - was wholly absorbed in his cigs and reading material, enveloped in a swirling cloud of smoke.)

My chicken quesadilla was really good, nice and cheesy and hot, but the black beans were cold (although tasty). Mr. Box's Burrito Blanco (that's "white burrito" for you gringos out there) was "very good", but
he maintains that the refried beans are "watery," as before. Watch out for the hot plates too, ouch!

Oops - our waitress (the one who seated us) forgot my iced tea, brought me water instead, no biggie, I think I mumbled that part of the order anyway. She was a little pouty too during the meal, but we understood - this place is busy as hell at lunch. Oh - check out the neck tattoo on the Asian-guy waiter's neck, it looks Chinese writing (not that we would know!), very neat.